The Spiritual Lineage: Yogananda, Babaji, and the Christ Consciousness
To understand Ananda Village and its communities, one must first appreciate the profound spiritual lineage from which they emerged. Paramahansa Yogananda, the Indian master who brought Kriya Yoga to the West, taught that his mission was guided by an ancient lineage of enlightened masters, most notably the mysterious and immortal Mahavatar Babaji. According to Yogananda’s autobiography, Babaji is an ageless master who has lived in the Himalayas for centuries, rarely revealing himself except to select disciples. Babaji is said to have revived the ancient science of Kriya Yoga and selected specific disciples to disseminate this teaching to the world during the modern era.
The lineage flows from Babaji to Lahiri Mahasaya, a householder saint who lived in Benares in the nineteenth century. Lahiri Mahasaya received Kriya Yoga initiation directly from Babaji and was instructed to teach this technique to sincere seekers, demonstrating that one need not renounce the world to achieve spiritual realization. From Lahiri Mahasaya, the teachings passed to Sri Yukteswar Giri, Yogananda’s own guru, a man of profound wisdom and scientific temperament who prepared Yogananda for his mission to the West.
What makes Yogananda’s teachings particularly distinctive is his emphasis on the underlying unity of all religions, especially the essential harmony between the yogic teachings of India and the Christian message. Yogananda taught that Christ consciousness and Krishna consciousness are one and the same—the universal divine awareness that every soul can achieve. He explained that Jesus Christ attained this supreme state of oneness with God and demonstrated it during his life on Earth. According to Yogananda, Babaji himself instructed him to emphasize this unity, revealing that the same great masters who guide the spiritual evolution of India also guided Jesus and continue to work for the upliftment of humanity across all cultures and traditions.
Yogananda spent years writing extensive commentaries on the Christian Gospels, particularly the teachings of Jesus as found in the New Testament, as well as detailed interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita. He saw both texts as expressing the same fundamental truths through different cultural lenses. In his view, Kriya Yoga is not merely an Indian practice but a universal science of God-realization that was known to early Christians and mystics of all traditions. This vision of unity—that the great avatars and masters of East and West work in harmony to guide humanity toward divine consciousness—became central to his mission and remains fundamental to Ananda’s spiritual philosophy.
Yogananda’s Vision and Swami Kriyananda’s Mission
When Paramahansa Yogananda came to America in 1920, he brought not only the techniques of Kriya Yoga meditation but also a revolutionary vision for how spiritually minded people might live together. Throughout his thirty-two years of teaching in the West, Yogananda spoke frequently of establishing “world brotherhood colonies”—intentional communities where seekers could live simply, support themselves through cooperative work, raise their children in a spiritual environment, and devote themselves to meditation and inner development. These communities would demonstrate practical spirituality in action, showing that material simplicity combined with spiritual richness could create a fulfilling and joyful way of life. Yogananda envisioned places where people of all backgrounds could come together in spiritual friendship, supporting one another on the path to God-realization while contributing their unique talents to the collective good.
Though Yogananda founded Self-Realization Fellowship to preserve and disseminate his teachings, he did not live to see his vision of spiritual communities materialize during his lifetime. He passed away in 1952, leaving behind thousands of devoted students and a wealth of spiritual teachings, but the world brotherhood colonies remained an unrealized dream. Among those students was a young American named J. Donald Walters, who had joined Yogananda’s ashram in 1948 at the age of twenty-two. Walters, who would later receive the monastic name Swami Kriyananda, spent the final four years of Yogananda’s life in close contact with his guru, absorbing not only the meditation techniques but also the broader vision of how spirituality could transform society.
In the years following Yogananda’s passing, Kriyananda served Self-Realization Fellowship in various capacities, but he increasingly felt called to manifest his guru’s vision of spiritual communities. By the late 1960s, after much soul-searching and meditation, Kriyananda made the momentous decision to leave Self-Realization Fellowship and dedicate himself to creating the world brotherhood colonies that Yogananda had described. In 1968, with limited funds but unlimited faith and determination, Kriyananda purchased sixty-seven acres of forested land in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Nevada City, California. This remote, beautiful location would become the birthplace of Ananda Village, the first of what would eventually become a worldwide network of spiritual communities.
