Ananda Laurelwood

Mission: Ananda Laurelwood offers the opportunity to live in community with other inspired, like-minded people who share a foundation in universal spiritual principles.

From www.ic.org/directory/ananda-laurelwood/:

Since 1968, Ananda has been a pioneer in small, conscious communities. Beginning with Ananda Village, this pattern of life has spread around the globe, with Ananda communities in Europe and India as well as here in the US. Ananda Portland has had a community in town since 1993, and it serves as a sister to Ananda Center at Laurelwood.

Building a small community is an art, born of experience, character development, time, commitment and joy. Using the resources at hand, an individual can have direct experience of every aspect of community life at Ananda Laurelwood while also developing the spiritual and character qualities which make for supportive leadership, creative management, dynamic involvement and a richly evolving community life. Situated in a beautiful pastoral valley, our surrounding farm, gardens, forest and wild-lands provide natural beauty, quiet, and a buffer from the conflicting vibrations of more urban environments. Yet when the world beckons, Portland is just a short drive away.

Our 55-acre educational campus hosts a Meditation and Yoga Retreat center, a growing organic farm with wwoof opportunities and weekly public volunteer projects, a fully residential internship program, and certification programs in vegetarian cooking and conscious compassion-based eldercare. Our center is a place of learning and connection, inwardly with the Divine through the practice of meditation and yoga, and then expressed outwardly in our shared activities: vegetarian meals, meditations, service, classes, and recreation. Students in our residential Cities of Light and Karma Yoga internship programs have a private room with bathrooms just down the hall and three vegetarian meals are served each day. We believe in serving food filled with prana – or life energy. Thus we source organically grown and local ingredients as much as possible.

You can begin your journey in conscious community living by participating in the residential Karma Yoga Internship Program for anywhere from 2 weeks to three months, which integrates spiritual practice, service, personal support, and study of the universal teachings of Self-realization. Visit our website at http://anandalaurelwood.org/spiritual-internships/ for more information. If at the end of your three-month internship, you’re interested in participating in the long-term Cities of Light residential program, you can apply and interview for acceptance. Costs and fees will be assessed at the time of the interview.

The long-term Cities of Light residential program is tailored to support those who seek to develop the understanding, the skills and the character that allow for the development of community wherever life might take them. Some members contribute their time in service to the center while others commute to nearby cities for work.

On the 175 acres surrounding our campus we are developing an intentional community, what Paramhansa Yogananda called a World Brotherhood Colony, where all of life can be together in one place. We are striving to create a community where the values of simple living and high thinking can be put into practice as an alternative way to live that is more sustainable, and ultimately more fulfilling, where people can find what they truly seek: happiness.

A service of the Data Commons Co-op. The project has been supported by Equal Exchange, the Cooperative Charitable Trust, the USDA, and many others - thank you! Tech volunteers over the years include: Benjamin Bradley with support from GAIA Host. Ben Mauer with support from Quilted. Paul Fitzpatrick. Ronin Tech Collective, Brattleboro Tech Collective, Sligo Computer Services. Jason Lemieux. Default map tiles courtesy of MapQuest. Default map data (c) OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA.