Swami Durgananda – Anniversary Lecture 30 Years of Yoga in ...

Swami Durgananda – Anniversary Lecture
30 Years of Yoga in Munich
Om Namah Sivaya
Welcome to all of you joining our Anniversary Festivity ´30 Years of Yoga in
Munich`.
The wheels of time are truly mysterious and relative. Thus I send my love mentally to
all those many persons (human beings) who in these 30 years have come closer to
their immortal nature in the House of Swami Sivananda and Swami Vishnudevananda.
Today our guests of honour are:
Sri Venugopal Goswami, Bhagavatacharya of the Radha Raman Temple in
Vrindavan, North India. After last night´s marvellous Anniversary Concert, Sri
Venugopal Goswami is going to enrich us during the entire week with his timeless
recitations of wisdom from the Yoga Scriptures.
Swami Sivadasananda
Swami Kailasananda
Swami Atmaramananda
Swami Ramapriyananda
Swami Shyamananda
Swami Gopalananda
Swami Bhagavatananda
Swami Krishnadevananda
Swami Vasudevananda
Swami Narayananda
Dr. Kamlesh, Ayurveda-Acharya from Lucknow, India, as well as his wife. Over the
past nine years both of them have considerably promoted throughout the European
Sivananda Centres the practical understanding of vegetarian nutrition. While Dr.
Kamlesh gave lectures and dynamic cooking classes, Mrs. Dr. Kamlesh blended teas
and seasonings at their home in Lucknow.
Mr. and Mrs. Weicht, the owners of the House. We commemorate their venerable
mother, Mrs. Frieda Weicht, who received us at this location (Steinheilstrasse) in an
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unbiased and friendly manner. I would like to thank you personally for the agreeable
living together in your house.
A description of the development of the Yoga work in the Sivananda Centre can be
understood only in the light of Swami Sivananda´s and Swami Vishnu-devananda´s
worldwide Yoga work.
After an intense education for more than ten years in the Ashram of his Master,
Swami Vishnu-devananda was sent by Swami Sivananda to the West in 1957.
Swamiji constantly emphasized that all of his steps were directed by the inner and
outer guidance of his Master. Internally by the apparently infinite energy and
inspiration which was flowing through Swamiji, externally by the enormous openness
and the large thirst for knowledge people meeting with Swamiji were displaying.
To put it with Swami Vishnu-devananda´s own words: “My path was blessed through
the lasting, compassionate, and boundless wisdom of my Master, India´s great saint
and sage, His Holiness Sri Swami Sivananda Maharaj. If the echo of his words and
his insight is able to guide the steps of seekers in the Western world using myself as
an instrument, I will have fulfilled my worldly purpose.”
And Swamiji let all of us participate in this deep communion with Swami Sivananda´s
thought energy. He made us feel that each helper was an important part in the
implementation of this great spiritual development.
Swami Ramananda (Dora von Herrnritt) who was the first (female) student to receive
the Sanyas consecration from Swamiji was a strong instrument in setting up the
Sivananda Centres and Ashrams in North America. A native of Austria, Swami
Ramananda returned to Vienna in 1972 and opened there the first Sivananda Centre in
Europe. Within a short time, Swami Ramananda had Swamiji´s ´Complete Illustrated
Book of Yoga` translated (into German). The German edition which was released for
the first time in 1974 by the Aurum Publishing House is now already in its eigth
printing. Therefore we are celebrating today also the 30 th anniversary of this splendid
book of Swami Vishnu-devananda, a work which has done a lot of intense pioneering
for the cause of Yoga.
After Swami Ramananda had rented 100 square meters in Massmannstrasse she was
commuting between Vienna and Munich. When Swami Vishnu-devananda sent me to
Munich in 1975, Yoga was still hardly known in Germany.
Due to the simplicity of the living conditions, the beginnings were both arduous and
inspiring. The sleeping place was a mattress in the Yoga hall, the richness of the
meals depended upon the generous vegetables gifts donated to us by a friendly
Turkish grocery, and there was a correspondence between the quantity of hot water
available and the number of buckets filled with coal that had been carried up to the
second floor.
Norman Zalben, a staff member from Los Angeles, was an important mainstay during
the first months of the Centre. Eric Terwilliger, a solo horn player of the Munich
Philharmonic Orchestra, and Dennis Moore, a trumpeter of the former Graunke
Orchestra, were the first serious students. They supported the Centre tremendously. I
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still remember how selling a Buddhist tanka helped the Centre get a washing
machine. Magnaminous persons from the arts and music have sustained us right from
the start.
