Ananda Madhumaya 2024 [English]

Namaskar to you all,

This post is to update you about the development of the project in 2024 and  let you know what are the steps for 2025 and beyond. I also hope to inspire you to help complete those steps! But even if you can’t help, please do enjoy this update 🙂

Before going into more detail about the accomplishments, I want to share what’s coming up shortly:

The land that lies right behind / beside us is up for sale!
We have already talked with the owner and checked all the legalities. All is ready to go.

– Our existing land with orange boundary, the new land with red.

The new land it about 2200 square meters or a bit more than half acre. This would double the size of our land and give many possibilities. Part is gullies which we are planning to restore with the original flora, one retired botanist is very inspired to do this with his students. He is also helping with many medicinal plants. Other uses will be for the warrior camps, nice paths for meditative walks, securing some buffer from noisy neighbors & and preventing others from building right next to us, and we’ll have a bit more space to expand in future. Right now the land already has mango trees, tamarind and papaya, maybe more that we have not seen yet. We’ll be planting more!

The cost of the land is no more than USD 20,000 including legal expenses, but I am quite confident that we will be able to purchase it for USD 15000 or even less. For this area it would be quite cheap. The photo on the top looks out over the new land. You can see the big trees on the right. The sun is also beautiful, it turns up almost every day even though it’s not part of the deal 🙂

The good news is that several generous donations contributed already to a bit over $5000!

Would you be able to help us to get all the way? With funds in hand it will also be easier to negotiate.

–> Click here to find how to make your donation <–.

If you can’t help this time or already supporting other projects, no worries. I am happy to be able to share with you what we are up to.

Now it’s time to get back to the update. It covers 2024 and late 2023:

The dorm building is now fully reinforced and structurally sound. We can safely put a second floor on it in the future. In front of the dorm room, there is space for parking or sports, and it’s surrounded by flower beds with fruit trees. There is now a proper path linking the dorm rooms to the central building, which includes 3 double rooms, another dorm room, a kitchen, a laundry room, a living room and a covered outside dining area. Furthermore, there is now a proper path from the dining area to the DC hall and Jagrtii. There are gardens and terraces with fruit trees, flowers, and edible plants are spread throughout.

The small leaking cistern was fixed last year and has not leaked since. Ranendra (LFT) did a tremendous job! He also painted all the gates and and window frames in matching style. More space was created for a vegetable garden with cilantro (for delicious Pesto), tomatoes, Moringa, papaya and melons, here Jyotish (LFT) deserves the credit. We lost our very productive guava tree, it was blown over in an unusually strong storm. A new one is already planted so in a few years we hope to have new supply!

The work in progress:

Our current water cistern holds 25 m3/6000 gallons of water, which is not enough to last for a week without rainfall. Since there is minimal (no) rain for about 7 months and the town’s water supply is only available for 6 hours a week, we needed a better solution than purchasing water trucks.

– The Start of a new cistern – June 2024

We have a significant amount of roof space and receive plenty of rain during the rainy season, so we have the potential to lots of water. We dug a 160,000-liter tank (40,000 gallons) as shown above. This tank will provide us with about 3 months’ worth of water. We faced a lot of obstacles and in the end we had to line it with concrete rather than agricultural plastic. It was a big financial challenge but again with help from many we managed to complete it including the cover.

– Dec 2024

Future work planned:

1) All that needs to be done for the cistern is apply waterproofing on the inside and making it look pretty on the outside by plastering the walls and put flower gardens in front of it. As the rainy season is already over we’ll have plenty time to get these things ready before the next rains start late June. The walls in the back will be removed as soon as the land behind it is ours.

2) The next main target is the land I mentioned already above. Hopefully we can do it next month!

3) The dining area is an open area with an asbestos roof. We need to do something about this: Put a proper roof and install mosquito screens. In this way, it will remain airy but insects will be controlled. The roof would be ready with plumbing and wiring for a 2nd floor. In case there is anything left over from the purchase of the land we’ll use it here.

4) Right now we only have 3 double rooms. Most people do not like dorm rooms, so we hope to build 7 more double rooms on top of the house and the dining room. This would greatly enhance the comfort of the participants of our programs. It would also give us a much better chance to find other groups that would like to rent our place so we can generate some income.

