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The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine was surrounded by flames. Then a family came to its rescue
Tales of the miraculous have always encircled the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine.
The story of its 1950 founding goes that the spiritual guru Paramahansa Yogananda purchased the 10-acre Pacific Palisades property from an oil company president, after the oilman had a vivid dream in which his land became a “church of all religions.” Yogananda then established the grounds as a place of peace, solace and sanctuary for people of all faiths.
Swans on the lake at the Self-Realization Fellowship site.
(Self-Realization Fellowship)
The spring-fed lake in the center of the compound is its defining feature. Swans glide across its surface, new mothers push strollers around its perimeter, and people of many faiths and backgrounds meditate quietly along its shores.
The lake also played a key role in the shrine’s unlikely escape from the Palisades fire, as a family of three devotees used its waters to extinguish threatening flames.
Self-Realization Fellowship president and spiritual leader Brother Chidananda, in a livestream address to the group’s international membership, recounted the efforts of Billy Asad and his two adult children, Gabriella and Nicky, who came to the property’s rescue.
The Asads, he said, were “the divine instruments of God and guru who literally saved the Lake Shrine.”
It was the soot-covered swans, so dark they almost looked black, that first struck Gabriella Asad when she arrived at the Lake Shrine on the second day of the fire. Then, the lack of other animal life. No koi fish rose to the surface to greet her. The turtles that usually sun themselves on the scattered rocks were gone.
The Self-Realization Fellowship’s lush Pacific Palisades grounds include a historic houseboat, where guru Paramahansa Yogananda lived and wrote while directing the work around the Lake Shrine.
(Self-Realization Fellowship )
Looking around the smoldering grounds where she was baptized as a baby and now volunteers in the gardening department, Gabriella, 20, resisted the urge to fall to her knees in despair. Instead, she grabbed four fire extinguishers and, through her tears, set to work alongside her father, Billy, 54, and brother Nicky, 19.
As embers the size of golf balls pelted the property, she put out spot fires and hosed down the wood-shingled roofs of the Lake Shrine’s historic buildings.
“Just the way the sky was, all the smoke, the way the swans were covered,” she said with emotion in her voice. “It took everything in me to do the best I could.”
Her father, a former yoga teacher who lives on a houseboat in Marina Del Rey, had been tracking the explosive Palisades fire since soon after it broke out the morning of Jan. 7, when a monk spotted flames in the nearby mountains. As a longtime member of the Self-Realization Fellowship, Billy knew what was at stake: the lush meditation gardens open to all, the historic houseboat where his guru lived and wrote while directing the work around the Lake Shrine, the thousand-year-old Chinese sarcophagus containing some of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes.
“It’s not just this beautiful garden with a lake,” Billy said. “It’s a vortex of light and love and peace and harmony and healing.”
Billy is not a certified firefighter, but as the founder and owner of WDA Fire Protection, he helps get businesses and homes fire-ready. He’s also a certified Regulation 4 tester under the Los Angeles Fire Department, which allows him to inspect and assess fire doors in L.A., and he’s licensed under the Office of the State Fire Marshal to service and test portable fire extinguishers. His father was a firefighter for 30 years and taught him about fire behavior. Over the years, Billy passed his knowledge on to his kids.
He began visiting the Lake Shrine’s paradisiacal grounds 25 years ago after a friend gave him a copy of Yogananda’s seminal book, “Autobiography of a Yogi.” He still remembers walking onto the property for the first time.
Billy Asad, left, with daughter Gabriella and son Nicky.
(Billy Asad)
“It was that ah-ha moment,” he said. “I knew it was my path.”
His kids were baptized in the Windmill Chapel, which abuts the lake and looks as if it had been magically transported from the Netherlands.
Gabriella and Nicky attended Sunday school at the temple and went on teen retreats with other Self-Realization Fellowship members. As they got older, they became regulars at the hourlong services held on the property each week. Nicky used to work as a chef at the Lake Shrine, cooking for the monks and lay people at the retreat center. Gabriella volunteers with the gardening department.
