Tag: Ananda Village

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Living for God

I really love this photo, which appeared on the Ananda Worldwide Facebook page the other day. For one thing, the photographer beautifully captured the deep devotion of these great souls, each of whom I happen to know and love.

It also strikes me as both sweet and powerful to realize just how much of the world is represented in this photo, as these individuals are from New Zealand, the United States, and India.

And that got me to thinking (not for the first time!) of just how international my spiritual family is! At Ananda Village alone we have members who are originally from Argentina, Canada, Colombia, England, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Laos, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. And that’s just off the top of my head, so I may have missed somebody.

But it’s not just that our community is filled with a wide diversity of people from so many points of the globe. It’s that all these people are dedicated to a spiritual lifestyle based on joy and harmony, consciously choosing a life lived for God. It’s amazing, really!


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Life Mantra (part 2)

Here’s the way the opening event unfolded: Jyotish and Devi greeted the hundreds of devotees from all corners of the globe and shared a few words about the week and about the Temple. Then Devi led everyone into a meditation. The lights dimmed and the choir from Ananda Village silently filed up onto the dais in the dark. We stood quietly for the short meditation, then out of the silence came the sound of a harmonium softly playing our opening notes and Life Mantra began.

Some comments from choir members…
“I will never forget the feeling of powerful and palpable bliss that filled me in that final chord of Life Mantra. Wow.”
“I thought maybe it was just me but apparently not. This was one of the most uplifting performances I have ever been part of. The vibration was so high I felt like levitating. I sang the Life Mantra twice more as I was driving home, still filled with joyful energy.”
“While we were singing, at some point I distinctly felt a change in the sound of the choir. My first thought was ‘The angels just joined us!'”

Personally, I believe the angels did join us! A friend who was at home with her children on the complete other side of our 900-acre community reported that they could hear the singing from their house. My theory is that the angels were all over the Village, celebrating with us, and singing the good news that “God is life! God is joy! Life is God’s! Life is joy!”

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Pilgrimage

Ananda Village has been a pilgrimage site for years. Now the Temple of Light will be a powerful new pilgrimage site as well. As I write this, hundreds of people are on their way here to visit these holy places.

Village residents have been encouraged to see ourselves as being on pilgrimage this coming week as well; attending the events and soaking up the inspiration of this blessed time.

This point was brought home to me today as Ramesha and I made up a careful list, then I went grocery shopping. I really stocked up on things and later I found myself reflecting on the idea of “provisions”.

I feel like a throwback to an earlier era, “storin’ up provisions”! But I realize that the motivation behind it is that I want to minimize time spent thinking about mundane things like what to eat, so that I can be as present as possible to the blessings of the experience. Which is definitely part of what being on pilgrimage is about.