Final Score: Love All- Teachings By Swami Chinmayananda

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Whenever we take up a project and it reaches the point of its successful completion, it gives us the immense joy of fulfillment that same joy I am feeling while writing this foreword for the twelfth and final issue of the Chinmaya Birth Centenary Celebration Series of the Mananam Series publications. The book is rightly titled, Final Score: Love All.

We all know how fond Püjya Gurudev was of tennis. He loved to play and watch others playing. In this present issue, Anjali Singh, in her inimitable style, has presented the teaching of Pūjya Gurudev through the analogy of tennis. In tennis, the game begins with 'Love All' and, interestingly, the game of Pujya Gurudev begins and concludes with 'Love All.' All those who came in contact with him experienced his unconditional love.

Anjali deserves all compliments for this beautifully brought out final issue. I take this opportunity to record my deep appreciation to the Mananam team - Margaret and David Dukes, Rudite Emir, Neena Dev, Rashmi and Arun Mehrotra, Padmashree Rao, Aarthi Ramalingam for their exemplary commitment to editing all issues of this very special series. My heartfelt thanks to them all!

This entire series of twelve books is our offering of love and reverence to Pujya Gurudev. May he be pleased with our seva and bless us all with the fulfillment of life.

The aim of this culminating book in the Chinmaya Birth Centenary Celebration Series is to bring out the core teachings of Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda unique way in which he delivered his teachings. When we started planning the book, my daughter Nanki and I considered many options. But none of them really clicked with us. One evening, Cauvery Bhalla happened to call me from Sidhbari, where she had gone on behalf of CCMT Archives to scan all the books, diaries, and papers in Gurudev's rooms in the aśrama. I requested her to pray to Gurudev on my behalf at the Samadhi Mandir for help with this book.

The very next morning, an amazing thing happened! Cauvery called me excitedly to say that she had found a page among Gurudev's papers which had fifty-two topics written in his own handwriting! She read out the topics, suggesting that they seemed the perfect guideline for the book. No one had come across this small document in the last twenty-two years, lying there in Gurudev's cottage (see inside front and back covers). We could not have been given a better concept! My request for help had been answered within fourteen hours!

Meanwhile, I happened to have written an article on the uniqueness of Gurudev's teaching methods by recalling how he taught meditation through his remarks on tennis matches he used to watch on TV. Thus, on Cauvery's prompting, we developed a final format for this book. Gurudev watching tennis on TV in Sidhbari is the backdrop, and his core teachings are captured under the fifty-two headings that he himself had listed. And in keeping with his instruction in that small document to 'develop,' we have added several additional topics as well.