Swami Vishnu-devananda´s yearly visits including lectures, Satsangs, and Yoga
retreats kept the inspiration and energy high. More and more students took the Yoga
Teacher's Training Course with Swamiji in Canada and on the Bahamas.
As early as 1977 the rooms in Massmannstrasse were already bursting at the seams,
which is why the Centre moved to the First Floor in 1, Steinheilstrasse. At the time
the new location seemed quite large to us, even though it was just one fourth of the
current premises.
At the end of the 1970s and in the beginning of the 1980s Swamiji´s work in Europe
was supported by the visits of some of his close Gurubhais. Sri Swami Chidananda,
Sri Swami Nadabrahmananda and Sri Swami Hridayananda visited the Centre and
gave unforgettable Satsangs.
In 1978 the future Swami Sivadasananda took his first Yoga class at the Centre.
In 1978 Swami Durgananda went to South India, where she gave the women classes
in the newly opened Sivananda Yoga Dhanvantari Ashram during the first Indian
Yoga Teacher's Training Course.
In 1979 Swamiji sent Swami Durgananda for the first time to Israel, in order to take
part in the teaching at the first Yoga Teacher's Training Course in Israel.
In the early 1980s Swamiji intensified his visits to Germany giving public lectures at
the German Museum (Deutsches Museum), the Lembach House, and in other halls.
In 1981 Swamiji organized a peace demonstration in the pedestrian zone at
Marienplatz which was under the motto ´One Hour of Headstand for Peace`.
In 1983 Swamiji chose Berlin as the location of an exceptionally risky peace mission:
He used a hang-glider to fly above the Berlin Wall from West to East. This mission
took place in the course of a Global Village Peace Festival occurring in the
Tempodrom Circus Tent at Potsdam Square and including a South Indian fire walk
right at the Wall.
In 1985 we rented the First Floor in Steinheilstrasse, thus doubling the Centre´s size.
Besides giving the well attended open Yoga classes we were henceforward in a
position to also teach more courses for beginners and advanced students. Beyond that,
the expanded premises attracted more residents and staffs offering many young
people the opportunity to pursue Yoga as a practical life training. Many staffs were
sent after their basic training in Munich to other Centres of the Organization.
Likewise, many others proceeded strengthened and awakened along the path of their
personal Karma.
In the same year the first German edition of ´The Book of Yoga` was published by
Graefe und Unzer. A graphically enhanced edition of that book has recently been
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published by the Mangalam Publishing House under the title ´Yoga`. In writing this
book Swami Vishnu-devananda submitted a masterpiece that presents Yoga to people
from all walks of life in a modern attractive way with the holistic spiritual authenticity
as the core of this attraction. The American title of this book is ´The Sivananda
Companion to Yoga`. Indeed, many people started their autodidactic Yoga practice at
home reading this book which proved such a good guidance that soon after they ended
up at a Yoga Teacher's Training Course!
In the summer 1985, Swamiji withdrew for several months to a cave near Gangotri,
close by one of the sources of the Ganges in the Himalayas. In November Swamiji
returned to the cave, this time with the intention of spending the whole winter in the
cave. In an affecting letter which was forwarded by the Indian army from the cave in
the Himalayas to the Sivananda Centres Swamiji describes the elevating beauty of
nature as well as the depth of his spiritual experiences. A few weeks later, however,
he noticed chilblains on his toes and had to leave the cave. After the Indian doctors
had already recommended the amputation of his toes, an alternative treatment
possibility presented itself in Germany. Swamiji spent several weeks in Dr. Brucker´s
Naturopathic Clinic in Lahnstein where the chilblains on his toes were cured owing to
treatments based on argillaceous earth and cabbage leaves.
In 1986 the Hugendubel Publishing House published the German edition of Swami
Vishnu-devananda´s book ´Meditation and Mantras`. Thereafter, it has been published
directly by the Sivananda Yoga Centre. There will be a reprint of a revised edition of
this book before the end of this year.
The first European Yoga Teacher's Training Course was held in 1985 in Spain.
Setting out from Munich, a bus loaded entirely with students and staffs drove via
Geneva and Madrid to Bayona Playa in Galicia.
November 1989: The same night the Wall came down, Swamiji called Munich in
order to arrange for a Yoga Peace Festival scheduled to take place during the
following week in Berlin. Swamiji was coming straight from Canada to Berlin where
he had a very busy day. Within one day he gave a press conference in the museum at
Checkpoint Charlie, organized a peace action at the Brandenburg Gate, met with East
Germany´s president Egon Krenz and tracked down the farmer who had helped him
after his landing on the farmer´s field in the East Berlin Weissensee district.
