Yogananda Fest 2025: What happened?

WHAT HAPPENED?

YoganandaFest.com featured activities

It rained in Los Angeles on Saturday morning, as it has 5 out of the 6 years this fest has existed. So most diehard yogis were undeterred. While it remained cold, cloudy, and drizzly with showers in some parts of the megalopolis that is LA County, which stretches for over 50 miles across as a basin, the sun came out over Torrance, the city (one of 88) hosting the festival.

Lovin schismatic disciple Kriyananda

Yogananda was a great Indian guru who is bigger than the organization that claims to be his exclusive promoter, the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF). There is a better albeit smaller organization that promotes the real guru, baby and all.

(Could the great Hindu-Christian syncretic-saint have had a baby with one of his American female disciples?) The Ananda Church of Self-Realization (Donate | Yogananda Fest) is a kind of schism that arose among Paramhansa Yogananda's followers.

Autobiography of a Yogi: The
Original 1946 Edition plus

One original disciple, Kriyananda, was a purist. He decided to publish the founder's autobiography in its ORIGINAL (unredacted, unabridged) form. It's better that way to read it, but SRF doesn't like it.

The larger, less orthodox SRF organization made changes to the classic book and will not settle a lawsuit that says the rightful owner of the religious organization is Yogananda's unacknowledged son. There's DNA evidence to back up Ananda's claim, but SRF will not acknowledge, as to do so would mean the loss of their ability to legally claim ownership of the book, its proceeds, the properties spread across LA and elsewhere, and the legacy of the great master. What to do? What to do? More lawyers are needed to settle the issue. Or the son should become a guru, claim his lineage, and speak out publicly rather than behind the Ananda organization. Until then, there are TWO versions of the book. Which have most people read?

After about 9:00 am, with clear skies and lots of enthusiastic participants from the Holy City of Lost Angels, events went on as planned: meditation, Kriya Yoga, Hatha Yoga, inspiring featured speakers and more.

• Also participating: Glendale's Ashwin Clinic-College of Ayurveda Yoga & Vedic Sciences – Ashwin Ayurveda – Love in all we do – since 1901
• Kriya Meditation Ayurveda Yoga Vedic Sciences Clinic/College | Meetup
• 4:30 pm Soundbath and Prana Lifeforce Healing, Sat, May 3, 2025, 4:30 PM | Meetup
• Dharma Buddhist Meditation (Disclosure Project, Los Angeles) Events

Event details

I paved the way for PY in 1893.

Yogananda Fest (YoganandaFest.com – 2025 | Paramhansa Yogananda's Keys for Peace and Happiness) is an annual Kriya and Hatha Yoga, meditation, and spiritual-living festival. Join in an all-day program celebrating and sharing the teachings of the great American missionary and Indian yogi Paramhansa Yogananda.

Indian gurus in the USA?

Swami Paramananda, 1923

[After the arrival of Swami Vivekananda in the United States for the Chicago Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893, visiting Pasadena and declaring it the "Varanasi (Buddhist Kashi and Benares) of America," both set up ashrams here, Swami in South Pasadena and Yogananda in neighboring Mt. Washington, a prominent hill above the next town over, Highland Park, with a magnificent view of the Downtown Los Angeles skyline.

Paramahansa Yogananda, 1920

That mansion became Yogananda's Self Realization Fellowship's Mother Center (older than the magnificent Lake Shrine in Malibu, currently closed due to the Palisades Fire), after the organization's founding in 1920, along with a big temple in Hollywood on Sunset Blvd. (next to an old hospital purchased by Scientology and made into big cult offices), whereas Vivekananda's Victorian style house is a small and easily missed blip on Figueroa Street. Not far from there, a devotee of Sri Anandamayi Ma named Swami Paramananda founded the beautiful and rustic monastery in Glendale/La Crescenta called Ananda Ashram (Ananda Ashrama, spiritual center for Vedanta) in 1923.

Hinduism in America: Converge

So Yogananda is a sort of latecomer but by far the most successful of Indian gurus in America, outshining even the Beatles' cultish Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder and promoter of Transcendental Meditation (TM), which was a fad from the 1960s though still some people swear by it, like a young Jeff Goldblum in his cameo in Annie Hall.

