Chapter 07: Ananda Village

Ananda Village is the home to such community: 800 acres (or was it 900?) of land in the Nevada Hills, most of it still forest, with buildings only when there is a need for them. One can get to anywhere by car, as roads (private for the use of community inhabitants and visitors and only existing within Ananda’s property) can be found to take you anywhere where there are buildings. I only bother to write this because I was asked one day by a friend of mine, when I told her I’d be visiting Ananda Village on summer: “Is it one of those communities in which people try to live in wooden huts without cars, electricity, running water, etc?” No, it is not!

With the purpose of making my “tour” easier, I’m going to separate the Village in seven zones: The Expanding Light, the Meditation Retreat, Downtown Ananda, Ananda School, Rajarsi Business Park, Crystal Hermitage and the “houses zone”. The Expanding Light I have already gone through, and the School and Crystal Hermitage will have their own sections later; so, I’m going to start by the Meditation Retreat.

The Meditation Retreat serves, from what I understood, more or less the same purpose than the Expanding Light, with a couple of differences: first, it is home to the monastery; and second, it has more history than the Expanding Light. Why more history? Because that’s the little area in which Ananda was started, forty years ago! I didn’t get to see much of it because I was there only once (it is separated from the rest of the community). The aura of peace is all-pervading, though; that’s a lot to say, since I was there only in the occasion of an event to which many, many people went, and still it was easy to feel!

Downtown Ananda is… well, I’m not quite sure of what it is! From what I could see, there are houses in which people live, and it is the first place in which I saw children from the community. There you can find a few shops, too: the thrift shop from where I borrowed clothes, Master’s Market, and some others I cannot identify. One of the charming (for me anyway!) things about this place is that they have a big zone of green grass (they water it daily), which they use to play soccer! I actually heard a few children talking about soccer once, as I was in my way to Master’s Market. I couldn’t help but smiling from ear to ear.

I didn’t spend a lot of time here, either. On one occasion I came to the green zone to play soccer for a little while (the same day I got my bag with my clothes and my soccer ball). I spent about half an hour to forty minutes juggling the ball and practicing overhead kick: it was fun and funny at the same time, because my overhead kick improved a lot that day only! I didn’t get to play soccer anymore after that, though; on two occasions I was invited to, but I had to refuse because of conflicting schedules.

Here are a few pictures of Downtown Ananda:

The fountain of joy. I find it thrillingly beautiful. You can see a bit of the "green zone" in the background.

Master's Market.

A playground for children

Next stop: the Rajarsi Business Park. There, from what I understood, is where most of the offices of the community are located, and the center of Ananda worldwide. The simplicity of the place would make one think they are houses instead of offices, but no: they are offices. And what offices, too! The stress of a workplace is nonexistent here, or at least I couldn’t feel any; instead, people here are relaxed and (as always) friendly, even if they are working.

A very remarkable thing I noticed is that the offices, and the community as a whole, don’t have too many rules. As a contrary to the normal thought of “for an organism to work well, there must be well-defined rules that cover every situation that may emerge”, here the basic “rule” is trust on people’s sincerity. Once, when I was having lunch with Nabha, we had this little exchange:

“Is your lunch time from 12:30 to 1:30 or something?” I asked.

“No… not really,” he responded, “we don’t have defined times to eat, we just take them time when we want to.”

“Wow, nice!”

“Yes. You know, when a person is good and other people put trust on him, he wants to live up to that trust. That’s how Ananda works.”

So, basically, the “rule of trust”, which would be scoffed at by almost any employer in a city, is the basic principle here. And it works! These people make a very fine job at what they do, otherwise Ananda wouldn’t be so successful worldwide; and yet, it is lack of rules, and not an overwhelming amount of them, which keeps things flowing harmoniously and smoothly!

Entering the Ananda Sangha building, which is the center of the work of Ananda Worldwide (if I understand it well), I found many people whose interruption of their work only to come out with a big smile to greet a stranger that was visiting the retreat (that would be me) I found very touching and inspiring. In there I also found the best offices I have ever seen in a workplace: while, like everything else, they are simple (and in some cases, quite small), they are neat, they have plenty of sunlight, and they are covered with inspiring pictures and the like. I told Nabha: “It must be really nice to work in here!” His reply: “Yes… yes, it is.”

The Sangha office seen from the outside. You can see there only two of the 5.000 doors you can use to get inside!

The inhabitants of the fountain in front of the Sanga Offices

Dave, Seva, and myself in the offices of Crystal Clarity. My siblings have told me the picture is fine, but I still think it looks like I had a toothache!

Also located in Rajarsi Park is the Hansa Temple, where the Sunday Services are normally held. The shape of its roof cannot be very well made out of the pictures, but it’s a roof with history anyway! I’m not sure I remember it exactly in the details, but the basics are the same:

Back when the Hansa Temple was being built, Swami Kriyananda came up with the inspiration of making the roof in that strange shape, so he explained this to the constructors and asked for the shape of the roof to be done in that way. For weeks the workers tried to get it done, but were unsuccessful: no one knew how such shape could be brought into reality; they explained this to Swamiji and prepared to dismantle the attempts they had been doing at the roof sometime soon.

However, before they had the chance to do so, a man who was staying at Ananda happened to look at what they were doing. He informed them: “I am an architect, and probably the only man in the world who knows how to construct such a roof!” With that, he proceeded to give the workers precise instructions and the temple was brought to a happy finalization, roof and all!

I might have erred in the details of the story (did they attempt to construct the roof for weeks or only days?), but as I said, the basics are the same.

The Hansa Temple. The best word I can think of to describe it is: "charming".

The last part of Ananda Village I visited was the “houses zone”. Houses can be found a bit anywhere inside the community lands, but there is a zone which consists exclusively of houses for people to live in. Walking through that zone is very pleasant, as it’s all surrounded by the woods. Because of California laws that make construction of houses difficult, most of them are home to many people, not related by blood but effectively belonging to the same spiritual family!

Marga gave me a tour for this zone, showing me the inside of a couple of houses and also the surrounding terrains. Later, on Saturday morning, I came back to try and visit Rose and other people (I forgot their names), but they weren’t home, so I left a note and took the chance to take pictures of it.

My impression of the houses is very favorable, as you may have guessed. They all have plenty of “space to breathe” surrounding them, and the outside is usually beautified with plants, fountains and statues. I was surprised to see how big the inside was! Independently of having ten rooms, they are quite big and spacious, and the ambiance is great. Every house, as far as I could see, has a special room-shrine reserved exclusively for spiritual practices, and the rest of the building is usually covered with inspiring pictures, paintings and so on.

Here are a few pictures I took in my visit there last Saturday:

A house.

Chandi House: here is where people that want to live in Ananda Village usually come to first.

A fountain outside Chandi House, with a statue of Lahiri Mahasaya.

Dining room in Chandi House.

Living room of Chandi House. The statue on the back is of Mahavatar Babaji.

A statue just outside Chandi House; I believe it is Shiva. I love it.

A picture of Brotherhood Way, the street which leads to the "houses zone".

In total, Ananda Village counts with 250-300 residents, and around the world there are about a thousand people living in Ananda Communities. Slow but steady, and a good start! However, independently on whether the number increases or not, the important thing is that Ananda is there as a much needed role model, so that humanity can emerge from the troubled times ahead.

Previous: Chapter 06: The Community
Next: Chapter 08: The Schools

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