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ASHRAM ANANDA
©
copyright Alfred Ballabene, Wien, 1998 |
History of the yoga community ANANDA
The Guru Line
The origin of Ashrams (yoga
community) derives from Sri Ramakrishna (an Indian Yogi
and Saint of the past century); in
it was founded and led by the Guru Ananda.
Guru Ananda
was born in 1902 and stemmed from a Polish, Chassidism family through
which she became very religious. She was trained in yoga by a partially blind, Guru
Vayuananda, who grew up in
high level of realization. He gathered 10 disciples around him whom he trained
first in
Jewish, his mother an Indian), he emigrated with his
disciples to
(
as German soldiers at the front, others in concentration camps. Guru Vayuananda who
tried to flee to the
A
section of the only photograph which exists of Guru
Vayuananda, the teacher of
Guru Ananda.
Guru Ananda was the only one to survive (she was classified as
quarter-Jewish and
was married to an Aryan). At the end of the war she and her husband, the
painter R.R.
Ballabene, had to flee from
Germans.
In
disciple. After about four years, I was adopted by my yoga teacher and we then
spent
many years together with yoga activities (I worked only part time, in order to
be present
at the yoga in discussions and preparations in afternoons). In 1985, Guru Ananda
died.
Guru Ananda
Guru
Vayu carried on with the Ashram after the death of Guru
Ananda.
"I was born in 1937 in
(
choice for some time, because I loved the place and the people there; I had
many
friends there, whereas I became more and more estranged from
Back in
her successor.
Right from the beginning in the yoga I enjoyed a special protection: shortly
before I
came, Guru Ananda, my guru, had a vision (appearance
of an otherworldly guru) in
which she was informed that a "returning disciple" will join the Ashram (yoga community)
in the near future. This disciple was me, as was soon found out, and this
meant a special protection for me - I was only taught by the guru herself and I
was
specially promoted by her; no teaching disciple had the right to expel me (they
often did
expel people, because the yoga training was free-of-charge and based on an
idealistic
foundation). Half a year after my entering the group, I moved in with my Guru Ananda
(before I lived in a 25 m2 flat with one room and a kitchen); 2 years later I
was adopted
by my guru. The Ashram, where I acted first as assistant to my guru, later
independently as teacher and guru, had many yoga disciples, sometimes up
to 200.
My out of body experiences started 3 months after I had come to the yoga:
during an
astral travel the otherworldly Guru St. presented me to the members of
the otherworldly
part of the Ashram (Aruna Sangha). One month
later, during an astral travel I met my
Satguru who has been leading and guiding me
for quite some time. He is my home and
my longing.
I acquired the capability to willfully leave the body
after one year of yoga. Meditations,
energetic exercises and deep relaxation paved the way for that. In the meantime
I had
many a hundred astral travels, if also counting the short leavings of the body
lasting
often only for half a minute up to one minute (there were also longer ones),
then there
were more than 2000 OBEs. There are still periods in which willful
OBEs come easily
and there are times in which they are absolutely impossible."
Alfred Ballabene
Yoga teacher
In the last years of his earthly life, the great teacher Paramahansa
Yogananda often and emphatically spoke of a plan
which, according to him, is destined to become a basic social model for the new
era: the formation of idealistic communities:
"The day will come", he predicted, "when this idea will
spread like wildfire all over the world. Come
together, all you people having the same high ideals; pool your money; buy
arable land.
A simple life will bring you inner peace. Harmony with nature will present you
a luck
which only some city people know. In a society of other truth-seekers, it will
be easier
for you to meditate and think of God."
In the New Testament you may read in the Acts of the Apostles: "...and
they pooled
their money and lived close together." These early Christian communities
are exactly
what is my ideal and this is diametrical to a commerce
yoga.
It was only through the different contributions in the forum that I recognized
where my
path is, and it is not to build-up an open circle and cash in on it. I teach in
a private
circle and later on I would like to form out of this basic unit an Ashram ("Ananda-Vienna");
those who want to participate, are always welcome.
The first Ananda community, "
direct disciple of Yogananda, in 1968 (at that
time I was only 10 years old ...). In the
meantime, there are some communities in the
the Middle Italian Assisi and some starting communities and many meditation
groups
which have been founded by Ananda all over the world.
The basis of Ananda are the lectures of Yogananda who not only showed the
fundamental same truths which may be found in all religions (however, in many
put
aside, suppressed or forgotten), but who also brought to the West the age-old
nearly
forgotten technique of the Kriya-Yoga, in order to
give the people methods leading to
the experience of these truths. By founding the Ananda,
Kriyananda realized
Yogananda's ideal of a simple life with high
spiritual principles. (.. knows the community
"Ananda Assisi" in
his stays there and in groups in Germany, one of the most important moments of
life
was to have met Ananda and to have got to know the
doctrines which are taught there
and lived according to. For many people, it is one of the most transforming
experiences
of their lives which can hardly be explained here.
Swami Kriyananda
In 1948, Swami Kriyananda became disciple of Yogananda
and stayed with him during
the last years of the latter's life. He is one of Yogananda's
direct disciples still being
alive and the only one living and teaching in
communities in
many a thousand seekers the practices and principles of Kriya
Yoga. As author of more
than seventy books and hundred pieces of music he is an internationally known
author
and composer.
Swami Kriyananda lives in "Ananda
Assisi" and devotes most of his time to writing further
books. Sometimes he holds a lecture on a Saturday afternoon and organizes the
"Feast
of the Light” on Sunday mornings.
|
Yoga and meditation circles of Aruna
Sangha
(The instruction methods
and contents show considerable differences - all Yogis are individualists and
do not follow a strict dogma) |
|
Place,
costs: Purpose
of the yoga instruction: Time: Meditation
guidance: It
is the aim of the teaching to pass on the yoga to interested people. It is a
meditation and yoga circle which above all concerns itself with RAJA-Yoga and comes
together regularly once a week. Yogi |
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