Self-Realization Fellowship Blog

Self-Realization Fellowship Announces Changes in the Board of Directors

January 15, 2021

Brother Achalananda
Brother Vishwananda

We would like to share with all our members and friends that in late December, our revered vice president, Brother Achalananda, requested the Self-Realization Fellowship Board of Directors to allow him to step back from his role as a member of the Board and as vice president of the organization, owing to his advanced age. (He will be 95 later this year!)

SRF President Brother Chidananda lovingly accepted Brother Achalananda’s request and assured him that his long years of dedicated and loyal service to Paramahansa Yogananda’s worldwide work had earned him a place of great honor and gratitude in the hearts of all his fellow disciples; and that we all hope he will enjoy further blessed years without the responsibilities incumbent on a member of the Board of Directors. It was agreed that a public announcement would be made after the holidays, along with information about who would succeed Brother Achalananda in this important position, which has now been determined.

On January 12, 2021, the Board of Directors unanimously voted to elect Brother Vishwananda as vice president of Self-Realization Fellowship, effective immediately.

Brother Achalananda, a senior minister of SRF, was asked by Sri Daya Mata to become a member of the SRF Board of Directors in 2001. He also served on the Board of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS) for some years. During his two decades as a Board member, Brother Achalananda’s wisdom and long years of experience as a Kriya Yogi and monastic disciple of our Guru enabled him to give tremendous, tireless support to three successive presidents of SRF/YSS. After Daya Mataji’s passing in 2010, he was elected vice president to fill the position vacated by the former vice president, Sri Mrinalini Mata, who had then become the fourth president of SRF/YSS.

Brother Vishwananda was also chosen for the SRF Board of Directors by Sri Daya Mata, beginning in 1996. Additionally, for many years he has served on the YSS Board. Since 2016 he has served as the SRF treasurer, as well as fulfilling a wide range of vital responsibilities for Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India in the United States, India, and around the world. In addition to his new duty as vice president, Brother Vishwananda will continue to serve as the treasurer of SRF and to carry on his many other services to Paramahansa Yogananda’s SRF/YSS organization.

Brother Chidananda expressed his love, esteem, and profound gratitude to both of these dear monks, saying:

“Brother Achalananda has been an inspiration and revered ‘elder brother’ to me and all of the monks of SRF and YSS whose lives he has enriched for many years. His decades of deep Kriya Yoga meditation combined with tireless, intelligent service have been an example and a joy to me and to countless others — both in our Guru’s ashrams and to the thousands of SRF and YSS members he has personally served in our temples and meditation centers around the world. I offer him my loving pranams in deepest respect and thanks, and my heartfelt wishes for continuously deeper bliss and God-communion in the years ahead.

“I am delighted and grateful that Brother Vishwananda has humbly agreed to take on the spiritual and organizational responsibilities of vice president at this time. He has been a pillar in Paramahansa Yogananda’s work in India and in the West for many years — deeply respected by devotees worldwide — having absorbed the spirit of serviceful discipleship and deep inner devotion to God through his lifelong commitment to our Guru’s Kriya Yoga path and his decades of blessed association with our beloved Sri Daya Mata, Ananda Mata, Mrinalini Mata, and other exalted disciples. He has been an inval­uable divine friend and support to me, and I am more thankful than words can express that this will continue as he takes on his additional responsibilities as vice president.”

In light of the above, the SRF Board of Directors will now consist of Brother Chidananda, Brother Vishwananda, Sister Preeti, Sister Shovana, Sister Bhakti, and Brother Saralananda.

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