Nayaswami Dharmaraj
Together with his wife Dharmini, Dharmaraj serves as a Spiritual Director for Ananda Los Angeles. He discovered Yogananda’s book, Autobiography of a Yogi, as a college student. The spiritual truths in that book strongly attracted him, as did their many applications to daily life, as taught by Nayaswami Kriyananda. After completing a master’s degree in computer science from MIT, Dharmaraj joined Ananda full-time, where he has worked a schoolteacher, meditation teacher, and corporate trainer. Dharmaraj and Dharmini recently returned from Ananda India, where they served for 3.5 years.
Nayaswami Dharmini
Together with her husband Dharmaraj, Dharmini serves as a Spiritual Director for Ananda Los Angeles. Dharmini has been a student of kriya yoga for the past 20 years. While an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley, she searched for deeper meaning in her life until she came upon the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda. She then decided to dedicate her life to sharing these teachings with others and began serving full time at Ananda. Recently, she and her husband served in India for 3.5 years helping to establish an Ananda Ashram in New Delhi and teaching meditation. Before moving to LA, they lived at Ananda Village in Northern California.
Nayaswamis Haridas and Roma
Nayaswamis Haridas and Roma are the Spiritual Directors of Ananda South Bay. They have been serving in Ananda Sangha for over 30 years. They have taught meditation workshops and conducted retreats throughout the U.S., India, Europe and Malaysia. For many years they helped manage several Ananda colonies as well as the Expanding Light and Meditation Retreat Facilities at the Ananda Village in Northern California. They spent 5 years helping to establish Ananda Sangha in India, where they directed the Delhi, Kolkata, and Lucknow centers. Haridas and Roma grew up in California and have a daughter who is graduate school.
Tyagi Ram
Tyagi Ram Smith has been an Ananda Minister for over 35 years. He has presented Paramhansa Yogananda’s and Swami Kriyananda’s teachings of Self-Realization around the world. Ram was a founding member of Ananda Assisi, Italy in 1987 where he lived for seven years and met Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in 1989. Ram helps to inspire great devotion and spiritual understanding during his classes.
Brook Cassady
Brook moved to Ananda with her family when she was thirteen. Before being asked to serve in Los Angeles by Swami Kriyananda, Brook spent more than 17 years living, learning, practicing, and receiving training at Ananda Village, where she was the co-director for the Ananda Yoga teacher training program for several years, one of the oldest, most-respected styles of yoga taught in the United States. She is also licensed by Yoga Alliance as an E-RYT 500 and is a certified Meditation teacher. Brook has also lived and served at Ananda Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ananda Europa in Assisi, Italy, and spent time in Ananda Sacramento as a child.
Dharmadevi Romano
Dharmadevi has been with Ananda since 2006. She is a Certified Meditation Teacher and was part of the core group that started Ananda Los Angeles in 2007. Dharmadevi lived at Ananda Village for 2 years and helped launch Ananda Online Classes and the Virtual Community. She has been practicing and teaching alternative healing modalities since 2000 and especially enjoys sharing Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings on health and healing. Dharmadevi is currently teaching the AKASH (Ancient Keys to Attaining Success & Happiness) series that Swami Kriyananda wrote while in LA, and she is part of the founding team of Yogananda Institute.
Philip Romano
Phil is a Certified Ananda Yoga and Meditation teacher. Hobbies include: guitar, soccer, & rudraksha beads.
Bhagavati (Sharon) Nani
Bhagavati performed and recorded with numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles (including the San Francisco Opera and The Women’s Philharmonic) throughout her career as a classical flutist. She began focusing on music as a ministry after finding Ananda in 1998 and soon found herself singing in addition to playing the flute. Bhagavati recently moved to Los Angeles where she and her husband, Ramesha, head up the Ananda LA music ministry and are members of the LA Joy Singers.
Ramesha (Fabio) Nani
Ramesha studied classical guitar, violin, and voice, and taught middle school music, while in his native Switzerland. During repeated visits to the Ananda meditation and retreat center in Assisi (Italy), Ramesha met his wife, Bhagavati, and was introduced to Inner Quest Music. They now live in Los Angeles, where they head up the Ananda LA music ministry and are members of the LA Joy Singers.
Lauri Willard
Lauri discovered Ananda in Palo Alto in 2001, after meeting several joyful members of the Ananda Community at a local gym where she worked. She was certified as an Ananda Yoga Teacher in 2004, and as an Ananda Meditation Teacher in 2005. She is a member of the LA Joy Singers, a quartet that shares Swami Kriyananda’s uplifting Inner Quest Music with Los Angeles and the world.
Peter Kretzmann
Peter was born and raised at Ananda Village in Northern California and came to appreciate these teachings at an early age. Peter went to school for Electronics Technology, and also has been certified as a yoga teacher and as a meditation teacher. Peter sings bass in the LA Joy Singers and loves to share love and joy in that way. He also helps out with different technical things at Ananda LA.
Tyagi Dikshini
Dikshini was raised in Hungary. Having read Autobiography of a Yogi in 2004 changed her life dramatically to the extent that she left Hungary and flew straight to Ananda Village to get Kriya initiation. She served there for 4 months and then moved to Ananda Assisi for 7 months. In September 2005, Dikshini returned to the U.S., and she and her husband, Ram, were married. They served together in Ananda Rhode Island for 5 years. In 2010, they moved to LA to support Ananda LA.
Paul Fetler
Paul is a certified Ananda Yoga and Meditation Instructor. For the past 6 years he has taught ongoing yoga classes at Ananda Meditation Center in the South Bay, and for nearly 2 years he has led the weekly Wednesday night meditation group in Hollywood. Paul also helps with various web social media outlets to let you know what the latest events and updates are in Ananda Southern California.
