A Year of Growth and Transformation

2024 has been a transformative year at Guru Kripa Forest Hermitage. The first monks’ residences are rising from the ground. Over one hundred more fruit trees have been planted. The vegetable and landscape gardens continue to grow and thrive — along with our monks and their service all over Asia. In 2006, Swami Kriyananda said that building a monastery was one of four things left that he still wanted to accomplish in India. His monastery is finally coming to fruition.

Construction Progress

The main structural work (foundations and supporting columns) for six buildings and a water tower have been completed. Rammed earth walls should start going up this week. As we’ve seen from other projects, the ramming process goes very quickly.

Rammed Earth Block

Here you can see a small rammed earth test block. The front side shows the texture and natural color that our walls will be. This block was the result of several experiments to get the right recipe for the strength of the walls. Rammed earth construction blends beauty, sustainability, simplicity, and durability.

Cement and steel columns are being used on all buildings for extra strength. Our structural engineer is a leading engineer for rammed earth buildings all over India, including in some extreme earthquake zones.

Visualizing the Hermitage

A new digital 3D flyover shows the layout of the Hermitage — including our Temple of Light meditation hall, monks’ cottages, and the monastery kitchen/dining room. This gives you a good sense of the building designs, and the beautiful and harmonious site plan.

You can also imagine the many fruit trees and shrubs in and around the buildings, many already growing. Panduranga (J.T. Heater) — the Ananda Village architect who helped design the Temple of Light there — has been meeting with our India architects to translate that design to local building methods and materials.

“I remembered how often Yogananda quoted the suggestion made to him by an architect: “Immortalize your teachings in architecture.” The Master agreed with him. A spiritual teaching ought to be clothed in a form that expresses the consciousness it seeks to inspire.”
— Swami Kriyananda, A Place Called Ananda

Root Cellar

The root cellar under Chela Bhavan is taking shape, designed for efficient cooling using underground piping and vents. We’ve learned a great deal from our friends and neighbors, Aanandaa Permaculture Farm, with the root cellar design.

Monk Kutir

This shows the first monk kutir (cottage) going up, with completed foundations and columns. These simple kutirs will have rammed earth walls for the living spaces, along with brick for the small kitchens and bathrooms. Gently domed brick ceilings will also help fulfill one of many ideals for uplifting design expressed by Swami Kriyananda.

Fruit Trees and Gardens are Flourishing!

“The vibrations of a place can be spectacularly uplifted when the place is developed not with a view to destroying trees, but to making it beautiful and cared-for. The very devas are attracted to places where there is pure, devotional energy.”
— Swami Kriyananda

Hermitage gardens are thriving! Highlights for 2024 include:

Potato Patch

  • Over 100 more fruit trees planted during the monsoon — all are thriving, along with the fruit trees planted in previous years
  • Over 70 native perimeter trees planted for windbreak and beauty, in addition to over 100 that were planted earlier
  • A bountiful potato patch and over twenty different vegetables are being grown
  • Several hundred strawberry plants were recently planted
  • Peanuts thrive here! Our monks recently shelled, roasted, and made homemade peanut butter
Monastery Service Continues to Grow

The monastery continues to support different Ananda India departments. The monks’ focus is spreading Yogananda’s teachings througout India and other South Asian countries. Here you can see our joyful monks after finishing Christmas morning brunch. Some of us have memories of similar Christmas mornings with Swami Kriyananda, who would host the monks and nuns of Ananda’s first monastery in the 1970s.

And finally, a beautiful video showing the construction and gardens:

All of the monks here express their gratitude for your prayers and support of this project.

Joy and blessings,
Nayaswami Devarshi & Nayaswami Shankara

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