Billy Asad hoses down the hillside at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine, where morning services are held every Sunday.
(Billy Asad)
“Ever since I can remember we’ve been going to Lake Shrine,” Nicky said. “It’s our home. It’s everything to us.”
By 10 a.m. on Jan. 8, Billy had tracked the fires long enough to know the Lake Shrine was in danger. Along with Gabriella and Nicky, he loaded his Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro with helmets, gloves, fire coats, eye protection, steel-toed boots, respirators, radios, axes, shovels and about 30 fire extinguishers. Then they headed north to the property.
Flames raged around them as they climbed into Pacific Palisades. Telephone poles crashed to the ground near the truck. There were checkpoints along the way, but Billy showed his fire credentials and was allowed to pass through.
When they arrived, the Lake Shrine had been abandoned, the 14 monks who live on the grounds safely evacuated. There was a firetruck in the parking lot, but the two firefighters there were focused on a three-story apartment building adjacent to the Lake Shrine that was consumed by flames.
Moving quickly and coordinating through their radios, the Asads rushed to extinguish spot fires crackling at the base of trees, in a patch of bamboo and on the many railroad ties that serve as stairs throughout the property.
“That’s exactly how everything starts,” Billy said. “A tree falls and catches another structure on fire.”
To prevent future ignitions, they also set to work wetting the roofs of all the buildings. Because of her volunteer job, Gabriella knew where the garden hoses were located, although a few had already melted. She took care of the visitor center. Nicky was charged with soaking the place of his baptism, the Windmill Chapel.
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Meanwhile, Billy spotted an unexpected tool: a gas-powered water pump on the lake’s small maintenance barge. It was new to him, but that didn’t matter.
“I know fire pumps,” he said. “I know hoses. I know attachments. So within five minutes after seeing it, I had the engine started and we were spraying bamboo on fire from 100 feet away.”
As it happens, a few months earlier, a resident monk of the property, Brother Bodhananda, had purchased the pump in case of future fires. Before being evacuated, he brought the pump out of storage and moved it onto the barge.
“It’s a credit to him and the maintenance manager, Bill Lackner, who works there that they had the temporary fire pump set up,” Billy said. “We jumped on the barge and immediately started using it. I have boating experience and my son does too. It was all part of this amazing divine plan.”
The Asad family worked for seven hours before pausing, including taking a moment to gently rinse some of the soot clinging to the swans’ feathers.
That evening, Nicky and Billy came back and stayed until 4 a.m. the next day, hosing down the property and continuing to extinguish spot fires that were igniting all over, sometimes repeatedly in the same place. It was blindingly exhausting work, and they believe it was the prayers and wishes of devotees across the globe who empowered them to do it.
The Lake Shrine towers were at risk as the Palisades fire raged on the hillside last week.
(Nicky Asad)
For the next three days they kept returning until the fire danger had passed. Even now, as the initial fire threat has ended, they continue to patrol the grounds daily.
On Sunday in his livestream, Chidananda shared the results of the Asads’ work. The Gandhi World Peace Memorial is unharmed even as the vegetation on the hillside behind it is gone. The houseboat is safe, as is the Windmill Chapel, where weddings, christenings and memorials are held.
The Court of Religions, where small monuments to each of the world’s major faiths welcomes visitors to the grounds, is intact. The towering pillars and crossbars of the Golden Lotus Temple were hosed down by the Asads and are once again gleaming white.
There were, however, some structural losses. The visitors’ restroom near the property’s entrance, for one. Even as, just 20 feet away, the Lake Shrine museum and bookshop with artifacts from Yogananda’s life still stands.
The living quarters of the 14 monks who reside on the property also took a hit. An ashram where half of them lived sustained slight damage to one window. The Old Santa Ynez Inn, which housed the other seven monks, burned down, taking with it the office and apartment of the Lake Shrine’s spiritual director, Satyananda.
