Arsha Seva Kendram is proud to recognize (See link below) A K Aruna aka Alan Kellogg for his decades of Sadhana in major works of Advaita Vedanta and Sanskrit and making them available in upasanayoga.org. In recognition of his work, he was bestowed the first ever Arṣa Seva Cudamani (Jewel of Arsha Seva) award.
Aruna, born Alan Kellogg, has dedicated more than 23 years of his life in gathering existing Sanskrit Vedanta texts online and converting them to interlinked web pages in his website upasanayoga.org. His work includes many great spiritual texts like the Bhagavad Gita, major Upanishads, and Advaita Vedanta. The main focus of A.K. Aruna’s work is Advaita Vedanta where all the texts are in Sanskrit. This site allows students to both read and understand Sanskrit texts with the English translations, grammar and dictionary aids. The site’s main objective is to significantly speed up one’s in-depth study of Vedanta, and in the course of learning Vedanta the student will also be able to learn and improve their Sanskrit fluency.
A.K. Aruna’s interest in spiritual learning was triggered as early as the 1970s when he attended a lecture by Swami Chinmayananda in Seattle. Intrigued by what he learnt, he moved to India without any particular career goals other than to learn. This started his journey into the world of Advaita Vedanta and Sanskrit that has been continuing on for a half a century. A.K. Aruna’s initial struggles to learn Sanskrit and the different approaches he took in mastering the language like using flash cards, and grammar books have now evolved into his inter-linked websites to help future students.
Pujya Sri Swami Dayanananda, under the direction of Swami Chinmayananda, gave the name Aruna to Alan, which means the dawn of light, at the Sandipani Ashram outside Mumbai. Even today A.K. Aruna fondly remembers Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s unparalleled ability to take one Sanskrit word and expand the whole class to talk about that. A.K. Aruna had the distinction of being a student in the first batch of Chinmaya School’s three and half year Vedanta program that was started in 1976. Even though he went back to Seattle to pursue his vocation of computer programming, his inspiration from the learnings from great teachers brought him back to India in 2000 after his retirement to pursue his passion.
A.K. Aruna’s website upasanayoga.org is an ocean of information allowing today’s students of Vedanta and Sanskrit to very easily get all the information they need in one single place. Arsha Seva Kendram felt it was apt to recognize the yeoman efforts of A.K. Aruna at the annual graduation ceremony of the 2022-23 Sanskrit course program to start a tradition of recognizing individuals/ organisation contribution to Indian Culture and Knowledge.