Gregorian Bivolaru

For more than 50 years, Eminent Yoga Teacher Gregorian Bivolaru has been working tirelessly to guide all those who aspire to discover and know God. Throughout this time, he has disturbed some with his revelations and actions, has inspired others, and has never ceased to guide those who thirst for spirituality, who have carefully and persistently put his teachings into practice, on the path to perfection, with great modesty and a permanent state of godly channel.

Many of the revelations he made in the MISA School of Integral Esoteric Yoga – among which the Law of Occult Resonance and the mystery of Godly Attributes – are unique on this planet and enable persevering aspirants to achieve extraordinary efficiency in spiritual practice and attain peak spiritual realizations.

He has authored or co-authored over 100 books that offer an integrative perspective and guide us towards a holistic view of the human being and a life in the quest for perfection.

Adina Stoian

Adina Stoian is a yoga and tantra teacher with a vast theoretical and practical experience in the field of genuine spiritual transformation. Passionate about self-knowledge and the transformation necessary to fulfill her aspiration to perfection, Adina is first and foremost a practitioner who applies with dedication the spiritual knowledge and methods that she has been generously sharing for over 25 years through articles and books, courses, seminars, conferences and camps, both in Romania and in other countries in Europe, Asia, South America.

Together with her beloved husband, Advaitananda, and under the guidance of her spiritual guide, yoga teacher emeritus Gregorian Bivolaru, Adina has devoted her life to promote the wisdom of Esoteric Tantra Yoga. Through her work and practice, she explores a variety of domains such as: human existence and transformation, the couple relationship, spiritual evolution, the role of women in Tantra and the importance of spirituality to our modern world.

Exploring the Eastern tradition with a modern, solution-oriented approach dedicated to the challenges of everyday life, Adina together with her husband Advaitananda – are co-authors of the Esoteric Tantric Yoga course taught within the International Federation of Yoga and Meditation Atman in over 30 countries around the world.

Kai F. Hodeck, PhD

Kai F. Hodeck hat an der Technischen Universität Berlin (TU Berlin) in Halbleiterphysik promoviert. Seitdem forschte am Berliner Helmholtz-Zentrum für Materialien und Energie (HZB) an Biomolekülen in Lösung sowie an der Mechanik biologischer Zellen am Fraunhofer-Institut für Silicatforschung (Würzburg). Als Mitarbeiter der Fascia Research Group der Universität Ulm untersuchte er die Biomechanik und Physiologie des menschlichen Bindegewebes.

Parallel dazu praktiziert er Rolfing® Körperarbeit und Therapie in Berlin und unterrichtet Faszienmanipulation für Physiotherapeuten am VPT Berlin / Brandenburg.

Jorge Alves

Jorge Alves is a musician and researcher. He is professor at the Escola Superior de Música do Porto and a member of the Matosinhos String Quartet. He performs regularly in Portugal and abroad, collaborating with many musicians and institutions. After finishing his graduation in Portugal, he was awarded a grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation that allowed him to study for four years with Professor Tibor Varga (Sion, Switzerland) and Professor Bruno Giuranna (Cremona, Italy). Jorge Alves is the founder and president of the Portuguese Viola Association, and of the Portuguese Branch of the European String Teachers Association. Jorge Alves loves to coach and regularly holds master classes all over Portugal, as well as in the Lemmens Institute, Leuven; Maastricht Conservatory, Malta Summer Festival, Conservatório de Cosenza, Campus delle Arti, Bassano Del Grappa and Santa Maria University, Brasil; Antwerp Conservatory, Petrozavodsk State Conservatory.

Christian Sacarea, PhD

PhD in Mathematics at the Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany and author of more than 40 scientific papers and 4 books, covering topics in Knowledge Discovery and Artificial Intelligence, and developing techniques to unravel the deep structure of knowledge in various data sets. Interested in any form of authentic spirituality and how spiritual knowledge can enlarge our point of view and enrich our consciousness. Studying and teaching Yoga since 1990, as well as Kashmir Shaivism or I Ching, he is Senior Yoga teacher in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Monica Dascalu

Monica Dascalu is habilitated professor at the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology at the Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania, where she teaches digital electronics. She also has a master degree in Journalism and Public Communication. In her scientific research activity, she is interested in artificial intelligence and microsystems’ digital design, having over 70 scientific papers, 5 books and 33 research projects. With almost 30 years of yoga practice and teaching experience, she also authored dozens of articles and 7 books on topics related to yoga, some translated in English, Hungarian and Spanish.

