The Self-Realization Fellowship Encinitas Hermitage and Meditation Gardens, created by Paramahansa Yogananda in the 1930s on a coastal bluff in Encinitas, California, became a major spiritual center combining public meditation gardens with a monastic ashram. After Yogananda’s disciple Rajarsi Janakananda purchased the land in 1935, Yogananda returned in 1936, lived there, and dedicated the hermitage in 1937. From this retreat he wrote Autobiography of a Yogi and helped establish a permanent base for the Self-Realization Fellowship and its sister organization in India. The site’s history also includes the lost Golden Lotus Temple, later memorialized by the Golden Lotus Tower.

Photo: Wikipedia · Public domain