I spent my first winter at Ananda Village serving in the Yogoata dairy with a great devotee named Virani. She is responsible for supplying many of the village residents with nutritious and delicious goat milk products. I would say she has the strength of several grown men. After being with her for about a month,…

I arrived at Ananda Village on January 3rd, 2009. I was looking for my spiritual home on earth and had not found it in any of the ashrams that I’d attempted to live in before this. Within 2 weeks I was certain that this was what I was looking for. I spent the rest of…

When I awoke one morning and realized that I had dreamt I was skipping through a bed of thick, green kale leaves, I knew that the farm life was for me. At that point I was already aware that my time on this Earth was meant to be spent digging in the ground, getting dirt…

Maintenance at the Expanding Light Guest Retreat, here at Ananda Village, is a study in contrasts.  The job can at times feel like smooth sailing, but barely a week later resembles treading water to stay afloat.  Many repairs are straight forward, such as fixing toilets or sinks, but others are larger projects requiring more expertise…

Since the first supermarkets in the 1930’s,  a general disregard for nature has been increasing. The need for growing one’s own food has become an inconvenience our “modern age” has conquered. With the rise of factory farms and greenhouses the size of small cities, the need to follow the “whims” of Mother Nature is behind…

Working on an organic farm can be a very interesting and entertaining endeavor, especially when you have little or no experience in farming! There are all those preconceived thoughts that come to one’s mind with what goes on, on a farm: waking up early, lots of manual labor, remembering when and how much to water…

Q: What inspired you to come live here? A: I’d never seen anywhere else a large amount of people dedicating their lives to God. I saw the results happening here that I had longed for in my own life. I could see the joy in their eyes and in their lifestyles and attitudes. For the first time…

Question: How did you become interested in following the spiritual path? Answer: I was interested in consciousness, and wanted to know how to use more of my brain and unlock the potentials of body and mind. I got into the Indian philosophy when I read Autobiography of a Yogi. I wanted to do a meditation retreat, so I…

If you’ve ever been to Ananda Village, you’ve witnessed the abundance of deer that we have here. They are a mixed blessing for many of us, for although serene and peaceful, they do eat up a good deal of our flora (ah, the duality of life!). They must know that they are safe here, and…

Ananda Portland recently purchased a former Seventh-Day Adventist Academy. The academy buildings sit on 55 acres of rolling hills 30 minutes west of the city of Portland. The setting is rural, but not isolated – the school once housed, fed and educated hundreds of students and was the heart of life in the valley. A…

I just finished leading an Education for Life Music Workshop in which I worked with four music teachers from the Living Wisdom Schools in Portland, Seattle, and Palo Alto. For two and a half days we immersed ourselves in the vibration of music and children: a very powerful and uplifting mix! Working with groups of…

A few years ago I read a book entitled, The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. Jyotish Novak, spiritual director of Ananda Worldwide, recommended it and I found it very enlightening and applicable to my own life. Josh Waitzkin is probably most popularly known from the book and movie, Searching for Bobby Fisher. Searching for…

Living in a spiritual community isn’t all it’s cracked out to be. It’s much, much more. Besides the fountainhead of bliss gushing forth amidst daily spiritual practice, service and fellowship, there come truly beautiful, blessed and rewarding opportunities. Such was our recent two-day trip, as myself, along with my six fellow 20-something-year-old gurubhais (fellow disciples)…

My husband and I returned to live at Ananda Village in March of 2009 after living at Ananda Sacramento, California for the last 23 years. There we served as the Colony Leaders and Spiritual Directors. Ananda Farms today… We are now working with the young adults at Ananda Village and working with some of them…

My inspiration in writing this was Swami Kriyananda’s new book on renunciation, A Renunciate Order for the New Age. Also my own desire to be a monk… but also to be married. The old cloistered form of monasticism says you need to renounce and “get away from the world” to find God. One might say…

It has been a blessed month indeed! Here are a few excerpts worth a listen: First, from our Living Wisdom High School Concert on Friday, Dec 11th, a piece by John Rutter titled Mary’s Lullaby.marys-lullaby.mp3 On Saturday, Dec 12th, I led an astounding performance of Swami Kriyananda’s Oratorio, Christ Lives! at Mills College in Oakland,…

I decided during Spiritual Renewal Week in August to join Ananda’s monastery for one year at the Ananda Meditation Retreat. In celebration of Swami Kriyananda’s discipleship anniversary, the vows of monasticism were taken last Sunday. The idea of monasticism had often inspired me, but in the past I had never quite felt like I would…

What do you think makes for success? Is it an end result? Or is it the way we do something?

This blog post is simple: it’s the story of a photo shoot done by a group of young adults living at Ananda Village. There’s a burgeoning youth movement within Ananda now…

Recently, Ananda Sangha in Pune held the first Youth Campout and Retreat on the land where the future Ananda Community will be, an hour outside the city.

We defined “youth” as being “anyone willing to sleep in a tent.” Indeed, the participants ranged in age from pre-school to a youthful gentleman in his seventies.

On August 31st I was honored to be a part of something wonderful and new at Ananda: the start of a dynamic youth movement. Over 20 young people from Ananda centers around the world hosted a lunch-and-concert fundraiser at Ananda’s Institute of Alternative Living and Meditation Retreat. It marked the first time that a large…