About Ananda

Ananda is a worldwide group of individuals who share the search for higher consciousness and the ideal of service to others. We express this service by modeling uplifting values and sharing techniques for achieving peace of mind and inner happiness. Ananda, which means “joy” in Sanskrit, was founded in 1968 by J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda) to support others in their quest for spiritual growth.

Ananda is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi. Yogananda was the first great Indian master of yoga to live in the West. His teachings emphasize direct inner experience of God, which he called ’self-realization.’ Yogananda’s teachings are nonsectarian and offer practical solutions to the challenges of modern life.

About Superconsciousness

One often hears references to “altered states of consciousness.” Implied in the expression is a suggestion that higher states of awareness are anomalies. Actually, superconsciousness is our natural state. The conscious and subconscious minds are our “altered states,” representing …the downward filtering of superconsciousness through the brain. Superconsciousness is, forever, the reality. It is our true and native state of being.

“The secret of meditation lies not in affirming states that are foreign to us, but in reclaiming what we are. Meditation is a returning to our center within. It may be termed a process of upward relaxation into superconsciousness. The only ‘effort’ required is to resist the tendency, born of habit, toward tension and restlessness. What we must do, simply, is increase our receptivity—mentally and emotionally first, and then intuitively…”

–SUPERCONSCIOUSNESS: A GUIDE TO MEDITATION by J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda)

Learn more about Ananda by visiting the Ananda Website.