Ananda Gaorii

We are a spiritual and social service organization with a network of projects including yoga and meditation centers, schools, children's homes, disaster relief and local development.

We are located near the small town of Vig in the Danish countryside an hours drive from Copenhagen (1 hour and 40 minutes by train). We have thirteen hectares of land some of which is farmed by our neighbors (organic and biodynamic) and some of which we cultivate ourselves. We have a small orchard and three polytunnels and we are learning about permaculture and trying to apply its principles.

Our community consists of three Sannyasis (yoga monks) and usually between 10 to 20 short and long term volunteers. During retreats and seminars our population increases to anywhere from 30 to 200.

Our main focus is to offer experiential learning in the fields of spirituality, community, self-reliance and sustainability. We have a daily routine of yoga, chanting and meditation and weekly activities such as yoga teacher training, classes on yoga philosophy, community sharing and cultural evenings. We meet every morning for some sharing and planning the work for the day. Our main jobs at the moment are developing the garden, building renovation and hosting retreats and seminars. Cooking, cleaning and maintaining a large house also take up time.

As far as recreation is concerned we are a short drive to a long and beautiful beach, there are a couple of nice forests within walking and biking distance, we are 5 minutes from the town of Vig and if you want to visit Copenhagen you can stay in our downtown yoga center. For those of you who like riding, the local vet borrows some of our fields to graze her horses and she is happy to lend us riding equipment if we request.

Note: Our diet is vegetarian (Vegans are also welcome). Some of our food we grow ourselves, our bread comes from our own bakery and we buy some food from the supermarket. We are gradually becoming more self-reliant.

We are usually quite an international group with regular new arrivals from all over the world. So there is plenty of opportunity to meet people from different cultures. We offer each new volunteer the opportunity to learn meditation and yoga and to participate in the daily collective chanting and meditation. We have regular discussions about spiritual philosophy and how to live mindfully, we offer once a week training for those who would like to learn how to teach yoga and meditation and you can learn along with our garden team about permaculture and organic food growing. Just by being engaged in building, gardening, cooking, etc. volunteers will learn a lot. By participating in daily meetings and other community activities volunteers will learn about building community, group facilitation, leadership, etc. Through living the yoga lifestyle volunteers will learn about healthy diet and lifestyle, veggie cooking, etc.