Self-Realization Fellowship Encinitas Hermitage and Meditation Gardens
The Self-Realization Fellowship Encinitas Hermitage and Meditation Gardens is a religious center and tourist attraction in Encinitas, California, United States, created by Paramahansa Yogananda in the 1930s. Its Golden Lotus Tower rises above the white wall along Highway 101 near Swami's Seaside Park. The meditation gardens are open to the public, and the compound also contains a monastic ashram that is home to SRF monks, nuns, and male postulants.
History
After establishing SRF's headquarters in Los Angeles in 1925, Paramahansa Yogananda began searching for a site to build a seaside hermitage. He came across the area of Encinitas then known as Noonan's Point, now Swami's Point, where a bluff overlooks the Pacific Ocean. He and some of his disciples frequented the area to meditate and picnic. In 1935, while Yogananda was on a return trip to India, his disciple Rajarsi Janakananda bought the property and built the SRF Encinitas Hermitage there as a surprise gift for Yogananda.After his return to the United States from India in 1936, Yogananda took up residence in the hermitage, dedicating it in 1937. It was while staying in the hermitage that Yogananda wrote his work Autobiography of a Yogi, as well as other writings, and created a permanent foundation for the spiritual and humanitarian work of the Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India.