“God put man in charge of the earth that he might bring divine consciousness to whatever he touches. If he fails—as he does, unfortunately, all too frequently—he does not bring to fruition his own God-given destiny. Man’s sensitivity has been given him by God to refine and develop material reality. God needs channels of His blessings on earth. It is not His way to want us to say, “You do it all, Lord. It’s your business, not mine!”
— Swami Kriyananda
Guru Kripa Forest Hermitage is being built on 5 1/2 acres of beautiful fertile land just 1 km from the Shivalik Hills — the foothills that mark the beginning of the Himalaya range in North India. In January, 2024 we received formal government approval of our site plan. That means we can legally and properly construct an Ananda India monastery.
View from the Hermitage toward the Shivaliks
It required one year and nine months of frequent visits to government offices by our monks to first receive a Change of Land Use (CLU). That was followed by several months of applying for approval of our site plan. Many considered this step impossible when we began the process.
Our nine monks are currently renting houses about 30 minutes from the land. The Hermitage will fulfill Swami Kriyananda’s vision of a place exclusively for monks to live, serve, and undergo training in the monastic life. It will also establish a permanent foundation for the long term growth of an Ananda monastic order in India.
This will fulfill a very important part of Swami Kriyananda’s legacy. In 2006, soon after he finished writing The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, Swamiji declared at a public talk in Gurgaon:
“There are four things I still want to do here:
One is to start a community in India.
Another is to start an institute, a Yoga Institute of Living Wisdom. . . .
And a third is a monastery.
. . . the fourth is an inter-religious temple.
These things I hope to do.”
See Description and Site Plan to learn more.
“Ultimately, no human effort will take us to God. The whole secret of the spiritual path is to get the ego, and the attachments and desires that cling to it like barnacles, out of the way, and to receive into our souls the blessings of God. What the guru does for us is primarily on a level of consciousness. He works from within, on our thoughts and feelings. Our job above all, then, is to offer our hearts and minds up to him, that he may transform us. Gradually, his ego-less consciousness seeps into our ego-centered consciousness, and transforms us with new understanding of our own reality.”
— Swami Kriyananda
