Through the decades since Ananda’s founding, the vision for a temple as the heart of Ananda Village and the worldwide movement has always been there. Dusting off the original site plan for the Expanding Light Retreat, submitted to Nevada County officials by Jaya Helin and Hunter Black back in 1989, one can see the outline for a temple at nearly the exact location where it will finally be built. The journey to this moment has been a long and winding one, so I decided to get a taste of the story from our own Vidura Smallen, who has shepherded the temple project for at least a few decades.
“We always needed a temple, but didn’t have the ability to do it,” Vidura recounted as our conversation began. Swami Kriyananda, Ananda’s founder and direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, or just “Swami,” as many Ananda friends affectionately call him, tended to offer an idea and see if we would get the message. He planted the seed for a temple at Ananda Village many times over the years, but when he met with resistance or competing priorities, he didn’t press.
Nayaswami Jyotish tells the story of the three original temples of Ananda, when all that existed of the Ananda worldwide movement was a bit of sagebrush up at the Meditation Retreat. It was there that Swami showed us the importance of building the temple first. After three difficult attempts at a geodesic dome temple, the original Ananda campus finally secured itself a temple from which the entire movement could grow. When it came to Ananda Village, however, the second campus of Ananda’s original community, Swami’s life work and energy were already more directed toward fulfilling the mandate from his guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, to write, edit, and lecture.
“The temple can represent that energy that Swami represented,” said Vidura. He elaborated that Swami long had wanted to see a Temple of Light at Ananda Village, fashioned after the original in Assisi and its sister in Seattle. Swami found the design to be a beautiful expression of Ananda’s ideals through architecture, as Paramhansa Yogananda urged us to create, and a way to connect the work worldwide. Swami created Crystal Hermitage, his home, as a gathering place for Ananda Village. He foresaw that it would become a pilgrimage site in the years to come, but it was never intended to become the community temple. In fact, neither the current Expanding Light temple nor Hansa temple at Ananda Village was built with that intention, and neither is large enough to hold Ananda’s ever-expanding spiritual family. “We are trying to create a power center for Master. The Temple will change everything,” Vidura said.
Inspired by the potential and the importance of centering Ananda’s worldwide work around a temple, Vidura picked up where others had left off in the early 2000s and tried to restart the project. Months went into siting options, which landed finally on a breathtaking location at “The Ridge.” The Ridge is a sacred site at Ananda Village where residents and thousands of visitors come often to drink in the beauty of the Sierra Nevada foothills and feel the peace that Ananda has to offer.
A blessing of the site by Swami Kriyananda was sought and given, with all the ceremony and joy befitting such a momentous occasion. But after more months of planning, it became clear that that sloped site would pose too many challenges—in construction cost and in destruction of land for parking—to pursue further. Upon reconsideration, the very site was chosen that had been submitted to the County back in 1989. Swamiji bestowed his blessing now once again, some twenty years after he’d first done so.
Work on the project had halted by 2013, and soon afterward Swami Kriyananda passed from this earthly plane. Between 2013 and 2014, Ananda worldwide shifted focus to building the Moksha Mandir, a small meditation temple and resting place to honor our founder, friend, and guide. With the completion of that jewel, it was clear to all that the time to finally complete the vision for Ananda and for world brotherhood communities is now. Together we will build this Temple of Light at Ananda Village to be a beacon of blessings for all the world.