The Early Years: Building from Nothing
The founding of Ananda Village was an act of extraordinary faith and perseverance. When Kriyananda and the first handful of pioneers arrived at the land in 1968, they found themselves in a pristine but undeveloped wilderness. There were no buildings, no roads suitable for vehicles, no electricity, and no running water. The early members lived in tents and makeshift shelters, enduring harsh mountain winters while working to clear land, build basic infrastructure, and establish the foundations of a functioning community. They hauled water from distant sources, worked by lantern light, and relied entirely on their own physical labor and collective determination.
Despite these hardships, the community was animated by a powerful spiritual purpose. Daily meditation was central to life at Ananda from the very beginning, with members gathering morning and evening to practice the techniques taught by Yogananda. The emphasis was always on individual spiritual practice supported by communal living, rather than the community itself being the goal. Kriyananda taught that the purpose of living together was to accelerate each person’s spiritual growth through mutual support, selfless service, and the inspiration of being surrounded by others who shared the same aspirations.
In those formative years, the community attracted idealistic young seekers, many of them part of the counterculture movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but with a distinctly spiritual rather than merely rebellious orientation. They came seeking an alternative to mainstream materialism, drawn by the possibility of living a life centered on higher consciousness rather than material accumulation. The community grew organically, with new members bringing their skills and enthusiasm. Carpenters built simple homes, gardeners established vegetable plots, teachers began educating the children, and gradually the infrastructure of a functioning village emerged from the raw land.
The early community faced numerous challenges beyond the physical hardships. There were questions about governance, economics, interpersonal relationships, and how to balance individual autonomy with collective needs. Kriyananda emphasized that Ananda was not a commune in the traditional sense, where all property was collectively owned and individual identity subsumed into the group. Instead, he developed a model of cooperative individualism, where members owned their own homes and supported themselves financially while sharing in common facilities, spiritual practices, and community responsibilities. This approach proved more sustainable than many communes of that era, respecting individual sovereignty while maintaining strong communal bonds.
Expansion and Global Growth
As Ananda Village stabilized and grew through the 1970s and 1980s, its success inspired the creation of additional communities and teaching centers. By the early 1980s, Ananda had expanded to include branch communities in other parts of California and had begun reaching out internationally. In 1983, an Ananda community was established near Assisi, Italy, in the heart of the Umbrian countryside. This choice of location was deeply symbolic, as Assisi is the birthplace of Saint Francis, whose life of simplicity, joy, and devotion to God resonated powerfully with Ananda’s spiritual values. The Italian community attracted European seekers and demonstrated that Yogananda’s teachings and the community lifestyle could thrive across cultural boundaries.
Through the following decades, Ananda’s reach continued to expand globally. Communities and centers were established in India, reflecting a beautiful circular journey as the teachings that Yogananda brought from India to the West returned to his homeland in this new form. Ananda communities in India have flourished, offering Indians themselves an alternative model of spiritual living that draws from their own ancient traditions while incorporating the organizational innovations developed in the Western communities. Additional communities and teaching centers emerged across the United States, in Europe, and in other parts of the world, creating a genuine international spiritual movement.
The original Ananda Village in California grew from its initial sixty-seven acres to encompass over one thousand acres of forests, meadows, and developed areas. The population expanded to include hundreds of residents, with additional thousands participating through affiliated centers and online communities. The village evolved into a sophisticated spiritual ecosystem, complete with residential neighborhoods where members live in privately owned homes, organic farms and gardens that provide food, schools that educate children from preschool through high school, meditation temples and retreat facilities, and numerous businesses that provide employment and serve both the community and the wider public.
Ananda developed The Expanding Light, a retreat and seminar center that welcomes thousands of visitors annually. Here, people from all walks of life can experience Ananda’s way of life, learn meditation, study Yogananda’s teachings, and recharge spiritually without making any commitment to join the community permanently. This outreach dimension has been crucial to Ananda’s mission, allowing the teachings to reach far beyond the residential community members themselves. The retreat center offers programs ranging from weekend workshops to month-long teacher training intensives, all grounded in Yogananda’s teachings but adapted to be accessible to modern seekers.
The Spiritual Practice and Daily Life
At the heart of Ananda’s way of life is the practice of Kriya Yoga meditation as taught by Yogananda. Kriya Yoga is an ancient technique that works directly with the energy and consciousness in the spine and brain, accelerating spiritual evolution through specific practices involving breath, concentration, and awareness. Yogananda described Kriya Yoga as a scientific technique that produces definite results for anyone who practices it sincerely, regardless of their religious background or beliefs. Members of Ananda typically practice meditation for one to three hours daily, often dividing this time between morning and evening sessions.