Why does any of this matter? Not only did Hinduism come to America, Buddhism came along as well (many centuries earlier, even before Columbus and Christianity, according to Rick Fields, Edward P. Vining, and other American historians), making an incredible splash that still reverberates and sends out rings of influence. Books have been written about it.]

• Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Contexts
• Hannah: The Untold Story of Buddhism
• Meditating at the Glendale Temple, Los Angeles
• Sri Aurobindo, founder of Integral Yoga
• Bikram Yoga's Choudhury, Dick Nixon's trainer
• Hare Krishna Movement (ISKCON)
• Sri Anandamayi Ma: The Divine Mother
• Top 10 Spiritual Gurus of India

West Coast used to have some parties that made LA the antithesis of NYC

• Yogananda Fest – 2025, YouTube.com; Siri, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Why Joey hates yoga (video)

What if there were an ancient eightfold path to samadhi? Then another to enlightenment?

Why are they like this!?

American yoga is a cartoon, a facsimile, a joke.

(joeybtoonz) Sept. 1, 2024: Today let's explore people who pretend to be yoga instructors. [This is Kook Town, this is BS, this is, hold on, let me grab another pizza slice and brewsky so I can keep watching and criticizing this bogus bull.]

✭ PATREON ► joeybtoonz ✭ INSTAGRAM ► joeybtoonz ✭ X (TWITTER) ► joeybtoonz ✭ FACEBOOK ► joeybtoonz✭ FAN [NO HATE MAIL!] MAIL ADDRESS: ► 178 Columbus Ave. # 237190 New York, NY 10023 ✭ [HEAR MORE OF MY OPINIONS] 2nd YouTube Channel: Joey B vs. the World Clips: joeybvstheworldclips ✭ Joey B vs. the World Podcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Wfj8qb... Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

Why we love yoga

We love the togetherness, health, movement!

It's easy to imagine that "yoga" is a bunch of beautiful gals and lithe guys capable of doing ballet, undressing into tights and athletic shirts so they can sweat while they pose. There's that. It's the face of the brand. But the brand is much older, much deeper, much more useful than flexibility and fulsome breathing. There's a point. The whole of yoga (union) is aimed at meditation and reaching samadhi ("stillness").

Tibetan Vajrayana yoga Yab-Yum

Anything can use the word. It needn't be from India nor linked to the Vedas, because "yoga" just means whatever the American industry can make of it. And that's money. One of the more woo-woo forms of yoga was invented by Yogi Bhajan, a turban-wearing Sikh promoter, who came to the U.S. to think and grow rich.

I was trying to make money and get girls. Win!

Sure there were sex scandals and profiteering, but don't think about that. He invented the company Yogi Tea, which has great boxes and too many synthetic "natural flavorings" (a term that means the artificial synthesis of a naturally occurring flavor) to recommend. Flavorants are artificial neurotoxins used to sell product not promote health. So when it says "natural flavor," read "artificial chemical" simulation of something real.

A pose series is not yoga even if called Ashtanga

Yoga can get to seem that way when it's Yogi Bhajan's brand of Kundalini Yoga. That is a lot of what Joey is boohooing. It looks crazy. It's trying to give participants an experience, a head rush, a movement of kundalini (energy bundled at the base of the spine, which if opened too soon will make one cuckoo); shaktipat might be a better name for what Kundalini Yoga capitalists are trying to evoke so that people keep coming back. Anything goes.

If it was good enough for JC...

American teachers want to patent something like convicted criminal Choudhry Bikram of Bikram Yoga infamy. Now it's Hot Yoga, keeping the overheated rooms and changing nearly everything else. But there are plenty of diehard Bikram fans still out there because it was anti-spiritual and all about the workout and kickstarting the endorphins, which is what city folk want. Cities have doshas (body types), too. It isn't just bodies. LA and NYC are very pitta (fiery). one can imagine a lot of kapha in Minnesota and vata in Hawaii.