Magdalena Hau

Magdalena Hau is a specialist in psychiatry and a yoga teacher based in London. In addition to her profession as a doctor, she has 17 years of experience in many areas of yoga and meditation and values these disciplines as an important way to live life consciously, heartfelt and in harmony. She believes that life is a journey of evolution and transformation and that yoga provides all the appropriate tools and keys to make this journey possible.

Through her years of practice, she has encountered many yoga practitioners who have cured mental health problems through their practice. She will speak about the crucial factors of spiritual experiences of kundalini awakening as opposed to clinical psychoses as well as important influences for stabilization and resilience.

Maria Porsfelt

Maria started her journey of self-discovery through yoga and tantra yoga in 2001 – a journey that started in Denmark and took her to Thailand, India and back. She has been with TARA Centre in London as coordinating teacher since 2009. She teaches yoga, tantra yoga and meditation and facilitates special classes for women only. She runs spiritual festivals, retreats and workshops on various topics all over the world. Her style of teaching is practical and approachable, expresses a deep understanding, gained through personal experience and is animated by a great joy of life.

Maria has a degree in Philosophy from Copenhagen University and is happy to be able to integrate her educational background into her daily life and teaching practise. The degree in philosophy helped foster a contemplative approach to life and experiences which has proved very valuable in both life and work.

Maria is also a member of the Council of the International Federation of Yoga and Meditation Atman.

Blandine Wegener

Blandine is a certified Yoga and Tantra teacher in the Atman Federation for yoga and meditation. She has been deeply engaged in the yogic path for the past 15 years dedicating every day of her life to teaching, personal growth and selfless service. She cofounded Mahasiddha Yoga in Chiang Mai and the Integral Yoga Centre Amrita, an Ashram resort in the lush country side of Thailand.

Blandine is a practicing psychologist and coach as well and shares her passion for spirituality, yoga, meditation and self-growth in an inspiring way with everyone around her.

https://tantrayogathailand.com/

Krzysztof Stec, PhD

Krzysztof Stec Ph.D. studied and researched yoga several years in Indian institutes, including the reknown Kaivalyadhama yoga institute and had the opportunity to meet and practice with many well-known yoga researchers, gurus and saints of India. In 2009, he received his Masters degree in Sports Science with a focus on Yoga at Banaras Hindu University and then spent two years as a research scientist at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur.

He completed his Ph.D. at the Jozef Piłsudski Sports University in Warsaw, Poland, in November 2014. He has authored more than 40 scientific articles in prestigious international journals and gave several well-received presentations on yogic techniques at international conferences in Poland, India and the US. He is the author of two books on dynamic Suryanamaskar, one of which already has been translated into several languages.

Rune Steenberg Reyhé, PhD

Rune is an anthropologist and human geographer working on Central Asia and western China. He specialises in kinship and economic anthropology. Rune did his MA and PhD at Freie Universität Berlin and has since been a postdoc in Bonn, Berlin, New York and Copenhagen. He has conducted fieldwork in Indonesia, China and Kyrgyzstan. In the past decade he has devoted special attention to the Uyghurs in China’s northwesternmost region Xinjiang.

His current research project concerns written narratives and textual strategies of Uyghurs in Xinjiang and their response to rapid social transformation, political oppression and religious resurgence. In his talk at the congress, he reflects the yogic concept of resonance on anthropology – leading to questions of who we are, what happens around us and which parts of reality we experience.

Ivo Strasser, MD

Ivo Strasser studied medicine at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich and received his doctorate in 2013 as a physician in the field of pediatric cardiology. From August 2013 to July 2014, he practiced as a pediatrician at the Friedrich Alexander University Hospital in Erlangen, Germany. From November 2014 to July 2018 Mr. Strasser worked as an assistant physician in general pediatrics in the municipal hospital Fürth. Currently he is assistant physician researching child and adolescent psychiatry / psychosomatics at the University of Erlangen.

From 2009 he started intense yoga practice and education, and becoming a certified yoga teacher in 2014, when he started teaching, specialized in Hatha and Laya Yoga. In the congress he will give us a preview of his research in clinical applications of yoga regarding gastritis.

Doru-Beniamin Bodea, PhD

Doru-Beniamin Bodea graduated the Faculty of Physics, Babeş -Bolyai University, Cluj Napoca, achieving a master of science degree in quantum field theory. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics, more precisely in collision theory (atomic and nuclear physics). He did his post-doctoral studies in Bordeaux University and Max Plank Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden where he specialized in the physics of very low temperatures and quantum phase transitions. He started yoga practice in his early 20’s. Soon after he became a yoga teacher and continued to teach yoga since now more than 25 years, holding international workshops and retreats.

Due to this, he had the possibility to combine the constant interest towards understanding the principles and laws governing the physics of the universe with a continuous exploration of his own inner universe through the practice of yoga. He believes that both science and spirituality represent expressions of the innate human tendency towards achieving perfection and thus he is aiming to find modalities to interconnect these two important areas of life.