Beyond formal meditation, Ananda emphasizes the importance of what Kriyananda called “spiritual friendship”—the recognition that we support each other’s growth not merely through formal interactions but through the quality of consciousness we hold in one another’s presence. Community members strive to see the divine potential in each person and to support each other’s highest aspirations. This creates an atmosphere quite different from ordinary social environments, where spiritual values and the quest for higher consciousness are openly shared and celebrated rather than being private matters rarely discussed.
Daily life at Ananda Village involves a balance of spiritual practice, work, and community participation. Most members support themselves through employment either within community businesses or in the surrounding area. Community enterprises include construction companies, a publishing house that produces books and music related to Yogananda’s teachings, organic farms, a crystal business, and various service industries. The principle of “plain living and high thinking” guides economic life, with members generally choosing simplicity and sufficiency over accumulation of wealth or luxury. This approach frees time and energy for spiritual practice while also modeling a more sustainable and satisfying alternative to consumer culture.
The community celebrates spiritual festivals throughout the year, marking significant dates in the lives of the masters of the lineage—Yogananda’s birthday, Babaji’s appearance day, and other occasions—as well as major Christian and Hindu holidays. These celebrations often include meditation, devotional singing, dramatic presentations, and communal meals, bringing the entire community together in joyful recognition of their shared spiritual heritage. The devotional aspect of Ananda’s practice is particularly noteworthy; while meditation is the core technique, there is also great emphasis on bhakti, or devotional love for God, expressed through chanting, kirtan (devotional singing), and the cultivation of a personal relationship with the Divine.
Education and Children at Ananda
One of Ananda’s most significant contributions has been the development of the Living Wisdom educational approach, also known as Education for Life. Recognizing that children growing up in a spiritual community deserve an education that honors and supports their inner development, Ananda founded its own school system based on principles derived from Yogananda’s teachings and Kriyananda’s educational philosophy. The Living Wisdom approach recognizes that education should address not merely intellectual development but the whole person—body, mind, feelings, and soul.
The Living Wisdom School at Ananda Village serves children from preschool through high school, with a curriculum that integrates academic excellence with character development and spiritual awareness. Students learn traditional academic subjects but also practice meditation, explore questions of meaning and purpose, engage in service projects, and develop practical life skills. The educational philosophy recognizes that children pass through distinct developmental stages, each requiring different approaches and emphases. Young children need security and positive role models; older children need challenges and opportunities to test themselves; teenagers need meaningful responsibility and recognition of their emerging maturity.
The success of this educational model led to the establishment of Living Wisdom schools in other locations beyond Ananda Village, bringing this approach to children whose families may not live in an intentional community but who want an education grounded in spiritual values and holistic development. The schools have demonstrated that it is possible to provide rigorous academic preparation while also nurturing the inner life of children, helping them develop not only intelligence but also wisdom, compassion, and self-awareness.
Challenges, Controversies, and Resilience
Like any human organization, Ananda has faced its share of challenges and controversies over its more than fifty-year history. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Ananda went through a difficult period involving legal conflicts with Self-Realization Fellowship, which claimed trademark rights to various terms and challenged Ananda’s right to teach Yogananda’s techniques. These legal battles were emotionally and financially draining for the community, but they ultimately resulted in Ananda prevailing on key issues and establishing its independence to carry forward Yogananda’s teachings in its own way.
The community has also faced natural disasters, including a devastating fire in 1976 that destroyed much of the village, forcing members to rebuild from ruins. Rather than abandoning their dream, the community members saw the fire as a test of their commitment and an opportunity to rebuild more thoughtfully and sustainably. The experience of losing everything material and then rebuilding together actually strengthened the community’s bonds and deepened members’ understanding that their true treasure was their spiritual practice and relationships, not their physical structures.
Ananda has also had to navigate the inevitable challenges that arise in any intentional community—conflicts between individual needs and collective good, questions of leadership and authority, economic sustainability, and the balance between maintaining spiritual focus while engaging with the practical demands of life in the modern world. The community has evolved its governance structures over time, developing systems that seek to honor both individual autonomy and collective wisdom, and learning from both successes and mistakes.
The Teaching and Legacy
Central to Ananda’s mission is the preservation and dissemination of Yogananda’s teachings, understood not as a static doctrine but as a living transmission that must be adapted to serve contemporary seekers. Ananda has produced an extensive library of books, music, videos, and online courses, making these teachings accessible to millions of people worldwide who may never visit a physical community. Kriyananda himself was a prolific author and composer, writing more than one hundred books and composing over four hundred pieces of devotional music before his passing in 2013.
