Morning
Wake in a Vastu cottage. Forest air, birdsong, silence. Yoga or meditation under an ancient tree.
Ananda Eco Village & Community
A spiritual sanctuary, eco-resort and residential village in the highlands of Mauritius, bordering the largest protected forest on the island.
- Where
- Chamarel, Mauritius
- Land
- 76 acres, five parcels
- Borders
- Black River Gorges
The land is identified, surveyed and documented. It has yet to be acquired, and negotiations are ongoing.
The short version
Ma Ananda Sarita on her vision for the eco-village, and on the purpose she has been following toward it.
Three divides are pulling the world apart
Framework: Otto Scharmer, Presencing Institute.
We have lost touch with nature.
Ananda heals the land and grows its own food.
We have grown wary of each other.
Ananda brings many cultures together in trust.
We have drifted from our deepest nature.
Ananda reconnects us with source through daily practice.
The next Buddha will not take the form of a person. The next Buddha will take the shape of a community.
Ananda is an attempt to take that literally. Not a retreat centre people visit and leave, but a place where the practice is the daily life of the people who live there.
Fifty years of practice, looking for a permanent home
Ananda Sarita
Spiritual founder, Tantra Essence
On the path of Tantra and meditation since 1973. Twenty-six years in the community of Osho, seventeen of them in his direct presence.
Founded the School of Awakening in 1999 and Tantra Essence in 2008.
She is not doing this alone. The work so far has drawn in architects and designers, permaculture and ecology specialists, project managers, legal counsel in Mauritius and teachers from the Tantra Essence faculty. Some of those engagements are signed and some are still forming, which is part of what the groundwork ahead is for.
- Students
- 30,000 and counting
- Countries
- 36 reached
- Programmes
- 30 taught
Her residential trainings already put fifty people from twenty countries into shared life, practice and work, in harmony, for months at a time. Ananda gives that proven model a permanent home.
The vision is not abstract. It is a rhythm.
One ordinary day, from waking to sleep.
Midday
An unhurried plant-based meal. A group session. Ayurveda, or hands in the garden, where work becomes worship.
Evening
The Trimurti Sound Dome. Chanting that tunes you back to source.
Night
Dinner among friends, kirtan, hours of ecstatic dance. Sleep with a grateful sigh.
Four pillars, eight practices, one daily rhythm.
What the days are built on
01
Holistic education and lifestyle
Learning that reaches the body and the hands, rather than the head alone.
02
Conscious communication
Many cultures living closely, with the skills that keeps asking for.
03
Love and devotion
The heart as the organising principle, in practice and in governance.
04
Witnessing and meditation
The daily return to source that holds the other three upright.
Eight practices
Vastu
Sound dome
Gardens
Meditation
Tantra
Yoga
Healing arts
Plant-based food
Rare soil for a global spiritual community
A community that draws people from thirty-six countries has to be somewhere they can actually reach, and somewhere they can safely stay.
1.2 million
Population
Safe and stable
Africa's most peaceful country for eighteen years, with established rule of law.
Globally reachable
Direct long-haul flights from Europe and India, and mature tourism infrastructure.
Spiritual and ecological fit
Hindu and Buddhist cultural resonance, a mountain climate, and the national park on the doorstep.
A recognised legal pathway
Mauritius has established frameworks for projects of this kind, and for the charitable foundation that will hold the mission. Counsel is engaged.
Legal, residency and tax positions remain subject to Mauritius counsel and to advice in a donor's own jurisdiction.
Kamaya, Chamarel: five parcels, documented
Roughly seventy-six acres in the highlands, bordering the largest protected forest in Mauritius. A river runs from the park through the land and feeds the Chamarel waterfall.
Today
The land as it stands. Nothing has been built.
Proposed
The site concept, drawn onto the same ground.
The land as it stands today. Nothing has been built.
Indicative site concept. Design is in progress.
Plot A
20 acres
Eco-resort: the sacred precinct, cottages, gardens and water
Phase 1
Plot B
20 acres
Eco-village: twenty-five villas and a community centre
Phase 1
Plot C
6 acres
Arrival and supply: reception, shops, storage and parking
Phase 1
Plot D
10 acres
Eco-village expansion
Phase 2 · indicative
Plot E
20 acres
Eco-resort expansion, with farms and greenhouses
Phase 2 · indicative
Environment
Borders Black River Gorges National Park. Invasive species removed, native trees replanted, the protected forest extended.
Due diligence
Title deed, government PIN certificate, surveyed site plan and mapped boundaries are in hand.
Water
Wells and natural stone tanks at higher elevation, with harvested rainwater feeding the gardens.
Where this stands today
The land has yet to be acquired and negotiations are ongoing. Plots D and E are owned by third parties, and that conversation has yet to begin. Phase 2 is indicative, and nothing about it is committed.
Almost all of this land stays landscape
13%
Plot A coverage
5%
Plot B coverage
30–40 m
Neighbour gap
The rest is native forest, garden and clearing. Villas sit on generous private plots, the nearest neighbour's wall thirty to forty metres away through mature planting.
Resort cottages are placed individually through the terrain, each set into its own fold of ground and screened by planting, so no two look at one another.
What we are building
Three parcels in the first phase: the sanctuary and the resort around it, the residential village, and the arrival and supply that keep both running.
Five free-standing buildings in one clearing. These are what the foundation holds, and what stays mission-owned whatever else is built around them.
The meditation and festival hall, about 1,500 m², the heart of the site. Forty-five cottages of about 60 m² are set individually through the terrain around it.
