A Place Called Ananda

Several souls who live at Ananda Village are collaborating on a new blog called "A Place Called Ananda". Take a look. There is RSS feed

I have set up a tumbleog for quotes by Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda.

Winter 2007 at Ananda doesn't deter the mailing

We awoke this morning to a wonderful quiet blanket of snow covering the landscape. After meditation I went out to clear and area in the back garden so I could feed our wild bird population and heard the distant rumble of Prakash's tractor. “Ah,” I said to myself, “Divine Mother is once again clearing the roads for us.” Despite 7 inches of beautiful snow, we all could get around easily.






The Outreach Ministry had planned a big mailing party today and were not deterred. When I finally arrived after some chores, they were hard at work.

It takes more than a little snow to slow Ananda down!!

Swami Shankarananda visits Ananda Village

Swami Shankarananda Giri, who directs a large Kriya Yoga work in Northern India (Rishikesh and Bubaneshwar ashrams) visited Ananda Village last week. His guru was a disciple of Sri Yukteswar Giri, so you could roughly say he is a spiritual cousin of Swami Kriyananda. In fact he stated, during our community satsang at Hansa Mandir, that he and Swami Kriyananda have spent many lifetimes together in the past.What a joy and blessing it was to be with this Swami. His energy, and light are a great example to all of us of the result of Kriya yoga practice.


Swamiji toured the village, visiting our schools, retreat and Sangha ministry offices, dined with village managers at Crystal Hermitage, had tea at our home) then Satsang in the evening with a packed house.
One note as to why Sraddha and I were involved. Swamiji has been instrumental in assisting us with the statue project inspired by seeing the statues of our line of Master's at his beautiful temple in Rishikesh. With his guidance, we contracted with an artist in Jaipur, India, to carve marble statues of Yogananda, Babaji, Lahiri, and Sri Yukteswar. See the image below of the statues as displayed in his Kriya Yoga Mandir in Rishikesh. More on this in a later post.

Angels come to Ananda Community Christmas Party

Indeed the little Angels of Ananda descended upon our community Christmas party Dec 3 to lead us in several songs.
(apologies for redeye)

All of this occured after our annual World Brotherhood Day celebration held at the Expanding Light retreat
where residents offered the sum of a days wages towards projects around the world.

Pizza Night at Master's Market

Friday Night is Pizza Night at Master's Market in downtown Ananda Village. From 5-7 PM folks come into the market to buy slices of vegetarian pizza, beverages and other assorted market items from the Deli as well as well stocked shelves.

Its growing reputation amongst our neighbors has increased business so much they have added extra help. Many village residents volunteer to spend 3 hours on a friday night helping out the dedicated staff.

Needless to say that I am a regular customer of the best Pizza in Nevada County!!

Ananda Featured in recent News article

Ananda Village was featured in our local newspaper, the Union, with a very nice article.

Seattle with Sraddha's brother and kids

We spent Saturday and Sunday with Sraddha's brother and his 2 children, Ariana and Cyrus. Went for a walk, had hot cocoa, then watched Cyrus play baseball.




He is 7 and had 2 hits including a double which scored 2 runs. His team won so it was really fun. He is a real baseball fan and has good eye/hand coordination.

Edmonds Washington

I am up in Edmonds, Washington visiting my cousins. They are planning a wedding for their duaghter LZ shown below with her fiance, Paul

Ted Grady passed away

Ted Grady passed away over hte weekend. He was 83 and a long time devotee of Yogananda and village resident for past 14 years. I would frequently encounter him at the Expanding Light where he lived and served for many years. We would have lunch and talk.

I didn't get a chance to talk with him recently because I was out of town last week in bay area for training. I had just heard of his terminal illness and vowed to contact him this week. Then, the day after I returned, he passed.

An astral ascension was held last night at Hansa, attended by many community members and family. He was part of our greater spiritual family, and a fellow gurubai. I will miss his smile, sense of humor and grace. He is with the Master now. OM, Peace, Amen

Will it ever stop raining?

Not for nothing, but I spent most of my adult life in Seattle area which has quite a reputation for rain. Actually, our annual rainfall (55) is more than Seattle (33 or so), but it mostly arrives between November and March then dry for 6 months. I just found this cool site, weather underground (www.wunderground.com) which has a weather station near us on the San Juan Ridge. The total rainfall for past 6 months is 41 inches, with March contributing 12 inches.

So far in April we have logged 2.5 inches but it feels more like 4 inches. And it keeps on coming wiht forecast of rain for next 10-14 days. The daffodils are having fun and lasting longer than usual and we have a couple of tulips coming up.

Everyone around here is ready for sunshine again. Some of us are scrounging for firewood because we have run out. We were out last weekend cutting dead madrona trees to bring in more heat into the house. Not too bad.

