Mission

The Ananda Institute of Alternative Living was created to offer college students an Education for Life approach to higher education that prepares students not only for a career, but for life’s many challenges. How often have you wished that a college could teach things like how to find true happiness, how to grow your own food, build your own home, how to find a suitable mate, or how to become a good friend, take care of your health or follow a budget?

In his groundbreaking book, Education for Life, J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda) offers a constructive and brilliant alternative to what has been called the disaster of modern education. The need for change is universally recognized. In this book, the author traces the problem to an emphasis on technological competence at the expense of spiritual values, which alone can give higher meaning to life. Much of today’s higher education puts too much emphasis on intellectual and mental learning, without recognizing and nurturing the spiritual qualities inherent in each human being. When too much importance is placed on one’s mental abilities and careers designed for monetary success alone, the result is the creation of materialistic people who have been taught to find their happiness in acquiring the “outward” symbols of success. What is needed is a balanced approach to higher education…one that recognizes and supports that true happiness is an “inner” quality of the

soul, and without developing one’s soul qualities, one’s connection to the highest within oneself, one’s connection to the Universal Intelligence, one’s connection to God (however one defines God), the true meaning of life becomes materialistic and one-dimensional.

It is our sincere desire to offer a balanced, holistic education for those students who want to develop higher consciousness within themselves and who want to develop a successful life that is an expression of the highest within themselves.