The following excerpts are from an article Yogananda wrote about his dream of World Brotherhood Colonies. While he modified the practical details later in his life, this article is a good example of the principles on which to found Colonies, and also the strong feelings Yogananda had about starting them.
Ananda’s seven World Brotherhood Colonies were founded on these principles.
How can we by spiritual methods begin a material United States of the World?
…This is how it should be worked out. Groups of twenty-five young married couples and single people should strive hard and concentrate their souls’ force by living economically for five years, until each couple has ten thousand dollars cash. This, multiplied by twenty-five, would make a trust-fund of $250,000.
Some of this should be used to buy and build twenty-five small cottages, by their own labor, on twenty acres of community-owned farm land. All butter and milk should be obtained from home-bred cows, and vegetables should be grown by the members of this spiritual farm on their own land. Lambs should be grown for wool for dresses, socks, and other articles….
Education for the children of the married couples should be given in the community schools by the highly educated parents in a community hall with wooden partitions, or under the trees in summer. Meditation, the scientific art of knowing god, should be the ideal aim of all the children. Parents should be satisfied with one child and exercise moderation and self-control in marital life.
All taxes, the expense of educating the children, and miscellaneous expenses, should be taken from the interest on the $250,000….
Each spiritual colony should take the vow of plain living and high thinking, the brotherhood of man, fellowship of all, joint ownership of land, transportation, education, food, and money, and they should eat and dress in the community way, but spiritually each soul in the community must be unencumbered so that he may develop and advance as deeply as he can.
If people would follow the above rules, then God’s world would be harmonious; climates would be better, and from everywhere pestilence, famine, and disease would flee, for then all the nations would be as one, co-operating in international laws of transportation, food, education, and religion. Forsake luxury, selfishness, and greed for money, and lead lives of security free from worries. This will establish universal peace and harmony.