“I’m an unhoused evacuee, but I’m doing quite well,” Satyananda said. “We adapt and move forward.”
One of the few structures lost on the property was the visitors’ bathroom.
(Self-Realization Fellowship)
Witnessing what took place at the Lake Shrine was a spiritual experience, Chidananda told fellowship members in his address, but he added that he doesn’t plan to talk about it much more.
“You know why,” he said, smiling gently. “Because it’s too easy to become proud or smug, or feel that we are better than others who didn’t fare as well. Our guru would have abhorred any sense of superiority complex based on the fact that we were spared while others suffered. That’s completely opposite to the spirit of his life.”
Instead, he said, the spiritual community’s consciousness should revolve around one question: What can we do to help?
He’s already asked fellowship communities in Southern California to organize food and clothing drives, while monks and nuns at the group’s center in Mount Washington are offering spiritual counseling over the phone.
Thanks to the Asads, the Lake Shrine community will also continue to offer an open, inclusive and beautiful space for anyone seeking a quiet sanctuary for spiritual reflection, renewal or meditation — just as soon as it’s able.
“To me, the survival of this beloved shrine means so much because of what it represents,” Chidananda said. “It represents our faith that spiritual life, a higher consciousness of love and unity and harmony, will be able to endure in this world, despite all contrary forces of maya [illusion], delusion and destruction.”
The property remains closed to the public for now, but Billy said he’s already welcomed a few firefighters and police officers to take their breaks on the Lake Shrine grounds.
“They walk around the lake and take a break from the chaos,” he said. “And you’d just see it in their eyes: ‘What is this place?’ ‘We had no clue this was here.’ ‘We’re coming back.’”
The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine property remains closed to the public for now.
(Self-Realization Fellowship )
Meanwhile, Gabriella is relieved to see that the swans are back to their snow white color. The turtles have started sunning themselves again.
Mara is a single mother of two in Minnesota. She and her family have depended on SNAP benefits to make ends meet.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
Although Mara is unemployed, she is busier than ever.
When she is not taking care of her two children, Mara is at her desk applying for jobs. She is surveying her belongings to see what she can pawn off to buy toiletries. Or she is sifting through bills, calculating which ones can wait and which need to be paid right away.
Soon, Mara, a single mom in Minnesota, may have another task on her busy schedule: figuring out how to afford food for her and her family.
That’s because of new work requirements for people receiving aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.
“It would be so beyond hard” to lose SNAP benefits, Mara said. “Without SNAP, there’s no funds for food.” Mara asked for her last name to be withheld given the stigma tied to receiving government assistance. She is also worried that speaking publicly will affect her chances of getting a job.
Previously, SNAP recipients with children under 18 were exempt from work requirements mandating that recipients work, volunteer or participate in job training at least 80 hours a month. But now, under President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that exemption only applies to those with children under 14 — which is how old Mara’s youngest child turned in December.
“It would be so beyond hard” to lose SNAP benefits, Mara said.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
The Trump administration has argued that the mission of the nation’s largest anti-hunger program has failed.
“SNAP was intended to be temporary help for those who encounter tough times. Now, it’s become so bloated that it is leaving fewer resources for those who truly need help,” the White House said in a statement in June.
But policy experts say the SNAP changes do not fully take into account the unique challenges faced by single parents like Mara or the sluggish job market in many parts of the country. They argue that losing food assistance will only create more barriers for recipients struggling to find work.
The timeline for implementing the new SNAP policy varies based on state and county. In Mara’s home state of Minnesota, recipients who don’t qualify for an exemption or meet work requirements will be at risk of losing assistance as early as April 1. Others may have more months depending on when they next need to certify they are eligible for benefits.
Over 100 job applications
Mara imagined she would have a job by now.