For more information, please check: http://traditionelles-yoga.de/dr-phys-doru-bodea/

Swami Mahalayananda

Swami Mahalayananda (initiated as a Swami in 2001 in Rishikesh) has 35 years of experience as international teacher and lecturer in yoga and Tantra Yoga, as well as starting yoga schools in different countries. An unexpected and profound spiritual experience and awakening at the age of 24 made him quit law school and take up spiritual search which has been ongoing since then.

He has a passion for Kashmir Shaivism, Atma Vichara and spiritual art, starting his musical education from young age. This spiritual search is doubled with 28 years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, with specialty in development and trauma psychology.

Taija Stoat

Taija Stoat (PsM) is a recognised expert in criminal psychology regarding assessing and dealing with negative emotions and destructive and manipulative behaviour. She is frequently referred by the media and regularly gives international talks and trainings on the subject. In her work as psychologist she hence aims to aid her clients, students and audiences to transform harmful aspects into something beneficial.

In this congress she is presenting the results of most recent scientific studies on psychological effects of spiritual practice and pinpointing the importance of the concept of emotional resonance. She has practiced Yoga and Tantra Yoga since 2007 and is certified yoga teacher by Atman Federation since 2015. She is currently finalising her PhD in University of Helsinki and works as Managing Partner in a company specialised in psychological assessments.

Mihai Stoian (Advaitananda)

Advaitananda Stoian is an advanced practitioner, teacher, author, researcher, international life coach and lecturer, who has been practicing and teaching Yoga and Tantra Yoga for more than 30 years within several yoga organisations. His practical knowledge unites with his modern scientific formation, which results in highly effective guidance for the practitioner, and is well adapted to the views of our contemporary world.

He is author of Tantra Intensive Course which is taught throughout the world. Annually he lectures at many international retreats and conferences of Yoga, Tantra and Meditation, including the International Meditation Retreat for Revealing the Supreme Self, Tantra Festivals, different workshops for spiritualising relationships, and the valued Maha Vidya Retreats.

He is also a prolific proponent of current sociological issues, speaking at international politic conferences to introduce fundamental concepts that can be used to shape a broader understanding of human rights: spiritual human rights, soul ecology, and hygiene of the consciousness. One of Advaita’s main purposes is to provide the opportunity for many people to come into contact and deeply understand the amazing value of the traditional spiritual practices.

More information on https://advaitananda.com/.

Nicolae Catrina (Adinathananda)

Nicolae Catrina (Adinathananda) is a spiritual teacher with more than 35 years of experience. He gives workshops in many different countries, such as Germany, Italy, France, England, Belgium, Hungary, Czech Republic, Greece, Thailand etc. More than 20 years ago he started teaching the only course of Kashmir Shaivism existing outside of India, for which he wrote hundreds of lessons and which offers, in a unique way, adapted to the western mind-frame, the richness and depth of this spiritual tradition.

He created several other courses, among which Yoga of Beauty (or the attainment of spiritual enlightenment through aesthetic experience), Esoteric I-Ching, Enneagram, Tantric Alchemy and Tibetan Tantric Yoga. He is the author of several books on Shaivism, Yoga, Tantra Yoga, spiritual art, etc. and has translated a number of important Sanskrit texts, including the Saundarya Lahari, Shiva Samhita, Gheranda Samhita, Shiva Sutras, Spanda Karikas and Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.

More information on https://nicolaecatrina.com/en/

Dr. Jean Marie A.T. Beuckels, DO (doctor of osteopathy)

Dr. Jean Marie A.T. Beuckels, DO started his osteopathic journey 30 years ago and studied at different osteopathic institutes in Europe, where he received different DO-degrees in osteopathy. After completing his BSc in Osteopathic Medicine at University of Westminster and his MSc in Osteopathy at University of Greenwich, Jean Marie obtained a doctorate in medical science through the department of osteopathic medicine at the Witten/Herdecke University in Germany.

Currently Jean Marie works as an osteopathic practitioner in Belgium. He teaches as Head of Department of osteopathic Medicine clinical osteopathy to medical students of the Faculty of Health at the Witten/Herdecke University and is appointed as senior docent at the HS-Fresenius, University of Applied Science in Idstein (Germany), where he teaches the full-time students in a Bachelor-Masters programme for osteopathy.

Next to his strong fascination for pluralism in osteopathic manual medicine, Beuckels’ interests are situated within the panorama of osteopathic diagnostic models and related osteosophical conceptualisations and medical theories, that might underpin the clinical observations of resonance and causality interactions of osteopathic ontogenesis.

Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, PhD

Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, Ph.D. has conducted research on yoga for physical and psychological health since 2001 and is a practitioner/instructor of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan since 1971. He is Research Director for the Kundalini Research Institute, Research Associate at the Benson Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, Research Affiliate at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research has evaluated yoga for insomnia, chronic stress, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and mental health in public schools. Dr. Khalsa works with the International Association of Yoga Therapists promoting yoga research as scientific director for the annual Symposium on Yoga Research and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Yoga Therapy. He is author of the Harvard Medical School ebook Your Brain on Yoga, and chief editor of the medical textbook The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care.

YOGA CONTEST

Why a competition in the context of a congress?

„One gram of practice is worth a ton of theory.“ Swami Sivananda

Yoga is a practical discipline. And while in the theoretical dialogues and lectures of the congress the boundaries between science and yoga are crossed and universal principles are pointed out, in the yoga contest this is supplemented by the concrete results of many years of yoga practice. This tradition of the International Yoga Congress has repeatedly proven to be an enriching, refreshing and enlivening element.

Yet, the Yoga Contest is by no means intended as a competitive contest. The uplifting spirit of this contest is, first and foremost, to compete with oneself and overcome self-imposed boundaries. To determine what degree of practice has been achieved and, moreover, to increase the willpower and awareness with the help of common intense effort. All participating yogis and yoginis gain a strong impulse of personal development simply through the atmosphere of spiritual brotherhood.

The first places will be rewarded with substantial gifts in money, free participation to camps, retreats, workshops and other special gifts:

1st Place – 750€, many other prizes
2nd Place – 500€, many other prizes
3rd Place – 250€, many other prizes
10 Mentions of 70€ each.

Signup

Registering for the International Yoga Contest “Competition for Promoting Spiritual Values” is completely free. Please send your name, age and a few words about your yoga experience (school, type of Yoga, years of Yoga) to organizer@internationalyogacongress.net.

Please be aware that during the Hatha Yoga section all participants should wear bathing suits (two piece suit for women), so that the jury can appreciate the correct execution of all the asana-s and bandha-s. Naturally, contestants will bring their own bathing suits. Yoga mats will be provided by the organiser.

All participants of the yoga contest can take part in the public viewing in MahaYoga Zentrum, where the talks from the main hall of the congress will be streamed live!

HATHA YOGA TEST

In this test, the correct practicing of the asana-s is checked. All participants will perform Paschimottanasana, Shalabasana and Uddiyana Bandha. This test verifies the accuracy of these techniques.

For men only: Test of duration and accuracy of the practice of Mayurasana and Vrishikasana.

For women only: Test of flexibility and accuracy in the practice of Chakrasana and Prasarita Padatanasana.

SUBTLE PERCEPTION TEST

The jury will exemplify through meditation, one by one, five spiritual states chosen from a list of 49 spiritual states (e.g. the state of joy, compassion, enthusiasm, courage, love etc.). Each participant has to open up at the subtle level, and in a state of spiritual receptivity perceive the specific state that is exemplified. The list with 49 different states will be provided in the beginning of the test.

INTELLIGENCE TEST

The Intelligence Test includes some questions testing the intelligence of the participants. See the example below, give it a try.

An old man has 2 sons. Before dying he is calling his sons and telling them that one of them would inherit all his fortune. But for this they need to pass a test. They have to ride a large distance trough the desert until a far way city. The one whose horse will arrive there the last will be the heir. Hearing this the two sons immediately jumped on the horses and stated to ride as fast as possible. Explain why.

[toggle-title]Answer[/toggle-title][toggle-content expand=0]Each of the son is riding the horse of the other one.[/toggle-content]

The prize winners of the 2018 Contest:

Position	Name	Total points out of 21000	Country	City	Years of Yoga Practice
1st place	Lars Bergemann	11224	Germany	Berlin	5
2nd place	Mihai Comanescu	11073	Romania	Braila	25
3rd place	Magdalena Hau	10643	United Kingdom	London	16
1st mention	John Hanson	10084	Sweden	Malmo	9
2nd mention	Razvan Pop	9963	Romania	Cluj	26
3rd mention	Aelita Racheleano	9594	United Kingdom	London	16
4th mention	Adrian Boda	9400	Denmark	Copenhagen	23
5th mention	Stefan Postelnicu	9323	Romania	Craiova	20
6th mention	Vera Ludwig	8901	Germany	Berlin	4
7th mention	Jakob Bender	8227	Germany	Berlin	2
8th mention	Ivana Georgijevic	8189	Sweden	Malmo	9
9th mention	Michael Gondek	8184	Czech Republic	Olomac	5
10th mention	Michael Dvoracek	7932	Czech Republic	Brno	6