Ananda?

[upstarter]

I was just in Palo Alto, CA and I was walking down the street and noticed this lovely little mission style church and so I stopped to admire it's architecture. And on the front was written, Anada a church of self-realization. Well that stopped me in my tracks, what the heck is a church of self-realization? So when I got home today I looked to see if they have a website. Sure enough there they were.

 

Here is what is says about the Sunday service at this church:

 

The service is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda whose mission is, in his words, "to awaken people to their need for Self-realization, through meditation, and through keeping good company, or fellowship, with other truth-seeking souls...to bring back to the world the original teachings and science of yoga as taught by Krishna, and the original Christianity of Jesus Christ."

 

Anyone heard of this? I'm fascinated. Krishna and Christ. They even have Sunday school.

 

Here's the website, if anyone is interested. Maybe I'm the only one who hasn't heard of this.

 

http://www.anandapaloalto.org/index.html

[Deva]

At first I thought it must be affiliated with Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship, which has been around for a long time. See:

 

http://www.yogananda-srf.org/

 

But it is not listed on the site. It must be that the Swami they mentioned on the Ananda website was the founder, who apparantly was one of Yogananda's followers.

 

I don't know a great deal about Yogananda- I think I have a cassette tape of a speech he did somewhere in the house. I didn't care to pursue his teachings because it just seemed too devotional and Christian-like to suit me. If I had a place nearby like this Ananda (meaning is "bliss") place, I would probably like to go check it out anyway since I am fond of the Bhagavad Gita.

[Ahh!]

Ananda is indeed an offshoot of Yogananda's teachings. It's considered a cult and has a very unethical leader who is boring as heck to listen to, Kriyanda.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananda_Church...n#Controversies

http://www.anandainfo.com/services/index.htm

 

There was another website dedicated to the problems with Ananda village at one point but it appears someone had it taken down. Scientology style lawsuit?

[MultifariousBirdLady]

Ananda is indeed an offshoot of Yogananda's teachings. It's considered a cult and has a very unethical leader who is boring as heck to listen to, Kriyanda.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananda_Church...n#Controversies

http://www.anandainfo.com/services/index.htm

 

There was another website dedicated to the problems with Ananda village at one point but it appears someone had it taken down. Scientology style lawsuit?

 

Thanks for this info, Ahh! I found this online about Ananda Village:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/ananda/ananda2.html

 

Here's a different "Ananda" who seems less boring to me:

Swami Beyondananda

http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/index.html