It was August when she was let go from her part-time administrative assistant role due to her workplace restructuring. Since then, Mara estimates that she has applied for over 100 positions. She has also attended job fairs and taken free workshops on resume writing.
She has been working since high school, she said, but “ I’ve never been out of work for more than one month, so it’s very difficult.”
Mara spends time working at the computer at CareerForce, a resource for job seekers in Minnesota, on March 4.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
Although she misses her old job, Mara said it didn’t pay enough to support her and her kids, so she relied on SNAP benefits.
Many recipients are part of the low-wage labor market, where job security is often unpredictable and turnover tends to be high, according to Lauren Bauer, a researcher at the Brookings Institution who has studied SNAP extensively.
“SNAP is supposed to be there to help people smooth that and not let the bottom fall out when they experience job loss,” she said. “And this policy doesn’t account for that at all.”
Mara’s lowest point came in November when the government shutdown led to disruptions in SNAP benefits. Not only was she searching for a new job, but she was constantly figuring out where to get her family’s next meal.
“I might be looking for food stuff during the day when I should have been looking for a job,” she said. “Then, I’m trying to make up that time in the evening after my kids go to bed.”
During the pause, Mara turned to food banks, which revealed other challenges. First, food pantries do not always provide enough for an adult and two growing teenagers, she said. Second, they often lack gluten-free foods, which is essential for her daughter who has celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes digestive problems if gluten is consumed. Gluten-free products tend to be more expensive.
If Mara loses access to SNAP again because of the new work requirements, she fears another stretch of long days spent looking for the right food and enough to feed her family.
“I would be so reliant on looking for food shelves or food banks,” she said. “There would not be time to even live.”
“We’re going to see increases in poverty. We’re going to see increases in food insecurity”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that roughly 2.4 million people will lose food benefits in a typical month over the next decade as a result of the new SNAP requirements — including 300,000 parents like Mara with children 14 or older.
Gina Plata-Nino, the SNAP director at the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center, says many of the affected recipients will be single mothers who make up a majority of single parent households in the U.S. She added that the changes target a group that often lacks or struggles to afford a support system to help care for their children.
“How can they have a full-time job when they need to pick up their children [for] various activities?” she said. “And they are working — just not enough hours because they need to be there present for their children.”
Mara shops for groceries at a local discount grocery store.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
The new law also imposes work requirements on veterans, homeless people, young adults aging out of foster care, and able-bodied adults without dependents from ages 55 to 64.
It also toughened the criteria for waiving work requirements for recipients in areas with high unemployment. Previously, there were multiple ways to determine a weak labor market and secure a waiver. Now, it only applies to places with an unemployment rate above 10%. (Alaska and Hawaii have a different measure.)
For those who fail to meet the work requirement, SNAP provides assistance for up to three months within a three-year span. But Bauer from the Brookings Institution argues that it is not enough and the impact of SNAP changes will be widespread.
“We’re going to see increases in poverty. We’re going to see increases in food insecurity. We’re going to see increasing strain on the charitable food sector,” she said.
Mara holds her favorite anchor ring, which carries the inscription, “God for me provide thee.”
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
As anxiety hangs over her head, Mara tries to put on a brave face for her children. She does not want them to worry, explaining that her recent struggles have reminded her how tough life can get as an adult.
“I remind them it’s not their responsibility and they’re not accountable for me or for what’s happening,” she said. “I say, just know you get to be a kid.”
Dylan Dreyer
Savannah Will Likely Come Back … Just Not Sure When
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Dylan Dreyer is giving a small update on her embattled “Today” co-host, Savannah Guthrie, as the search continues for Savannah’s mom, Nancy — telling TMZ she does believe she’ll likely return to the show at some point.
We caught Dylan leaving NBC Tuesday afternoon, and she said while she thinks Savannah will come back, the timing is totally unclear — adding everyone at the show is simply giving her the space she needs because they care about her so much.