We're just looking on our search

All places and bodies have all three but usually suffer a predominance of one over the others, an imbalance. Kundalini Yoga is very vata (airy fairy), which will seem odd, silly, fake, and phony to New Yorkers like Joey.

Yoga is very ancient, pre-Patanjali

Most of us imagine "spiritual" to mean "too airy" because air is the unseen force that moves leaves and whole trees and can be experienced indirectly by all its impacts. Hatha Yoga joins sun and moon, yang and yin energies, though some say that's nonsense, arguing it has another meaning. With so many kinds of yoga, like all the martial arts there are now, what is Royal (Raja) Yoga, the ruler of all other types? It is this very eightfold path of yoga called Ashtanga:

• Rāja Yoga's COMPARISON WITH BUDDHISM

Isn't Yoga the same as Buddhism? They are different with a very different goal.

Anne Hathaway dates young Coachella bro?

He's like my son, I mean, he's like my daughter's brother, I mean, he's in a band!

I used to be the hottest actor in Hollywood.

Busted on video making out with sexy Boy Toy

Ah, romantic love, is there anything higher to live for? There's Nothing Higher to Live For: Romantic Love We get so intoxicated, so out of ourselves, so devoted and obsessed that we seem to forget other people. ("We're out here. We still exist," they say. But we don't pay them no never mind. Why? With those brain chemicals running on overdrive, we feel we found all we need.)

Who'd you go to see? - August Moon!

Anne Hathaway has been seen and photographed at "Coachella" with a much younger man, a "boy toy" half her age!

In shocking revelations, she has a teenage daughter, too. It was the girl who dragged mom to the big Woodstock in the desert event, where she hooked up with a straight boy band singer, Hayes Campbell. Why he's young enough to be her own son! That shameless hussy?

Actor Anne Hathaway was once very famous.

Is there anything she won't do for attention? Who would star in such a movie, all about real life goings on? It seems Hathaway is embracing the "unconventional" age gap -- playing cougar to some young cub -- in the new movie, The Idea of You.

While it's serious sex, it hides under the cloak of "rom-com." In this scandalous upcoming romantic comedy, Hathaway plays 40-year-old Solène Marchand, a single mom who takes her daughter to Coachella to see her favorite boy band, August Moon.

When she has a chance meeting with that band’s 24-year-old frontman, "Hayes Campbell," played by Nicholas Galitzine, sparks fly between them and they strike up an unexpected romance.

Zendaya's threesome: Challengers

Let's redefine "girl power" as being "Be as big a jerk as men, and you win"

• Anne Hathaway held hands with her husband, Adam Shulman, after ‘The Idea of You’ screening

Hathaway and Galitzine stopped by TODAY on Monday, April 29, to talk about it and the conversations it has sparked around romantic age gaps.

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  Why would "love" do this to people? Why not?

  Old Anglo Martin Freeman recently spoke to The Times of London about the backlash that erupted over his movie Miller's Girl earlier this year. The erotic thriller opened in theaters in January and caused a stir on social media due to intimate scenes between Freeman and his co-star young Latina Jenna "Lolita" Ortega (Beetlejuice 2). The movie casts the "Wednesday" favorite as an 18-year-old student who is attracted to her writing teacher (Freeman) and attempts to start an affair with him. Freeman is 31 years older than Ortega. Martin Freeman reacts to outrage over ‘Miller's Girl' 31-year age gap with Jenna Ortega: The film is ‘grown up and nuanced' and not saying ‘Isn't this great?'
• Jenna Ortega, 21, was totally 'comfortable and sure' about filming X-rated sex scene with Martin Freeman, 52, for Miller's Girl, film's intimacy coordinator insists -- as she hits back at critics who branded it 'gross' (Daily Mail)

I'm fed up with... [Israel?] No, with being judged.

“It’s kind of fun to be in a film where we talk about it, where we don’t dance around it, but we actually embrace her point of view on it,” Hathaway said.

There’s no doubt The Idea of You subverts traditional rom-com tropes by featuring a relationship between a 40-year-old single mother cougar and a much younger man-child.

However, as Hathaway points out, being 40 can mean different things to different people, and it’s the relationship between two individuals that ultimately matters.

