In this year’s annual Self-Realization Fellowship world...

In this year’s annual Self-Realization Fellowship world convocation, participants will not discuss politics, economics or even world peace.

Instead, the nine-day conference, which has attracted believers from around the world, will feature the same lectures the founder gave more than 70 years ago--lectures on yoga, meditation, Karma and discovering a personal relationship with God.

“We believe it is a lifestyle we are dealing with,” said Brother Mitrananda, a speaker during the conference, which ends Tuesday. “By following the codes of ethics and studying the laws of life, people can find lasting happiness. Outside of those laws is the self-centeredness which leads to the problems we have in the world today.”

The Self-Realization Fellowship teaches that the way to a relationship with God is through techniques that include yoga and meditation. The fellowship also stresses the unity of Eastern and Western religious teachings.

This year’s convocation, held at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, has attracted more than 6,000 people from 52 countries and is the largest in the fellowship’s history. Translation booths line the back of the conference hall so participants can hear the lectures in French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

The conference is part of a yearlong commemoration of the centennial of the birth of the Fellowship’s founder, Paramahansa Yogananda, who began teaching in this country in 1920 and died in 1952. The society has more than 400 centers around the world.

The first Self-Realization Fellowship convocation was held in Los Angeles in 1937. Attendance at this year’s convocation doubled last year’s.

Mitrananda, who became a part of the fellowship in 1969 after reading the autobiography of Yogananda as a teen-ager, attributes the growing popularity of the movement to an increasing need in the world for spiritual understanding.

“People are more conscious of what they are looking for, and our organization meets their needs,” said Mitrananda, who was born and raised in Glendale as a Methodist and graduated from USC. He is a minister and international lecturer for the society.

Mitrananda lives in an ashram in Encinitas with other monks and nuns who have devoted their lives to meditation, study and advancing the society.

The fellowship’s international headquarters sits on Mt. Washington in a turn-of-the-century hotel surrounded by green, flower-filled lawns, meditation nooks and pathways.

“Although we have many organizational responsibilities,” Mitrananda said, “our goal is toward changing ourselves.”

PERFORMANCES

* “We’ve Come This Far by Faith: The West Coast Gospel Tradition” will open the Los Angeles Festival at 8 p.m Friday at the Vision Complex in Leimert Park. Performers will include singers and choirs from across the country. The gospel program celebrates African-American spiritual and musical tradition. The five-week festival features more than 600 artists and performers. Tickets are $10 and $15. 43rd Street and Crenshaw Boulevard. (800) FEST-TIX.

* The California Christian Center and the African-American Gospel TV/Radio Network will present a celebration service for Pastor Ed and Lady Ella Smith of Trinity Broadcasting Network (Channel 40) at the Christ Church in Los Angeles at 3 p.m. today. A variety of Christian artists will perform, including church and community choirs and gospel musicians. Pastor Smith will speak. 635 S. Manhattan Place. (213) 569-1469.

OUTREACH

* Voices of Catholic Action will sponsor a prayer service focusing on “justice and equality within the Catholic church” at 10 a.m. today at St. Francis Xavier Church. The service, held in solidarity with women clergy praying in Denver where Pope John Paul II is visiting, will focus on allowing women to become priests. 3801 Scott Road, Burbank. (818) 767-2445.

* “Faces of HIV” is the title of the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles’ service at 11 a.m. Sunday. The service will include a discussion of safe sex practices, HIV--the virus that causes AIDS--and its impact on women, children and minorities. 2936 W. 8th St. (213) 389-1356.

* The Center for Spiritual Development’s free annual retreat for teachers and faculty members, which focuses on spirituality in the school setting, will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 26. Register by Tuesday. St. Joseph Center, 480 S. Batavia, Orange. (714) 744-3175.

* Aish HaTorah Jerusalem will host “Nosh and Gelt,” a networking opportunity for Jewish professionals. The breakfast is hosted by a rabbi who will discuss business ethics from a Jewish perspective. The next breakfast will be at 7:15 a.m. Tuesday. Limited seating, $8 prepaid, $10 at the door. 9102 Pico Blvd. (310) 278-8672.

* The Beta Israel Temple Black/Jewish Synagogue of Los Angeles is offering a series of free classes in Judaism to members of the African-American community. Subjects will include Jewish holidays, prayers and rituals. 1101 Crenshaw Blvd. (213) 930-2027.

APPOINTMENTS

* The Rev. Steven Metcalf has been confirmed as La Verne Heights Presbyterian Church’s senior pastor. The Pastor Nominating Committee held a two-year search before selecting Metcalf, who has served for the last 11 years as senior associate pastor at Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Hills. Metcalf is a graduate of Cal State Long Beach and Princeton Seminary.

* Rabbi Joel E. Rembaum of Temple Beth Am has been elected president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, the Rabbinic organization of Southern California that consists of 250 Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis. Rembaum is national secretary of the Rabbinical Assembly of America.

PROJECT

The Martyrs Memorial and Museum of the Holocaust of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles is seeking books produced as memorials to Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust. The memorial books, known in Hebrew as yezkor books and usually written in Yiddish and Hebrew, contain information about a community’s history, institutions and memorials to its members lost in the Holocaust. The books will be displayed in an exhibit honoring the reopening of the Los Angeles Central Library. Those willing to loan their memorial books should contact museum curator Marcia Reines Josephy by Friday at (213) 651-3175.

Notices may be sent to Southern California File by mail c/o Religion Editor, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, Calif. 90053, or by fax to (213) 237-4712. Items must be brief and arrive at least three weeks in advance of the event .