Nag Champa is the best selling incense on earth and since 1963 has been helping to fund the Chinmaya Mission Youth Empowerment Program.
I love this brand and only burn this incense, always travel with a full large box and small boxes to leave as gifts. Most of my life I’ve been aware of Sai Baba and his teachings, from yoga school in Deerfield Beach to another ashram in Brazil where they burn the same sticks. From Amsterdam to New York, Miami and LA and every place I’ve travelled, there’s always a head-shop somewhere, selling Nag Champa.
When you light a stick of Nag Champa, you’re performing an ancient ritual, also the flame is good for clearing negative thoughts, just look close at the flame, concentrate and watch it turn into something nice, that lasts long, leaves a good first impression on your guests, and associates your consciousness to helping students in India.
Nag Champa and the Chinmaya Mission is a very important business model to learn, to mimic and to emulate.
Nag Champa is a fragrance of Indian origin, based on a combination of magnolia (champaca or champak) and sandalwood, or frangipani (plumeria) and sandalwood – though when frangipani is used, the name is usually just “Champa”, without the “Nag”. It is used in incense, soap, perfume oil, essential oils, candles, and personal toiletries. It is a popular and recognizable incense fragrance throughout the world.
The motto of Chinmaya Mission is “to give maximum happiness to maximum people for maximum time.”
Composition
A number of flower species in India are known as champa or champak:
- Magnolia champaca, formerly classified as Michelia champaca (swarna champa or yellow champa)
- Plumeria rubra and Plumeria acutifolia (frangipani)
- Mesua ferrea (nagkeshar or nagchampa)
Of these—Magnolia champaca, is mostly used to prepare the Nag Champa scent, while Plumeria, or Mesua ferrea—may be used for scents termed Champa and sometimes Nag Champa.
Nag Champa perfume ingredients vary with the manufacturer, though generally they include sandalwood and magnolia, which, as the plant is related to star anise, gives the scent a little spice. Other ingredients will depend on the finished product. Perfume-dipped incenses and soaps would use essential oils or scents, while masala incenses would use finely ground fragrant ingredients as well as essential oils.
Chinmaya Mission is a Hindu religious and spiritual organization engaged in the dissemination of Vedanta, the science of the self as expounded in the Vedas, particularly the Upanishads, and other important Hindu scriptures including the Bhagavad Gita. The Chinmaya Mission was established in India in 1953 by devotees of the renowned Vedanta teacher Swami Chinmayananda Saraswati.
Administered by the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust in Mumbai, India, the mission was later headed by Swami Tejomayananda and is now headed by Swami Swaroopananda. There are over 313 mission centres all over India and abroad. North America had more than 30 centres.
Chinmaya Photo credit: SPakhrin on VisualHunt.com / CC BY
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