The facilities as they are can accommodate around 25 people plus staff comfortably. With the 2nd floor that would become 40 and when we also count the top of the bunk beds and camping we can accommodate around 55 people plus staff (with the 2nd floor it would be 80.

5) Our meditation hall can have up to 50 people for meditation, but for yoga only 20, also for other activities, it’s too small. That brings us to the expansion of the meditation hall. We can quite easily double the size of the hall without having to build a new one. While doing this we can make sure that the hall will be much cooler by using reflective glass and screens to keep the sun out. AC is on the wish list but expensive so we hope to see what we can achieve with passive cooling first.

6) The new cistern mentioned above can supply about 3 months of water. However, the dry season is about 7 – 8 months. So once we have this new land (hopefully by February!) we plan to build an even bigger cistern and build it in such a way that it can also be used for swimming and later made in a beautiful pool. This would then not only help us become self-sufficient in water year-round but also provide a place for exercise. It would also make the place more desirable for renting and our detox programs. There is a copper-ion purification system so the water remains good to use for irrigation and other uses. It also avoids the use of the toxic chlorine.

I hope we can achieve much of this before the end of 2026.

7) Once we have more of a community and more income we’ll step by step increase the size of the land to the required minimum of 5 acres / 2 hectares. That land will then be used to become as much as possible self-sufficient in food. There is plenty of agricultural land available adjunct to our property. The land prices are quite high in Mexico so it will take a while. We may be able to lease land in the meantime.

8) These items above may come in other order depending on sponsors and interest. We would like to place solar panels with backup batteries to become self-sufficient in power as well. We’d like to install a water filtration system so we can make the water from the cisterns suitable for cooking and drinking.

* For those of you not familiar with the concept of Master Unit. It’s meant to be a place self-sufficient in the basic necessities such as
water, food, housing, medical, and clothing. Naturally also energy is vital. It’s a place to show what is possible and share this knowledge with the community. This is of course a very big plan but bit by bit we’ll be able to implement it. It was the vision of our teacher to have these places in all regions and become a source of inspiration and practical knowledge for society.

Thank you so much for reading this far. I hope you will be able to help us.

We are striving for self-sufficiency however right now we still very much need your help to get there.

If you like to know more please feel free to write me. If you feel inspired and like to help I have put a few options to help financially
below. Smaller but regular monthly donations would also be a very big help. I can help to set it up if this would like to do this.

If you have time, like to visit and have skills that can help us, please also contact me. You are very welcome.

Thank you so much. I wish you happy holidays and a blissful New Year.

Sincerely,
Dada Krpasundarananda

__________________________________________________

For US Tax deductible donations you can send funds to the Path of Bliss
by PayPal or credit card. Two steps are needed:
1) click: https://www.pathofbliss.com/Donate then
2) click the (4th) button under “DONATE TO SOCIAL SERVICE PROJECTS” and
select “Mexico Master Unit” the third step would really help to get it
here securely.
3) let me know by replying to this email, so I can follow up with our
office.

One can also send a check to “Path of Bliss” Write: “For Mexico Master
Unit”, mail to:
*THE PATH OF BLISS, INC
*22 Joel M Austin Rd N, Cairo, NY 12413
tel: 518-323-9642

Finally, again, please let me know so I can follow up with our office.

If you *do not need it to be tax deductible* it is easier to send it to
me directly. That way we’ll also receive the full amount for the project:

1) In the US you could make out a check to Kees Boekhoven sign the front
& back and then send me well focused photo’s of each side. I can deposit
them through the banking app.

2) Use Zelle with krpasundarananda@gmail.com to send it electronically
to my Bank of America Account.

3) You can use the same email for either PayPal or Wize. With Paypal, if
possible, send it as a “family/friends” transfer, not as “goods and
services” otherwise PayPal will take a 3% cut.

4) Bank: Bank of America
Name: Kees Boekhoven
Account: 483035202937
Routing: 021000322
Address: 22 Joel Austin Rd North, Cairo, NY 12413

5) If you are outside the US let me know, I can of course receive in
Mexico, but also in Europe and through Wise I can receive through many
local accounts in other countries with minimal fees. Just let me know.

Thank you so much for your consideration !!!