The Vision

In 1932, in the depths of the Depression, Paramahansa Yogananda wrote of a dream: that people of like mind and high ideals would gather together, pool their resources, and build small communities where meditation and mutual support could flourish — places he called “World Brotherhood Colonies.”

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He believed that environment shapes us more than willpower alone. A person might have every good intention of living a spiritual life, but without the support of others — living instead in a world absorbed in material pursuits — it’s all too easy to drift from the deeper search for God. His solution was simple: don’t go it alone. Gather with others who share your ideals, and build a life together.

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“Little-group models of ideal civilizations must be started in every community for happy and peaceful living, with much meditation and much chivalry shown.”

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Yogananda tried to establish such a colony himself, at his Encinitas hermitage in the early 1940s. The world, he found, wasn’t quite ready yet. But he was certain the idea would outlive him: “The day will come when this idea will spread through the world like wildfire. Gather together, those of you who share high ideals. Pool your resources. Buy land in the country. A simple life will bring you inner freedom.”

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From Dream to Reality

That day came a generation later. In the late 1960s, Yogananda’s direct disciple, Swami Kriyananda, purchased a small piece of land in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Nevada City, California — the seed of what became Ananda Village, the first community to fully realize Yogananda’s vision. What began as a handful of hardy pioneers living simply on the land has grown, over more than 50 years, into one of the most respected intentional communities in the world — home today to roughly 200 residents, a school, two retreat centers, and Ananda’s Temple of Light.

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Kriyananda often said that a small, harmonious community could do more to demonstrate the truth of “simple living and high thinking” than any amount of preaching. Ananda Village became that demonstration — and, in time, the mother community to a growing family of others.

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Growing the Family of Communities

As interest in Ananda’s way of life grew beyond what Ananda Village alone could hold, new communities took root: Sacramento in the late 1970s, then Mountain View, followed by Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and — carrying the vision across the ocean — Assisi in Italy and Gurgaon and Pune in India.

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Our community here in Mountain View was founded in 1989, in the heart of Silicon Valley — an unlikely place, perhaps, for a simple living colony, but very much a place where it is needed. It is the largest urban community in the Ananda world, second in size only to Ananda Village itself, the rural community where it all began. Around 100 residents share this five-acre garden setting with and many others: the broader community of Ananda Sangha members throughout the Bay Area. The community serves families, singles, longtime meditators, and newcomers in a community setting that Yogananda envisioned nearly a century ago.

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Living the Dream Today

Walk the grounds here and you’ll see small shrines and devotional statues tucked among the trees — quiet reminders of the tradition this community carries forward. But the deeper expression of Yogananda’s vision is in the atmosphere, blessed by many years of daily meditation, and by Swami Kriyananda. , and by neighbors who know each other. A shared courtyard where children play and elders meditate within sight of one another. The simple, durable comfort of not being alone on the spiritual path.

This is what Yogananda meant by environment being stronger than willpower: not a rule imposed from outside, but a community built so that the good you intend for your life is easier to live, because others around you are reaching for the same thing.

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It's why this ground has mattered to us for 35 years. And it's why we're working now to make sure it stays this way — not just for the residents living here today, but for the "thousands of youths" Yogananda once said would go out in every direction to build these colonies, some of whom, in time, will find their way here.

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