216 19th Avenue South East St. Petersburg, Fl 33705

Swami Chandrashekharananda

​​​​Future Special Guests

Swami Chandrashekharananda is the Minister and Head of the Vedanta Society of Portland, Oregon since December 2015.  He came in contact with some highly venerated monks of the Ramakrishna Order early in his life.  He joined the monastic order of Ramakrishna Mission in 1977 at its Lucknow branch of North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where he served for 24 years sans a 2 year period of monastic training at the Belur Math. He had the opportunity to study scriptures under late Swami Shantaswarupananda, ex-President of Berkeley Vedanta Society, Swami Sridharananda of Sydney Vedanta Society and Pundit Ananda Jha, a renowned Pundit of last century India.

Swami Chandrashekharananda received initiation from Swami Vireswarananda Maharaj, the 10th President of Ramakrishna Mission. He received the final monastic vows in 1988 from Swami Gambhirananda Maharaj, the 11th President.

Apart from serving his joining center the Swami has had the privilege of also serving the Order at the Ramakrishna Mission Seva Pratishthan, and at the Swami Vivekananda Ancestral Home, both at Calcutta, briefly.  He was posted at the Vedanta Society Sydney, Australia where he worked for 10 years before being sent to Portland, Oregon in 2015 after the passing away of its then Minister-in-Charge Swami Shantarupananda.

Swami Chandrashekharananda Maharaj is well conversant in the skills of formal worship, singing and chanting of Sanskrit hymns. He is loved by all those who came in contact with him for his simple and affectionate demeanor.    

Swami will be visiting the Vedanta Center of St. Petersburg the weekend of August 28-30, 2017. A reception to welcome the Swami will be held on Saturday, October 28th at 6:00 PM in the Panton House. Swami will give a lecture Sunday morning in the chapel at 11:00 AM. The title of the lecture is “The Divine Mother is Our Only Refuge”.