Trimurti Sound Dome
about 150 m²
Octagonal group room
about 300 m² · Vastu proportion
Spa and bathing pool
about 1,000 m² across linked buildings
Dining hall and restaurant
open to guests and residents
Twenty-five villas across twenty acres. Generous private plots, with mature planting left standing between them.
Natural materials, deep shade, and the forest left standing around it.
Inside. Open to the green on every side, built for the climate rather than against it.
Thirty to forty metres of planting. The distance to the nearest neighbour's wall, screened the whole way.
The daily walk to the sanctuary. The village sits further from the sacred buildings than the resort does. That distance is deliberate: the journey is part of the practice.
Fifteen villas of about 100 m², five of about 140 m², five of about 180 m², and a community centre of about 500 m².
Thinking about living here? Nothing is for sale yet. Registering interest puts you on the list that is contacted first when the scheme is approved.
Register your interestSix acres that keep the other forty running. Everything arrives here first, so the sanctuary never has to look like a loading bay.
Plot C fronts the access road, at the mountain edge, away from the buildings it serves.
1,000 m²eco-resort reception
500 m²village welcome centre
1,000 m²supply and storage
150 to 200parking spaces
Two gift shops, receiving ramps for supply lorries, and parking along the mountain edge. Within the site itself, movement is on foot, by electric shuttle and by golf cart. The 3.5 km access road is improved as part of the works.
A community that arrives from elsewhere owes the place it lands in. These are the commitments the project is built around.
Local jobs, training in regenerative agriculture and building skills, and food produced on the farms rather than shipped in.
The forest extended, not reduced. Invasive species removed, native trees replanted, and the protected forest beside the national park enlarged rather than eaten into.
Its own power and water. Solar arrays, harvested rainwater, wells and stone tanks at elevation, with low-impact natural materials throughout.
Ecological education, organic farming training, and wellbeing programmes offered free or subsidised to the local community.
What stops this being sold, redirected or captured
A vision depends on the people holding it. A structure does not. The land, the forest and the sacred buildings are intended to sit with a charitable foundation that cannot dispose of them quietly, and the commercial parts are owned by that foundation rather than standing alongside it.
The mission
Proposed Ananda Foundation
Holds the charitable purpose and the stewardship principles, and with them the land, the forest and the sacred buildings. Being established under the Mauritius Foundations Act 2012.
Owned entirely by the foundation
Holding company
The entity that applies for the Mauritius development schemes and sits between the foundation and everything commercial beneath it.
Eco-resort
Cottages and hospitality, under the Invest Hotel Scheme.
Eco-village
Villas and the community centre, under the Property Development Scheme.
Management company
Operations, staff and the retreat programme.
No profit is extracted from the mission. Surplus returns to the project.
Four things the charter is being written to fix
01
A purpose written into law
The charter defines the foundation's charitable objects, among them protection of the environment and the advancement of education and wellbeing. Under the Foundations Act a charitable foundation must serve those objects exclusively.
02
An accountable council
Bound by the charter and meeting the statutory eligibility tests, with at least one member ordinarily resident in Mauritius. Appointment and removal are fixed by the charter rather than by whoever is in the room.
03
Higher thresholds for the decisions that matter
Routine matters pass by simple majority. Disposing of core assets, or changing the charter itself, requires an enhanced threshold. The things that would hurt most are the hardest to do.
04
Transparency and compliance
Written donation agreements, official receipts, annual reporting to the Mauritius Revenue Authority, and full source-of-funds checks on what comes in.
Protection that comes from structure survives any change of leadership.
Where this stands today
Done
- Formal written legal advice received on donations, mission protection and compliance.
- The Kamaya parcel documented with title deed, government PIN certificate and surveyed plan.
- The Omplexity partnership signed.
In drafting
- Foundation charter and articles, with Dentons Mauritius.
- Donation framework, governance safeguards and protector structure defined.
- Site concept in design.
Still open
- Ownership language, tax treatment, bequests and resale approval, awaiting legal confirmation.
- Land status, slope and access, and the environmental and planning pathways.
The foundation is in drafting and has not yet been established, and the structure above remains subject to Mauritius counsel, to regulatory approval and to final documentation. No tax deductibility is claimed today. Nothing on this page is an offer of property, residency, return or investment rights.
Register your interest in a home here
For anyone thinking about living in the eco-village. Nothing is for sale until the scheme is approved, and this asks for no commitment and no payment. It puts you on the list contacted first.
Register your interestDonate or invest at scale
For larger donations, and for investment in the pre-development round. The figures, the structure, the staged pathway and the risk register travel privately, to a named person, with the disclaimers attached. Smaller donations can be made directly at the foot of this page.
Request the private briefingGive the vision a vessel
This is a living model for how people can heal, live, govern and steward land differently. The vision opens the heart. The groundwork underneath it is what turns a vision into a place.
Give to the project
Donations fund the land, the forest and the sacred buildings, which stay mission-owned. Any amount, today.
DonateDonate or invest at scale
For larger gifts, and for investment in the pre-development round. The figures, the structure, the staged pathway and the risk register, shared privately rather than published.
Request the private briefingLive here
For anyone thinking about a home in the eco-village. Nothing is for sale until the scheme is approved, and this asks for no commitment.
Register your interestWhat happens if you ask for the briefing
01
You write
A line about who you are and what draws you. Nothing formal.
02
We send the briefing
The full picture: the funding round, the structure, the pathway and the risks, shared privately rather than published.
03
We talk
A conversation with Sarita and the team, at whatever depth you want.
Ananda is at the pre-development stage. The land has yet to be acquired and the charitable foundation is in drafting with Mauritius counsel. Nothing on this page is an offer of property, residency, return or investment rights, and no tax deductibility is claimed. Any future participation would require formal legal documentation and regulatory approval.