“Every room must be filled with light. It should make the spirit want to soar outward and upward as if to embrace the world! Air and breezes should be invited indoors whenever the weather is warm. Flower scents must be given entry. The windows must be many, large, and high. I want to be able to enjoy the stars from indoors at night; to feel, when sitting in the rooms that look out onto the garden, that the rooms themselves are a part of Nature outside.”
— Swami Kriyananda
The monastery has been working with a team of architects, designers, and planners. All of them understand the unique nature of the monastery we are building. In January, 2024 the site plan was formally approved by the government. This means that we can now begin construction.
Young mango tree
The 5 1/2 acres will be divided into three zones:
- Semi-public active zone
This will include the entryway, caretaker’s cottage, water tank and pump, construction and storage shed with solar panels (already in place), offices, and a place to receive deliveries and occasional visitors. - Private active zone
This will be a private area for the monks where various activities will take place. It will include a kitchen and dining hall, a nursery for starting plants, and a recreation area. - Private inward zone
This will be the Hermitage proper, with the monk’s kutirs, meditation temple, and an outdoor satsang/meditation area. There will be no outward activities here, except for some gardening. This is the most private and separate part of the Hermitage. The initial building will be a group kitchen and dining room, with four bedrooms slightly separated from them. This will enable a group of monks to start living on the land more quickly, sharing a kitchen and dining space.
Guru Kripa Site Plan
Buildings will be constructed using natural earth methods which have been well proven in India. Swami Kriyananda wrote highly about the adobe (natural earth) buildings he visited in the American southwest, which included rounded corners inside the rooms.
He also recommended domed ceilings rather than flat ones. Neighbors near the Hermitage land have proven the utility and cost effectiveness of the Rohtak dome ceiling, a regional technology with benefits including simplicity, elegance, low cost, and earthquake resistance.
See Timeline and Cost to learn more about the development of the Hermitage.
“Walls, corners, ceilings — all these seemed to me, as I thought about them, to exert a definite, if subtle, influence on the mind. For peace of mind and inner harmony, the best shape, then, seemed to be the dome: not lofty and unattainable like those cathedral domes, built to suggest heaven; but here and now and all around us: like the sky under which we live.
“Domes like those in a planetarium have another quality: They tend to expand the consciousness.”
—Swami Kriyananda, from Space, Light, and Harmony, the Story of Crystal Hermitage
“It is important not only to draw what we can from nature, but also to give back to it, by praying to God through the devas, those subtle entities who create and sustain plant life, and by loving them and showing them gratitude.
“The universe functions on certain clear principles, which are emphasized in the yoga teachings: loving energy, conscious harmony, mutuality of sharing. It has been said that subtle forces are consciously responsible for plant life on this planet, and that these forces are, at the present time, withdrawing their energy. In ancient times, the Vedas taught that one should give energy to the devas, who create and sustain plant life. By giving them energy, we can live in reciprocal harmony with them, through nature.
“People nowadays scoff at this as “superstition.” My Guru said it is a mistake to do so. It is, he said, important not only to draw what we can from nature, but also to give back to it, by praying to God through those subtle entities, and by loving and showing them gratitude. It is an error to treat them as though they had no existence. In seizing what we can only for ourselves, we withdraw ourselves from nature’s abundance. When we do that, nature, in return, withdraws her abundance.”
— Swami Kriyananda
