Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine

The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine lies a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean, on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades, California. It was founded and dedicated by Paramahansa Yogananda, on August 20, 1950, and is owned by the Self-Realization Fellowship. The site has lush gardens, a large spring-fed lake framed by natural hillsides, and a variety of flora and fauna, swans, ducks, koi, turtles, and lotus flowers. The property is a natural amphitheater. Thousands of visitors come each year.

COVID-19 pandemic

Lake Shrine is open to visitors by advanced reservation only. The Lake Shrine website has the latest information.

Overview

The visitor center provides information about Lake Shrine. There are waterfalls, fountains, flower beds, statues, white swans across the lake, lacy fern grottos, lily ponds, and a Dutch windmill which is used as a chapel. The Court of Religions, honoring five principal religions of the world, displays the symbols of these religions: a cross for Christianity, a Star of David for Judaism, a Wheel of Law for Buddhism, a crescent moon and star for Islam, and the Om symbol for Hinduism. Yogananda believed in an underlying harmony of all faiths that unites us all. Along with a few statues of Krishna and other Hindu deities, there is also a life-size statue of Jesus Christ, above the waterfall, as well as Francis of Assisi and the Madonna and Child.

The golden lotus archway, a towering, sleek, white arch trimmed with blue tile, and topped with gold lotus blossoms, is visible from all parts of the grounds. The archway frames the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial, an outdoor shrine where an authentic 1,000-year-old Chinese stone sarcophagus holds a portion of the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi.

The gardens are filled with little brick paths and short stairways which lead from the main trail to hidden alcoves where meditation or sitting and taking in the view is possible. The gift shop features arts and crafts from India which is adjacent to a museum focusing on Paramahansa Yogananda, the founder of Lake Shrine. There is a Dutch windmill converted into a chapel, a houseboat, a bookstore and a temple overlooking the lake.

History

The site of the present day Lake Shrine was once part of a parcel of land in the Santa Ynez Canyon, called Bison Ranch. After an initial daily lease arrangement, it was purchased by the silent film producer and director Thomas H. Ince in 1912 to serve as his studio that was developed into an expansive network of sets. Originally known as the Miller 101 Bison Ranch studio, it was subsequently named Inceville, and then Triangle Ranch. After Ince founded his new Triangle/Ince Studios in Culver City in 1915, the site was taken over the following year by director William S. Hart and eventually renamed Hartville. On January 16, 1916, a fire broke out at the Inceville studio; portentously, the first of numerous that eventually claimed all of the timber frame buildings onsite. In 1920, Hart sold the property to the Robertson-Cole Pictures Corporation when it was renamed as R.C. Ranch, and where filming continued until a blaze destroyed all of the remaining structures (except for an old church that was made of stone) on July 4, 1922.

For a period of time hence, the property was utilized as a sand, rock, and gravel quarry before it was later purchased by Los Angeles real-estate magnate Alphonzo Bell, Sr. In 1927, the surrounding hillsides were hydraulically graded to fill the canyon, with the intention to completely level it for future development. However, the earth-moving project was never completed, which left a large basin in an unleveled portion of the canyon that subsequently filled to a depth of with water from four (hot and cold) springs within the vicinity. The became known as Lake Santa Ynez; the only natural spring-fed lake within the City of Los Angeles.

The property remained undeveloped for more than a decade, when the lake was used as a local swimming hole and cattails and reeds grew to screen most of it from view. Although much of the local citizenry considered the area to be valueless swampland, the property was nevertheless purchased by H. Everett "Big Mac" McElroy (the assistant superintendent of construction at 20th Century Studio) in 1940, when it was again used as a film set. McElroy later reflected on his initial vision of his purchase:

The lake was subsequently dredged, and the weeds were cleared away. During his ownership, McElroy and his wife lived in three successively originative domiciles: their two-story Mississippi-styled houseboat (''Adeline'') transported from Lake Mead, a mill house McElroy constructed (which today serves as the gift shop and museum) equipped with a 2.5 ton water wheel used for onsite irrigation from captured lake overflow, and a sixteenth-century replica of a Dutch windmill he built, which later served as the first chapel of the Lake Shrine. The windmill, though functional, was never utilized. After the McElroys had moved into the mill house, they rented out the houseboat to film stars, movie-industry people, and on occasion to unnamed royalty. At some point, a Chinese Junk had been brought to the site and moored on the eastern shore.

In 1948, McElroy and his wife sold the property to Rene Williams and Joseph M. Gross (an oil company executive) for a reported price exceeding $250,000. Gross and his wife moved into the windmill and made plans to redevelop the site into a resort that included a rambling $2.3 million, 150-room hotel to be constructed around the contour of Lake Santa Ynez. However, one evening Mr. Gross purportedly had a dream reoccur three times, where in the middle of the lake there was a platform adorned with a podium. Here ministers from the "churches of all religions" addressed thousands of attendees with inspirational speeches. When Mr. Gross awoke, he looked up the name "Church of All Religions" in the telephone directory and found the listing for the ''Self-Realization Fellowship Church of All Religions'' located in Hollywood. Inspired by this extraordinary coincidence, Gross immediately composed a letter to go out in the next day's mail, which described his dream and included an offer to sell his property.

Rather than await a response, on the following day, Gross telephoned the church headquarters and was transferred to Paramahansa Yogananda who mysteriously initiated the conversation before the caller could even introduce himself or state his business: “You have some property for sale, don’t you? When can I see it?”, enquired Sri Yogananda. “But you haven’t received my letter,” replied Mr. Gross. “The letter will come tomorrow morning. Can we meet tomorrow afternoon?”, responded Sri Yogananda. The next day, he visited the site and immediately planned for the establishment of an open-air shrine of all religions. With the support of several benefactors, Paramahansa Yogananda acquired the property in 1949 and constructed a temple, meditation garden, and the Mahatma Gandhi peace memorial.

During the months of improvement, Sri Yogananda commuted from the Mount Washington hermitage (whilst spending at least several nights in the houseboat) to supervise the project with a vision to create an environment that would reflect all aspects of God with peace, beauty, and harmony; and also invoked a blessing upon all of the future visitors to the Lake Shrine. A public dedication of the Lake Shrine took place on August 20, 1950. The keynote speaker was the then Lieutenant Governor Goodwin Knight who addressed some 1,500 attendees, including Oscar Gavrilovich (Council General of Yugoslavia in New York) and a number of other foreign dignitaries. Within the first eight months of its opening, ten thousand people had visited the site.

Sri Yogananda had remarked that the location reminded him of Kashmir, and had described within the ''Autobiography of a Yogi'' some of the landscaped features and flora cultivated onsite:

On March 6, 1952, the day before his passing, Paramahansa Yogananda and a group of monks participated in what was to become known as the Guru's "Last Supper", where for over an hour Sri Yogananda chanted "Light the Lamp of Thy Love" while playing the organ.

A number of improvements have occurred on the property in the ensuing years, including: the construction of the main temple upon the southern bluff overlooking the lake (in 1996), construction of the monastics' ashram