The same year the Munich Centre spread out to the ground floor of Steinheilstrasse
featuring a new front-desk, boutique, and offices. This way the Yoga Centre became
part of this district´s townscape.
Two years after reunification, the Berlin Centre was opened in Heilbronnerstrasse as a
subsidiary of the Munich Association.
In the summers of 1992 and 1993 highly successful Yoga summer vacations were
held in Scheffau near the Wilder Kaiser mountain range. 1994 was the first year that a
Yoga Teacher's Training Course took place in the German-speaking area. Since then
there has been each year such a course in Tyrol.
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In 1996, even before the Federal Government moved from Bonn to Berlin, we
managed to find an excellent new location for the Berlin Centre inside a calm twostoried
house at Schmiljanstrasse, Berlin-Friedenau.
In 1998 we opened the Sivananda Yoga Retreat House in Reith near Kitzbühel. In the
years that followed, Yoga Vacations, Special Guest Programmes, TTC and ATTC
continued to steadily develop. Several magnificent books by Swami Sivananda got
translated and were published by the Mangalam Publishing House: The German
editions of ´The Bhagavad Gita`, ´Bliss Divine`, ´Sadhana`, and ´Thought Power`.
In 1999 the Munich Centre continued to grow by renting this hall in Luisenstrasse.
Beyond that, the Vienna Centre moved to Prinz Eugenstrasse at the quiet and centrally
located embassy quarter.
In February 2001 Sri Swami Chaitanyananda visited the Munich Centre and
conducted two unforgettable Satsangs.
The impressive development of Yoga in the past 30 years both in Munich and all of
Europe is actually based on Swami Sivananda´s farsightedness: Among his young
talented students he chose Swami Vishnu-devananda to be sent to the West. As a
Hatha and Raja Yoga Master Swamiji met with extraordinary interest and much
openness in all Western countries.
Subsequently, we have been following Swamiji´s footsteps - a peace mission in the
form of humble Karma Yoga work. In this system full of wisdom, love and
selflessness people support other people.
In Munich, we were successful in strengthening this system. During the past 30 years
we were able to regularly send staffs who had been trained at Munich to the other
European centres and enable them to assist in setting up many projects such as the
Sivananda Yoga Retreat House in Reith near Kitzbühel, and the new Ashram Chateau
de Yoga Sivananda in Orleans which was inaugurated in 2003. What´s more, they
have been helpful in the International Yoga Teacher's Training Courses.
Depending on one´s own personality one feels more attracted to one Yoga path than
to all the other ones. In the foreground of Swamiji´s work in the West were mainly
Hatha and Raja Yoga, both of which based upon Karma Yoga.
By now, Asanas and Pranayama, the more physically oriented aspects of Yoga, are
being practiced and appreciated by all walks of life. Quite often, however, this merely
physical approach leads to a predominantly commercial orientation, in which a more
profound opening of the consciousness is not possible.
Swamiji had to face this difficulty in the West right from the beginning. In New York
he rented teaching rooms in which he gave asana classes that were packed.
Nevertheless the donations basket at the exit remained so empty that Swamiji soon
had no more resources left. This is why he felt compelled to lay down a suggested
minimum donation for the Yoga class. But the principle of honorary teaching and
assisting in the centres never changed. It is very gratifying that the spirit of Karma
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Yoga moulds even today, more than ten years after Swamiji´s Mahasamadhi all
activities of the Sivananda Yoga Centres.
Swamiji insisted on always practicing and teaching all the aspects of Yoga in the
centres. Regular meditation classes for beginners and philosophy classes have already
resulted in a better understanding of Jnana Yoga, which is a path where clear logic is
the basis for the realization of the actual reality of being.
The regular Satsangs, that is to say meditation evenings with Mantra chanting, Pujas,
which are worshipping ceremonies with Indian priests, as well as numerous special
programmes with distinguished Mahatmas have had their share in aiding many people
to take the difficult step of Bhakti Yoga. Bhakti Yoga is the experience of a divine
inner guidance in Yoga.
We count ourselves lucky that these islands of Eastern practice meet with such good
response in Europe. Master Sivananda had noticed this before when he mentionned:
“The West is ready for Yoga.”
The word ´thank you` is often quite meaningless. I mentally bow down to the
hundreds of people whose time and energy has preserved this Yoga island for Bavaria
and Germany. We will spare no effort to make sure this Island will be preserved as a
fruitful example, so it may continue to radiate the Spirit of Yoga in a complete form.
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