Spring Cleaning at Ananda

April 2 normally has 65 degree temperatures, however today we will be lucky if it gets above 45. Nevertheless, Swami Kriyananda is coming in 3.5 weeks so we need, as a community, need to get out and clean up our community. Today we are working at the Expanding Light and Crystal Hermitage areas. I awakened this morning to light rain showers, which is much better than the downpour I experienced last night, when I returned from a bay area computer training class. Being "yogis' and living in our spine we tend to great these days with. "Oh Joy!!" Despite the long week in bay area and rather long drive home, I look forward to celebrating our community with this work day. We gather for a morning circle then disburse to our various areas. Time to bundle up now and head out.....

First, (well at least after a cup of coffee for some of us) we have a prayer circle where we chant and meditate.

Gyandevi is dressed for the rain

Some worked in the gardens, others of us took chain saws and went out to clear dead limbs. Yours truly picked up and stacked dead wood so Prakash could come along and pick it up later


Some of us just try to tear the trees down by hand.

After 4 hours of cleaning we stopped to meditate and have lunch. I went home and took some ibuprofen.

Hi Speed Internet

THis morning I found some notes I made back in 2000 after we all survived the Y2K "crisis". I was researching alternatives to our dial up modem access where we were limited mostly to 19.6 modem speed. I was talking with Puru about possibilities of adding various methods to give us faster internet access. Mind you, I am not a formally trained techno-geek here so much of what I was finding was mostly "greek" to me. ISDN and DSL were interesting acronyms which mainly suggested faster connections and a little envy of those who had it.

Being so far removed from the city in a very rural area, we were running our whole Rajarsi park network on a 56k special modem at the time. I was trying to find out about email servers and web servers and satellites...

We experimented with home satellites like Starband and DirecPC (or DirecWay) but the latency periods caused problems and the uploads were very slow.

All this to say that now, in 2006, I marvel at our Village wide DSL system available to anyone who can afford a few dollars a month and has a phone line. I understand that 25 years ago here all that was available was 1 (one) pay phone down by the market.

Our ministry has T1 speed internet access and WiFi. Guests can come to the Expanding Light guest retreat and use the business center and WiFi if they wish. My technical staff can connect in through secure private networks to our business network. Everyone has email if they choose. We show our Sunday services and other program through web videos. Many thousands of souls find this ray of light because of all of this.

It is truly a marvel, when we step back and see how far we have come.

The Morning After Spring Equnox Snow

The next morning we awoke to brilliant sunshine over snow capped hills. Sraddha went out to feed the birds and saw this.

Happy Spring Equinox? It snowed!!

After 3 days of sunny "warmer" weather where we went hiking to see the upcoming wildflowers, we greeted the spring equinox with more winter!! This photo is from outside my west corner window looking up at the OM building where the Sangha Ministry and Crystal Clarity Publications resides. Most folks went home a little early. As of 7 PM we have about 3 inches total here.

Market Rennovations

Tom is rennovating the inside of Master's Market.












We will have a new counter looking out onto the village green where customers can sit and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee.

The floor is being prepared for new tiles. Many villagers are donating the tiles and get to sign them.

Winter Walk to Crystal Hermitage

We got out in the snow and walked over to the Crystal Hermitage this morning.. As we started up the hill, we saw Prakash coming back down the hill with his snow clearing tractor and brush. It was only 32 degrees.

Over the hill and down past Ayodya Cluster to
the Crystal Hermitage parking lot. Sraddha turned to pose.

We walked on past the parking lot down to the hermitage in 6 inches
of snow. We arrived at the front gate and were greated with this.

The Chapel was covered with beatiful white blanket.



Our return trip saw us helping Seva avoid the ditch while driving in her car. We brought her to our house for coffee and then I drove her over to the Expanding Light for her work session.

Day 5 of Snow at Ananda Village

This is Tuesday March 14 and we have snow...for the 5th day in a row. While not very cold this many days in a row is almost unheard of here in the foothills for many years. Since it all melted yesterday travel has not been a problem. Prakash has been out clearing the main roads every morning and it sure is beautiful. I stepped outside our front door this morning and snapped this picture.

Sraddha is out feeding her birds. And brushing snow off Hummingbird feeders. We have a couple steady customers all winter and they warm us in the late spring.

She snapped this photo looking down to St. Francis Pond. On the right is our guest cabin.

Hansa Temple in Winter

Last Year it was temperatures in the 70's and now we have snow with more coming.

I took this photo this morning after about 5 inches snow overnight. More expected tonight. A winter wonderland and really quite beautiful.

Winter Comes to Ananda Village

March is so variable in weather. 2 years ago in 2004, we were planting tomatoes which were ready by June. Last year, 2005, it rained until June and we didn't plant until June. This year we had 70 degree weather in February and now have had 4 snow days in March so far. This Sunday Morning I awoke to 2 inches of powder snow.




Sraddha went out and cleared a little area on the deck for feeding her wild birds. And are they happy campers or what?


We then went for a walk up to the top of Brindaban hill. First folks out in the powder. 29 degrees. Well, off to Hansa to video tape the Sunday Service today. You can find our Sunday service talks in Real Player format, MP3 and/or podcasts at http://www.ananda.org/inspiration/streaming/sunday.html

All for now.--Kent

Testing this Blog

To find out more about Ananda and Ananda Village go to http://www.ananda.org