Paramahamsa Swami Yogananda Ghiri, founder of Matha Gitananda Ashram, has a first, clear vision, which would be repeated subsequently for four more times, of the place where he would found the Gitananda Ashram and later the Temple of the Divine Mother, Shri Lalita Maha Tripurasundari.

In June 1984 Swami Yogananda founded the Gitananda Ashram. With the irrepressible enthusiasm to put into practice values and ideals that Swamiji conveyed, a small group of students had started researching, inland Liguria, a place where he could retire with the guide Master in order to "live" yoga. And then Swamiji, returning from a long stay in India, arrives in Località Pellegrino in Altare, in the hinterland of Savona.

In 1992 the temple's foundation was laid. Thus arose the mandapa, no fixtures, with simple shading that outlined, of course unheated and without electricity. It has hosted for years a simple, essential worship, extremely effective for the tapas, the inner discipline. Yet devotion grew more space in these places. The Divine Mother was beginning to settle even in the cold and snow of the Alps Maritimes. And so in 2000 a group of sculptors, sthapati, experts in sacred buildings, came from India to define the decorative aspect.

In 1997, the Ashram is playing a key role in organizing the first International Congress of Italian Hindu Union, held in Sanremo. For the occasion, it fastens a first relationship with the then Ambassador of India S.E. K.Fabian. Thus began a long-term stable relationship with the various diplomatic representatives of India in the years that have followed.
A relationship of exchange is also born with the Swamis of Kauai Hindu Monastery Aadheenam, responsible for the international journal "Hinduism Today".

Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani, son of Gitananda and his successor in the leadership of Ananda Ashram in India, he went for the first time in Italy. Is welcomed by the monastic community of Gitananda Matha Ashram. Born a relationship of exchange visits in Italy and India.

Great celebrations officiated for the first time by ten pandits coming specially from India to perform ten days of Yajna (consecration - Vedic ceremony) for the installation of the large statue of the Divine Mother. The inauguration of the great "Peace Bell" Maha Nada Ganta also takes place, a unique work, of seven tons, a great artistic work of high spiritual value, the result of the Italian foundry techniques, inlaid with mantras and stotra.

Hariprasad Chaurasia, the renowned Bansuri musician, visited the ashram for the first time on the occasion of his annual seminar in Italy, and gave a memorable outdoor concert.

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