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Dylan also reflected on Savannah’s emotional visit to the “TODAY” studio last Thursday, saying the hug they shared was something they both really needed in that moment.
Catch the full clip — Dylan says the visit was incredibly emotional, adding Savannah clearly wants to get back to some sense of normal life … she just doesn’t quite know how yet.
Still, Savannah managed a few smiles during the brief stop by the studio, doing her best to keep moving forward during an incredibly tough time.
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As we reported, Nancy was taken from her Tucson home in the middle of the night on February 1. She was last seen entering the house just before 10 PM on January 31 after dinner with her daughter Annie and Annie’s husband, Tommaso Cioni.
Kevin Kline plays actor Richard Bean, and Laura Linney is his sister-in-law Kristen, in American Classic.
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David Giesbrecht/MGM+
American Classic is a hidden gem, in more ways than one. It’s hidden because it’s on MGM+, a stand-alone streaming service that, let’s face it, most people don’t have. But MGM+ is available without subscription for a seven-day free trial, on its website or through Prime Video and Roku. And you should find and watch American Classic, because it’s an absolutely charming and wonderful TV jewel.
Charming, in the way it brings small towns and ordinary people to life, as in Northern Exposure. Wonderful, in the way it reflects the joys of local theater productions, as in Slings & Arrows, and the American Playhouse production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Who Am I This Time?
The creators of American Classic are Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin. Martin co-wrote and co-created Slings & Arrows, so that comparison comes easily. And back in the early 1980s, Who Am I This Time? was about people who transformed onstage from ordinary citizens into extraordinary performers. It’s a conceit that works only if you have brilliant actors to bring it to life convincingly. That American Playhouse production had two young actors — Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon — so yes, it worked. And American Classic, with its mix of veteran and young actors, does, too.
American Classic begins with Kevin Kline, as Shakespearean actor Richard Bean, confronting a New York Times drama critic about his negative opening-night review of Richard’s King Lear. The next day, Richard’s agent, played by Tony Shalhoub, calls Richard in to tell him his tantrum was captured by cellphone and went viral, and that he has to lay low for a while.
Richard returns home to the small town of Millersburg, Pa., where his parents ran a local theater. Almost everyone we meet is a treasure. His father, who has bouts of dementia, is played by Len Cariou, who starred on Broadway in Sweeney Todd. Richard’s brother, Jon, is played by Jon Tenney of The Closer, and his wife, Kristen, is played by the great Laura Linney, from Ozark and John Adams.
Things get even more complicated because the old theater is now a dinner theater, filling its schedule with performances by touring regional companies. Its survival is at risk, so Richard decides to save the theater by mounting a new production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, casting the local small-town residents to play … local small-town residents.
Miranda, Richard’s college-bound niece, continues the family theatrical tradition — and Nell Verlaque, the young actress who plays her, has a breakout role here. She’s terrific — funny, touching, totally natural. And when she takes the stage as Emily in Our Town, she’s heart-wrenching. Playwright Wilder is served magnificently here — and so is William Shakespeare, whose works and words Kline tackles in more than one inspirational scene in this series.
I don’t want to reveal too much about the conflicts, and surprises, in American Classic, but please trust me: The more episodes you watch, the better it gets. The characters evolve, and go in unexpected directions and pairings. Kline’s Richard starts out thinking about only himself, but ends up just the opposite. And if, as Shakespeare wrote, the play’s the thing, the thing here is, the plays we see, and the soliloquies we hear, are spellbinding.
And there’s plenty of fun to be had outside the classics in American Classic. The table reads are the most delightful since the ones in Only Murders in the Building. The dinner-table arguments are the most explosive since the ones in The Bear. Some scenes are take-your-breath-away dramatic. Others are infectiously silly, as when Richard works with a cast member forced upon him by the angel of this new Our Town production.
Take the effort to find, and watch, American Classic. It’ll remind you why, when it’s this good, it’s easy to love the theater. And television.
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