“It’s funny, it’s OK if 40 is old, it’s OK if 40 isn’t old, it’s OK whatever it is, because it’s personal,” she explained. “For [my character] Solène, her point of view is, you know, she became a mom really young, and she really wanted to have a career, and so she doesn’t totally identify with her age.

“She feels like maybe she’s done things a little bit out of order and for her, 40 means it's a time...of self-discovery for her,” she continued. “And that’s what the movie says…how wonderful that she finds someone that she feels so supported by, seen by, embraced by, valued by.”

Is it IRL or Hollywood?

Let's get out of here, Anne. - I'm married, Nick.

Hathaway also said she “poured so much love, so much life experience into this film.” Galitzine and Hathaway also revealed they had instant chemistry as "friends" off-screen.

She was once a starlet in H-wood

“Well, Annie put me through the ringer,” Galitzine joked about their audition. He added that they did “a couple of pretty amazing scenes, one quite comedic, one very emotional,” and that he “serenaded Annie” on set.

“The whole room, it wasn’t just me...Nick sang at the audition with his guitar and looked at me sometimes,” she answered with a laugh. Was The Idea of You age gap the same in the book?

The Idea of You is based on a 2017 novel of the same name by Robinne Lee.

• While the plot of the movie is similar to the book, the characters’ ages were changed slightly in the film adaptation. In the movie, Solène is 40 and Hayes is 24, while in the book, the characters have a larger age gap: Solène is 39, while Hayes is just 20.

Meanwhile, the actual age gap between Hathaway and Galitzine is smaller than in the book or the movie: Hathaway is 41, and Galitzine is 29. “The Idea of You" will be available to stream on Prime Video on May 2. This article was originally published on TODAY.com

• TODAY.com, 4/29/24; Ashley Wells, Crystal Q., CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Yoga: 108 Sun Salutations, Round 2 (1/21)

Ambassador Stella "Yogihantas" Han (kinshipyoga.com/events), Instagram. YogaGivesBack.org, Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Cody, Jen (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

YogaGivesBack.org – To Mobilize the Global Yoga Community

New Year's Yoga Mala: 108 Sun Salutations with Stella Han

Yoga Gives Back (@yogagivesback) • Instagram photos and videos

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The 14 moves in one salutation

Join Yogini Stella for the 8th Annual New Year 108 Sun Salutations event, Round 2!

Practice yoga for a cause: 50% of proceeds go to the charity Yoga Gives Back.

In Eastern philosophy (and other spiritual traditions such as Catholicism), 108 is considered an auspicious number that represents a complete cycle (an alpha and omega, an ultimate beginning or ending phenomenon).

Stella Han, MSW (@yogihantas) • Instagram

For this reason, we aspire to complete an empowering ritual of 108 rounds of Sun Salutation in the new year.

This Hatha Yoga practice may be modified, which is encouraged to make it healthy and assure completion.

Feel free to do any number that feels safe in this body. The Sun Salutation yoga series is a beautiful moving ritual that connects mind and body.

The "Sun Salutation" series is 14 yoga poses.

It can act as a form of devotional practice, bowing to the divine light within, the sun in the heavens, the goal of union....

Set an intention or use the salute to practice, honor, and respect the healing nature of ancient wisdom. Sign up: Kinship Studios (mindbodyonline.com)

• RSVP: Yoga Moving Meditation: 108 Sun Salutations, Round 2, Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 3:30 PM | Meetup
• Yoga Gives Back (@yogagivesback) • Instagram
• Charity helping girls in India: yogagivesback.org

Partner Yoga, Monday nights in L.A.

Holly Saitta (kinshipyoga.com, Highland Park, LA), Dhr. Seven (DBM) (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Partner Yoga: online Partner Yoga poses and stretches (glo.com)

How to get started with Partner Yoga: A Quick Guide (DoYou.com)

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Holly in Partner Yoga with Anthony

Weekly Partner Yoga classes are taught by Holly every Monday night at 7:30 pm at Kinship Yoga in Highland Park.