Ananda offers teacher training programs that prepare individuals to share meditation and spiritual practices with others, creating a global network of teachers who carry these techniques into diverse settings—from corporate stress-reduction programs to yoga studios, from hospitals to prisons. This outreach work reflects the understanding that spiritual practice is not something to be hoarded within an exclusive community but rather a gift to be shared with anyone who is receptive.
The Ananda approach emphasizes practical spirituality—the application of meditative awareness and spiritual principles to every aspect of daily life. Rather than viewing spirituality as something separate from ordinary existence, to be practiced only during meditation or in sacred spaces, Ananda teaches that the goal is to maintain an inner connection to higher consciousness while fully engaging with work, relationships, creativity, and service. This integration of the inner and outer life represents a distinctly modern approach to ancient teachings, making them relevant and accessible to people living in contemporary society.
The Contemporary Movement
Today, Ananda represents one of the most successful and enduring experiments in intentional spiritual community in the Western world. While many communes and spiritual communities founded in the same era have dissolved or diminished, Ananda has continued to grow and evolve. The movement now includes thousands of members and students worldwide, with physical communities on three continents and teaching centers in dozens of cities. The original vision of world brotherhood colonies has been realized in multiple forms, from rural residential communities to urban teaching centers to virtual online sanghas that connect practitioners across distances.
The community welcomes visitors and prospective members of all backgrounds, races, and religions. While the teachings are rooted in the Hindu yoga tradition and honor the Christian mystical tradition, the emphasis is always on direct personal experience rather than belief or dogma. Ananda attracts people from diverse spiritual backgrounds who are seeking practical techniques for inner development and a supportive community of fellow seekers. Some come for a weekend retreat and return to their ordinary lives refreshed; others come for longer stays or eventually join as permanent residents; still others remain connected through online courses, books, and occasional visits.
The physical communities continue to serve as demonstration models, showing that it is possible to live differently—to prioritize spiritual development over material accumulation, to support oneself through meaningful work, to raise children in an environment that honors their spiritual nature, and to grow old surrounded by spiritual friends rather than in isolated nuclear families or institutional settings. As the original members of Ananda age, the communities are developing models for conscious aging and for the transmission of wisdom across generations, ensuring that the hard-won insights and experiences of the founders are passed on to newer members.
Conclusion: A Living Experiment
Ananda Village and the broader Ananda movement represent a living experiment in applied spirituality—an ongoing attempt to create social forms that support humanity’s highest potentials. Rooted in the ancient wisdom of the yoga tradition, guided by the specific teachings and vision of Paramahansa Yogananda, and manifested through the dedication of thousands of practitioners over five decades, Ananda offers a compelling alternative to the fragmentation, materialism, and spiritual poverty that characterize much of modern life.
The communities are not perfect, nor do they claim to be. They are composed of imperfect human beings engaged in the difficult work of transforming consciousness, building sustainable social structures, and learning to love and serve one another. Yet this very imperfection, acknowledged and embraced, makes Ananda’s achievements all the more remarkable. The communities demonstrate that ordinary people, through sustained spiritual practice and mutual support, can create extraordinary environments where joy, peace, and higher consciousness become the norm rather than rare exceptions.
As humanity faces mounting challenges—environmental degradation, social fragmentation, loss of meaning and purpose—the Ananda model offers hopeful possibilities. It shows that we can live more simply while experiencing greater fulfillment, that we can support ourselves economically while maintaining spiritual priorities, that we can raise children who are both capable and conscious, and that we can grow old with dignity, purpose, and spiritual friendship. Whether one ever visits an Ananda community or not, the teachings and principles that animate these experiments in conscious living offer valuable insights for anyone seeking to integrate spiritual awareness with the practical demands of contemporary existence.
The vision that inspired Yogananda, the dedication that motivated Kriyananda, and the commitment that sustains thousands of Ananda members worldwide all point toward the same fundamental truth: that we are spiritual beings capable of manifesting higher consciousness, and that by supporting one another in this sacred endeavor, we can create islands of light that illuminate the path for others. Ananda Village and its sister communities stand as testaments to the power of that vision and as invitations to all who would join in this great adventure of conscious living.
Light Being ॐ 
Leave a comment