To our Teachers, Students, Friends and Supporters:

The yoga center facility of Ananda Seva will be closing at the end of June. It is with sadness we are taking this step, but it is also to be understood in the evolution of consciousness that all things in the material world are a bit transitory in nature. What is important is that the teachings that occurred in the past ten years will go on, and they will.

Ananda Seva started in the Flathead Valley 10 years ago in the Summer of 1996 by sponsoring “Evenings Of Music And Meditation,” at my home in Bigfork. The gatherings attracted 25 to 35 people who had not gathered in such numbers for something so “New Age” in the area. It was a time when people were just beginning to think of coming out of the woodwork and there were no spiritual centers or yoga centers in the Valley at that time. It was at one of these gatherings that the idea of a “Center” was first hatched.

In May of 2001 the “Ananda Seva Yoga and Meditation Center” opened at 1342 Airport Road and a few years later we moved to larger quarters in the KM building as the “Ananda Seva Center For Yoga and the Arts.” Finally we moved next door to our present locations as “Ananda Seva Yoga Center” and became primarily a yoga center. I estimate we have provided service to several thousand people in the Flathead Valley area in the past five years and yoga and meditation have become known and established in part because of the very existence and programs of the Center. The Center has also provided a space for Art shows, concerts, community events, meetings, and a wide variety of workshops in addition to the yoga, yoga philosophy and meditation classes. I feel very good for all the service that has been provided to the community as a result of the existence of the center and its programs and support of other worthy programs.

We have chosen to close quite simply because the needs of the community are shifting. Yoga is now taught in many convenient locations throughout the valley and there are now many professionally trained teachers residing here who can teach through locally based centers, health clubs and fitness centers, churches and homes for the elderly. Yoga has most certainly come out of the closet in the Flathead.

Ananda Seva will remain active and continue to provide programs, instruction in yoga meditation, group meditations and gatherings in the Flathead Valley as we have done continually for 10 years and programs will be offered in some of the other centers in the area as well as my home.

It has been a great five years of operating the three different Ananda Seva Centers in the Flathead Valley. There are many, many people to thank, but greatest thanks goes to Tami Randall and Crystal Lost-Bear who put in the most valuable resources of all, their hearts.

My deepest gratitude to all of you, who participated, taught, supported and gave of your time, your effort and your heart.

In Deep Appreciation,
Marc Nevas (Acharya Madhusudan)