What would be better to develop skill in yoga than sharing the practice with a partner? Develop balance, enthusiasm, strength, and trust twice as fast as trying to go it alone. Partner yoga goes deeper than a solo practice can get, and with guided Thai yoga massage, each partner will be happy to have participated.

Grab a friend, relative, or even a romantic partner to be introduced to the most intimate of all yoga styles. These modalities help develop awareness, strength, flexibility, and relaxation. Mutual practice also encourages trust and communication.

What is "Partner Yoga" between friends?

Classes begin with light partner stretching, using one another to assist in simple poses. The Partner Yoga naturally progresses into fun exercises, organically evolving into some acrobatics in a fun and safe way.

The session is completed with a cool down of assisted Thai Yoga, diving deep into a full body relaxation with some caring massage techniques.

The session is 90 minutes. Bring a mat, BUT a partner is not required. One will be assigned. Prior sign up online is encouraged:

• Kinship Yoga, Highland Park (kinshipyoga.com)
• RSVP: Introduction to Partner Yoga, Los Angeles (Kinship Studios), Mon, Mar 6, 2023, 7:30 PM | Meetup
• Monday nights in March 2023, 7:30-9:00 PM
• 5612 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042

Restorative Yoga Nidra Sound Bath Workshop, March 4th, Kinship Yoga (mindbodyonline.com)

Alan Watts on "YOGA" (Buddhist Radio)

Alan Watts, Sunday, Sept. 4, 8:00 am (kpfk); Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Pacifica Free Speech Radio Archives: ALAN WATTS on KPFK.org 90.7 FM

(Jofy/YouTube) What is Intellectual Yoga (jnana yoga) on the various paths to union, like Christian devotion (bhakti), karma ("action"), royal or integral (raja or kundalini), chanting (mantra), etc.

Go to "Alan Watts on Sunday, September 4, 2022, at 8:00 AM" in archives.kpfk.org

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ABOUT: "Buddhist Radio" is our name for programmer Roy of Hollywood Tuckman's show Something's Happening when, on Thursdays at midnight and Sundays at 8:00 am, it becomes Buddhist-centric, featuring British-Californian Alan Watts and other luminaries like Los Angeleno Shinzen Young, Pema Chodron, Tami Simon (Sounds True) interviews, and other great overnight listening. Tune in to Pacifica Free Speech Radio, Los Angeles (KPFK.org 90.7 FM).

One-Day Meditation Retreat (Ven. Rahula)

Bhante, Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara; Ananda, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Vice-Abbot Ven. Rahula in front of Kwan Yin statue addressing Western monks at Bhavana Society Forest Meditation Center founded by abbot Bhante G (Ven. Gunaratana Mahathera), West Virginia.

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Bhante Rahula under an old tree

Bhante Rahula (Yogavacara Rahula) was born Scott Joseph DuPrez in Southern California in 1948, ordained as a Theravada Buddhist novice in Sri Lanka in 1975, took higher ordination in Thailand in 1979, and lived in West Virginia's Bhavana Society from 1986 to 2010, traveling in the U.S. and Asia, hiking in the Himalayas. He is now a meditation teacher and acting director of the Siri Pannasiha ("Lion of Wisdom") Meditation Center in Maryland, USA.

Memoir: One Night's Shelter

Mindfulness (sati) is a fundamental Buddhist practice taught by the historical Buddha for the cultivation of insight (vipassana). Meditation (bhavana) is a general word for "cultivation," striving for self-development, of compassion and wisdom. Hatha Yoga involves postures, controlled breathing, vegetarian diet, and other healthy practices. Ven. Rahula combines them.

This retreat is a wonderful opportunity to deepen our practice while together engaging in an experience of mindfulness, cultivating skillful actions (meritorious karma) by chanting, sitting, and walking meditation. Noble silence will be observed. Lunch, breakfast, and tea served. All are welcome. Donation-basis.

• One-Day Mindfulness Meditation Retreat
• Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020, 8:00 am-5:00 pm
• Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara (Center)
• 1023 North Glendora Ave., Covina 91724
• RSVP: Dharma Buddhist Meditation
• RSVP: LABV (vbuddhist@yahoo.com)