“Gather together, those of you who share high ideals. Pool your resources. Buy land out in the country. A simple life will bring you inner freedom. Harmony with nature will bring you a happiness known to few city dwellers. In the company of other truth seekers you will find it easier to meditate and think of God.”
— Paramhansa Yogananda
Herbs and wildflowers being planted around the triveni trees
The Hermitage is following gardening principles that Swami Kriyananda spoke about and saw established at Ananda Village. We are using natural and organic gardening techniques, including some permaculture practices.
There will be many hundreds of trees planted to create the forest. We’ve already begin with our first 100+ trees. Trees that have been planted include fruit trees (mango, litchi, guava, mulberry) and native trees for windbreak.
There will be paths throughout the land and natural shrines under the trees with murtis of our Gurus and other great saints.
“We are people who like the shelter of trees.”
Mahavatar Babaji in Autobiography of a Yogi
Mulberry tree planted in 2022
Permaculture practices include storing rainwater in the soil itself by digging swales that ‘make the water walk’ and soak into the soil. These techniques have already been proven to be effective in arid parts of India.
Vegetable beds will eventually be scattered all over, interspersed with the trees — rather than large scale farm cropping. This approach is called a ‘permaculture food forest.’ It has been proven at the permaculture farms of Ananda members in the United States, and locally by our close neighbors and friends at Aanandaa Permaculture Farm. They have shown that trees only ten years old already create a strong sense of living in a forest.
In the next two years we plan on planting a few hundred more trees.
See The Forest to learn more about how we are working with trees.
“Increasingly the earth is beginning to rumble — if we want to be its enemy it will shake us off like fleas. We may be headed toward great natural calamities merely because we haven’t yet understood how we can live in harmony with nature.
“The religion of the future will be a religion of harmony, not of persecution — a religion of expanded awareness that includes higher and higher realities. It won’t lock God up in a church but will see Him in the trees. It will see the whole world as a church — and show us that wherever we go we can worship Him.
“This is what we must all try to do — bring God back to life in the world around us by our appreciation of it. Naturally He will come where He’s appreciated and come where He’s called. Naturally He will absent Himself where He is ignored. That is why this planet is going through such upheavals today. These upheavals will continue until man finally wakes up and realizes that this religion — which I say is the religion of the future — will be an all-embracing one, a religion above all of love and of joy.”
— Swami Kriyananda
