Our lay disciple intentional community is focused on seeking God together — practicing and promoting the teachings of Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) Church's yoga meditation path, founded by Paramahansa Yogananda.
Our inspiration is Paramahansaji's vision of spiritually based intentional communities established throughout the world, with people living in peace and harmony and practicing the principles of "plain living and high thinking", seeking God together, and the precepts encompassed in his Aims and Ideals.
The Community is formally organized to continue and thrive in into the future.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to practice and promote the spiritual teachings of Self-Realization Fellowship Church in lay disciple intentional community settings envisioned by Paramahansa Yogananda.
To accomplish this, we're establishing and growing Golden Lotus Community, Light of the Valley Retreat Center, and more.
Spiritually Based Intentional Communities
Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952), founder of Self-Realization Fellowship Church and author of the spiritual classic, Autobiography of a Yogi, as well as The Science of Religion, and many other uplifting publications, envisioned the creation of spiritually based intentional communities as a means of promoting peace, unity, and spiritual growth in society.
These would be communities of like-minded individuals who shared a common vision of seeking God together, living harmoniously with one another and with nature.
He believed that such communities could serve as models for a new way of living, one that was based on cooperation and mutual support rather than competition and self-interest.
Artistic Depiction - Courtesy Brett Curtin
He saw them as places where people could come together to work towards a common goal, where the pursuit of material wealth and power was replaced by the pursuit of spiritual development and service to others.
According to Paramahansa Yogananda, these communities would strive to be self-sustaining, with members working together to produce the necessities of life. They would be places of education, where individuals could learn about the principles of spirituality and how to apply them in their daily lives, such as through practice of scientific yoga meditation.
His conviction was that the creation of such communities was essential for the future of humanity, as they represented a new way of living that could help to alleviate many of the problems facing the world today. He encouraged his followers to work towards their establishment, believing that they had the potential to transform society and bring about a more peaceful and harmonious world.
High Thinking
"High thinking" refers to an approach to living that is elevated or advanced in some way.
In some spiritual or philosophical contexts, it implies cultivation of higher states of consciousness, such as through meditation or contemplation, along with introspection, as a means to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of reality and one's place within it.
"Yoga . . . is the science of religion, by which the true principles of religion can be proven with exact and known results. Yoga fulfills the purpose of religion: achievement of oneness, or union, with God — the ultimate necessity of every soul."
— Paramahansa Yogananda
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