Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens

The story of this bluff begins in the mid-1930s, when the clifftop property was given to Paramahansa Yogananda by one of his closest students. Yogananda had come from India in 1920 and spent the following years teaching meditation across the United States, and he made the Encinitas hermitage a place of retreat and writing. He lived here for more than ten years, and it was in these rooms above the ocean that he completed much of his best-known work, a spiritual memoir that has since been translated into dozens of languages and read around the world.

The hermitage itself is a private residence for the order's monks and is not open for wandering, but the gardens beside it are another matter. They were planted and shaped over the decades into the layered, green refuge visitors find today, and they have quietly become a place of pilgrimage, drawing thousands of people a year who come simply to walk the paths, sit by the water, and look out at the sea.

The gardens are not large, and that is part of their charm. Narrow paths wind past koi ponds linked by small waterfalls, through beds of tropical and flowering plants, to a series of little nooks with benches set for quiet sitting. Everything is tended with obvious care, trimmed and swept and blooming, so the whole place has the feel of a private garden that someone has generously left unlocked.

The paths lead, finally, to the reason many people come: an overlook right at the lip of the bluff, where the ground falls away and the Pacific opens up in a long blue sweep down the coast. On a clear day you can watch the surfers far below and the pelicans gliding the cliff line, and in the evening the whole view turns gold. It is the kind of spot that quiets a busy mind almost against its will.

Just below the gardens, at the base of the bluff, is Swami's, one of the most famous surf breaks in California. It is a long, dependable right-hand point break that draws surfers from all over the world, especially in winter when the big northwest swells arrive, and it has been ridden and written about for generations. The name is no accident: the break took its nickname directly from the swami's ashram perched on the cliff above it.

That pairing, a world-class surf spot and a world-famous meditation garden stacked one above the other, is what makes the place so distinctly Encinitas. Down on the water it is all motion and spray and hooting surfers; up on the bluff it is koi ponds and silence. You can stand at the garden overlook and watch the one from inside the other, which is a small and lovely thing to be able to do.

The gardens are at the south end of Encinitas, on a residential street set just back from the coast highway, a short walk or drive from the town's cafes and beaches. They are free to enter, kept on limited days and hours, and closed on Mondays and holidays, so it is worth checking before you go. Because this is a working place of meditation, visitors are asked to keep quiet, and a few benches are set aside for reflection rather than sightseeing.

Give yourself half an hour to an hour to wander the paths, watch the koi, and sit at the overlook. Pair it with a walk down to Swami's beach at the foot of the bluff, or with a stroll through downtown Encinitas, and you have one of the most relaxed, most quietly beautiful mornings the San Diego coast has to offer, and one of the very few that costs nothing at all.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.