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

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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