Camano Farm Ashram: East & West Blended

“The truth, we teach is universal. It incorporates all the great religions of the world, but it transcends them as well. God is not the property of any religion or sect; no one can lay exclusive claim on divine rights. Discover the universal message for the impulse to know God, and you will have the key to what ties all humanity and all creation into oneness of spirit; a universal panacea for world understanding, and peace that replaces the ignorance of separation and brute force conversion.” —Yogacharya David Hickenbottom

Jesus Christ

Paramhansa Yogananda

The essence of Jesus the Christ’s teachings, both in Spirit and in Truth, permeate the Farm Ashram. His life serves as a template for our own. The outward details of his life show us a path of Simplicity and Brotherhood, living outside with his disciples, owning nothing, and serving all in God’s Love. Inwardly, we recognize that the life of Jesus is a parable of our own destiny to walk the Way of the Christ and attain Self-realization: to experience the Christ seed born in us, the crucifixion and death of our ego, and the resurrection of the Christ-consciousness within us. His twin ideals, “Love the Lord Thy God” and “Love thy Neighbor as thyself” are constant guides for us at the Ashram.

Paramhansa Yogananda came to the West in 1920 to bring us the ancient yogic techniques of Kriya Yoga to help us attain Self-Realization. His goal was not to “India-nize” the West but to reveal Original Christianity and demonstrate the inherent unity between Jesus’s teachings and those of the Yogi-Christ’s of India and give a scientific method to experience Christ-consciousness. In this way, he is the embodiment of East & West blended together. His final legacy to the world was his vision of World Brotherhood colonies, which he called the Living Church of Christ, where “simple living + high thinking lead to the greatest Happiness.” Read more about his vision in this 1949 talk.

Masanobu Fukuoka

St. Francis of Assisi

Masanobu Fukuoka of Shikoku, Japan is the farming-guru of our Ashram. 

Fukuoka dedicated his entire adult life, over 50 years, to creating a practical and real-life application of the universal oneness and bliss of life that he experienced as a young man. He called this simply “natural farming.” 

His philosophy too, is simple: “The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the 

cultivation and perfection of human beings.” To become a natural person, is to awaken to the divine presence which permeates all life and nature, and to live accordingly; not in the consciousness of control and separation from life, but with harmony and oneness to it.
His book, the One Straw Revolution, is the natural farming manifesto, and the seed from which the garden of Camano has grown. 

We were blessed to have time with Fukuoka’s foremost western disciple, Larry Korn, including his last natural farming retreat in North America, before he left the body in 2019. 

Fukuoka holds up an incredibly high bar, helping us aspire well beyond the agricultural methods and philosophy of the modern world, gazing into a future rooted in Christ Consciousness. 

How would we farm if we were to live in Eden? What shall our consciousness become? Let us dream, and let us become that.

Born into a wealthy family in 12th century Italy, Francis renounced his riches, comfort and security and dedicated his life to God Alone. The fire that burned in him to walk the way of the Christ ignited a revolution of renunciation that renewed the vitality and sanctity of religious life.

Yogananda called St. Francis of Assisi his patron saint and the same is true for us here at the Farm Ashram. His perfect imitation of Christ through his devotion to “Lady Poverty” inspires us daily to deepen our commitment to living a life-path of Simplicity & Brother/Sisterhood.
Recommended reading: The Perfect Joy of St. Francis: A Novel by Felix Timmermans.