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Live Without Fear: Cultivating Calmness, Courage & Faith

  • Ananda Temple 2171 El Camino Real Palo Alto, CA United States (map)

Free for contribution members, $20 per class/$60 total

This four-week series, based on Paramhansa Yogananda’s How to Live Without Fear, explores practical ways to transform worry, nervousness, and anxiety into calmness, courage, and faith. Yogananda taught that fear arises when we resist life as it is. By learning to accept circumstances with equanimity and attune ourselves to divine grace, we begin to meet life’s challenges with clarity and peace.

Each class will combine lecture, meditation, guided practices, and discussion, offering tools to strengthen inner stillness and confidence. Together we will reflect on how calmness and courage arise naturally when we live in harmony with higher truth and the assurance that we are “safe behind the battlements of God’s eternal safety.”

Weekly Themes

  • Week 1 – Overcoming the Habit of Worry (Ganga): Understanding worry as misplaced energy and redirecting it toward faith and purposeful action.

  • Week 2 – Overcoming Nervousness (Aryavan): Developing calm energy through breath, awareness, and inner centeredness.

  • Week 3 – Cultivating Calmness (Premi & Navashen): Exploring the power of calmness as the foundation of strength and joy.

  • Week 4 – Cultivating Inner Strength & Courage (Kshama): Deepening attunement with divine strength as the source of true courage.

Whether you seek freedom from worry’s grip or wish to deepen your capacity for calm courage, this series invites you to embody the truth: “In the center of life’s storms, I stand serene.

Cultivating Calmness, Courage and Faith

$60 for series; $20 per class
If you are an Ananda member, you may attend at no cost

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Aryavan McSweeney

Aryavan is Director of Living Wisdom School (pre K-8) in Palo Alto. He and his wife, Ishani, come here from India where they shared EFL principles with the schools there. What became known as the EFL Inspired Schools program was based in two KG-12 schools in Gurugram, where over one hundred teachers are now practicing EFL’s child-centered approach with over two thousand students.

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Kshama Kellogg

Kshama is a long-time teacher in Living Wisdom School, and herself a former student. This deep immersion in the experience and ideals gives her a unique sensitivity to the needs of students. She is a gifted mentor/coach to young people. She is also a skilled yoga and meditation instructor, athlete, singer, and actor.

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Premi Anderson
Premi Anderson

Premi serves full time at Ananda Valley Farm, growing and sharing produce, making herbal products, and helping to facilitate community participation events at the farm (You can learn more by visiting www.anandavalleyfarm.net). She is a gifted yoga teacher with over a decade of experience guiding yoga and meditation classes in various settings.

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Navashen Jones

Navashen helps others fulfill their highest potential through the Ananda teachings in a fun, positive atmosphere. Before Ananda, he was involved in operations services for baseball teams, and as Director of Operations at Facebook’s corporate fitness center. Navashen teaches meditation, and also has a gift for working with young children through nature awareness activities and guided play. He serves in many ways with kindness, a ready smile, and a deep wellspring of inner calmness.

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Ganga

Shanthala as a warm, welcoming presence for newcomers. She has many talents in tech, project management, music, and dance. She grew up in a traditional Indian household and completed graduate studies in management in the U.S. Successful in Silicon Valley, she left her tech career to devote full time to spiritual pursuits and serving on staff at Ananda. She is a certified meditation teacher, and also gifted with children of all ages, helping to guide our family programs.

Earlier Event: February 2
Kriyaban Group Meditation
Later Event: February 4
Guided Sadhana - Community Yoga & Meditation