A Letter from the CMSJ Board to the members of the Chinmaya Mission Community

Donate Online to the CMSJ New Building Fund

New Building Project – Details & Current Status

The Need for a Facility

Chinmaya Vision – A Commitment to Excellence

As Bala Vihar enrollment and attendance at events grows, the Chinmaya vision - “to provide maximum happiness, to the maximum (number of) people, for the maximum time” - continues to inspire the entire Chinmaya Mission San Jose community. In the midst of increasing challenges, our commitment to excellence remains strong as ever. It is quite evident that the present Sandeepany San jose Facility is not adequate to support needs of our activities: Balavihar, Yagnas, Pujas & Festivals. Our need for a new facility emerges from this situation.

We started the New Building project on Maha Shivarathri in 2006 and acquired the property - an old church - on 10160 Clayton Road in San Jose,  in January 2008 (2 buildings, ~11,000 sq ft total, 1.7 acres) at a cost of $2.6M and are in the process of building a new ashram from the ground up on the property. Architectural plans for the new ashram have been approved by the City of San Jose and we have been granted a Planned Development permit. 

Status As of March 30th, 2013

Hari Om and Salutations to the Chinmaya Family!

This is an update on the progress of construction through the month of March of our Ashram on Clayton road in San Jose.

It has been an exciting month with construction proceeding in full swing as you will notice in the pictures (link below). The month began with the construction team continuing to lay steel girders and cement piers in the ground as part of the overall foundation work - this activity culminated with most of the pits filled with concrete, girders above the ground and a small compound wall showing up! We are now getting ready for above-the-ground construction phase which is a huge step forward!

You can view the March construction activities here - the most recent picture in this album shows a fantastic aerial view of the facility as it currently stands!

Older pictures are available here

Lord's Grace and Pujya Gurudev and Guruji's blessings continue to shower on all of us as the construction phase of our project is progressing as per plan. That said, we all recognize that none of this would have been possible without the wholehearted ongoing support from the entire Chinmaya Mission family. We look forward to your continued support to help us continue to fulfill our financial obligations with the bank.
If you would like to make a pledge, please contact Meena Kapadia (meenakapad@yahoo.com) or Sanjay Rao (raosanjay@yahoo.com).
Alternatively, you can donate online by doing the following:
1. Visit our home page at www.chinmaya-sanjose.org
2. Click on New Building Project->Donate->Online
3. Fill out the form and click "Submit"

In His Service.

Status As of March 10th, 2013

Hari Om and Salutations to Chinmaya Family,

This is an update on the new building progress over the past few months.

With the old church building demolished, the debris cleared out and weather improving, the construction of our new Ashram is now proceeding in full swing. Below are few of the key achievements to-date:
Completed initial grading operations for the first set of retaining walls along the north face and upper slope.

Remediated contaminated soil from the site - this was a significant step forward because we did not encounter any other major soil contamination issues!
As part of building the foundation, work on laying cement piers is progressing smoothly till now - when this is done, we would have achieved another significant milestone where majority of the underground work would be complete.
Finally, a month ago on Feb 8th we had a wonderful "Ishti (bricks, precious gems, mantra japas) Sthapana" puja led by Pt. Ravichandran. On a clear, sunny morning after a small drizzle, bricks previously consecrated by Pujya Guruji Swami Tejomayananda along with other consecrated items were placed in the ground under the proposed location of the new shrine.

The latest pictures including those from the puja are uploaded for your viewing pleasure to New Building Pictures  

In summary, with Lord's Grace and Pujya Gurudev and Guruji's blessings, the construction phase of our project is progressing as per plan. None of this would have been possible without the tremendous ongoing support from entire Chinmaya Mission family - we look forward to your continued support to fulfill financial obligations with the bank. 

Please contact Meena Kapadia (meenakapad@yahoo.com) or Sanjay Rao (raosanjay@yahoo.com) if you would like to make a pledge or you can donate online by going to Donate Online 

Current Status as of Nov 06, 2012
Hari Om and Salutations to Chinmaya Family !! 

We are very pleased to inform every one that with God's Grace, Pujya Gurudev's blessings, and continuous support of everyone in the Chinmaya Mission community the construction phase of new building project is now very much underway! Thank you for your patience and understanding over the past many months during which we were deeply engaged with the city of San Jose to procure the construction permit - all that is now behind us and with the bank loan secured, the construction has begun in full swing!

Details are below. 

1. We are now in the process of demolishing the existing structure - asbestos abatement as per city regulations and guidelines was just completed

2. The heavy equipment demolition of the entire facility will be next - it began during the week of 11/5 and will continue for about 3 weeks 

Going forward, we will continue to keep you up-to-date on the progress with a report every month. 

Getting to this point in the new building project would not have been possible without generous and continuous financial support by many in the community. Now, as 2012 draws to a close, we sincerely urge all those who are yet to fulfill their pledge of donation made earlier in the year to do so as soon as possible - you can either:

1. Write a check made to "CMSJ" and send it to 1050 Park Ave, San Jose, CA95126 

2. OR Donate online, click here.
 

No amount is small and every little bit will go a long way in minimizing the bank loan we have to take.

The following links provide a glimpse of the work in progress at the Clayton Road facility.
Image 1   Image 2  Image 3

Floor Plan Lower | Floor Plan Upper | Site Plan Lower | Site Plan Upper

New Building Views