Shree Meenananda Foundation
Shree Meenananda Ashram
Visit an Ashram among Birbhum’s rice fields, where Tantra practice, puja, kirtan, learning and service are part of daily life.
Shree Meenananda Foundation runs the Ashram in Gopikantapur, near Kopai in Birbhum, West Bengal. Guided by Sri Meenananda Tirthanath, it brings together puja, kirtan, spiritual education, service and care for animals.
The Ashram stands in Gopikantapur, beside Kopai in Birbhum, West Bengal — a white shrine with a tall shikhara amid the rice fields. Sri Meenananda Tirthanath and Guruma Minakshi Devyomba have established and nurtured this Ashram, where Tantra and other religious education are received in puja, kirtan, and seva.
Meenananda Foundation is envisioned as a living tree of spiritual lineage. Its roots are ritual and sadhana; its branches are social: feeding, clothing, teaching, tending cows, and keeping kirtan in the evening air.
Purpose
Tantra, in the teaching offered here, names the Divine in body, mind, nature, relationship, and ordinary work. Awakening is the disciplined seeing of that fact. Desire, fear, and limitation are material to be turned toward wisdom and compassion, until the sense of a sealed individual self begins to open into the larger consciousness it was never separate from.
Values
Honesty of speech. Quiet hospitality. A shrine kept clean. Music that is sung. Service that honours the person served. The Ashram holds sadhana, seva and knowledge as the path of accomplishment, livelihood and well-being.
The environment
Fields, a night path strung with lights, a pond, and a shrine in which homa is kindled before Maa. An active spiritual community — puja, kirtan, gau seva, guests received by arrangement.
Present work
Daily evening kirtan. Puja and tithi observances, including Kali Puja. Documented clothing distribution on Guruma’s advent tithi. Community prasad. Gau seva as a continuing care of the Ashram’s cows. Teachings, kirtan, and the album Charan Dasi on the official YouTube channel.
Long vision
The Foundation’s social work — education, a culture of well-being, standing with the villages around Kopai — continues through the programmes already in motion and those still taking shape.
Rooted in tradition, dedicated to service
Shree Meenananda Ashram stands among the rice fields of Gopikantapur, near Kopai in Birbhum. Under the guidance of Sri Meenananda Tirthanath and Guruma Minakshi Devyomba, worship, meditation, kirtan, learning and service are part of daily life here.
Join a puja, listen to evening kirtan, read the Gujhya Gyan library or take part in seva. Contact the Ashram to learn about diksha. Please call before visiting to confirm the day’s programme and a suitable arrival time.
On your first visit, you might light a lamp at the temple, join the evening kirtan and share prasad. The cows and rice fields around the Ashram add to its peaceful setting.
Travel notes for the Bolpur–Santiniketan corridor, the journey from Kolkata, and Gopikantapur sit on the travel pages. Call before you set out, and confirm trains on IRCTC. Visit · What is Tantra? · Tantra in Bengal
The main temple, Gopikantapur. Paint on the roof and walls is restored in this still from a drone photograph of the same building.
A silent approach to the shrine.
The approach after dark.