Peter Marchand
Key-note Speaker
Peter Marchand was born in Belgium in 1963 and met his original teacher Harish Johari at the age of 20. He studied with him until Harish Johari left the body 16 years later, also meeting some of his many teachers, such as Narayan Rishi and Baba Dwarka Das. Along with his guru brothers and sisters, as well as with the family of Harish Johari, Peter founded Sanatan Society around 2001, as a worldwide networking association to promote the late Harish Johari’s teachings.
Now entering a phase of rather intense practice on his own, Peter received further support and guidance from other teachers, such as Narmada Devi Puri and Avadh Behari Das Kathiababa. Having had so many almost too great examples of what the path is all about, Peter still felt quite reluctant to think of himself as a teacher. It sort-of happened in 2005 at the Santoshpuri Ashram in Hardwar-India.
As Harish Johari had asked him, Peter wrote ‘The Yoga of Nine Emotions’ on the subject of the 9 emotional essences or Rasas in 2006. Integrated with more general yogic understanding, this Rasa Vidya allows to reach emotional balance without suppressing our emotions.
Peter continued teaching and writing, which led to the publishing of ‘The Yoga of Truth’ in 2007 on the subject of Advaita. Names & labels aside, Peter’s teachings combine the opposite principles of Tantra and Jnana in one integral approach called Tantric Advaita, including obviously Ashtanga, Karma and Bhakti Yoga. The practice of Samadhi is the most central teaching. As a hobby, Peter taught a free weekly class in his hometown for over a decade, which allowed for over 150 hours of teaching videos to be made available for free online. He was teaching yoga teachers at the European Yoga Union and through the Belgian and Dutch yoga teacher federations.
In 2009 Peter met his new teacher Kedar Upreti, a Tantric healer from Nepal. He learned to heal people’s inner emotional blockages through rituals and particular kinds of sadhana. From 2018 onwards Peter accepted that teaching, coaching and healing would contribute to his income, giving up on any other jobs in 2020. New books followed, with ‘Love Your Ego’ in 2019 and ‘Tantric Advaita’ in 2022. In 2024 then came the presentation of his rather monumental work ‘Samadhi, the Deep Meditation Handbook’, a book with over 600 pages published in two volumes, which took two years to write.
Given that Peter has over 25 years of experience in directly working with our emotions from a yogic viewpoint, his teachings at the 2026 EUY Congress with the theme “Rasa and Bhava” are greatly anticipated.
Workshop
Main Afternoon Workshop | 14:30 – 16:30 (Monday/Tuesday/Thursday/Friday)
Rasas are the essence of our emotions that exist in both the body and the mind. The Tantric tradition recognizes 9 Rasas that represent our basic emotions: love, joy, wonder, courage, calmness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust. Those who practice Rasa Sadhana learn to overcome negative emotions in order to pursue better health, enhanced spiritual growth, and enduring happiness. Our emotions are continuously affected by the interplay of our senses, the elements, food, and the life force in our body. During this week, Peter Marchand offers many practical physiological and philosophical tools from Tantric and Ayurvedic traditions that can help the participants to change their emotional patterns. He explains the nature and purpose of each Rasa and how we can strengthen or weaken one Rasa through another.
Workshop 1 : Inner Happiness
We will explore that inner happiness which is independent of what happens and the ultimate goal of all yogic practice. That will include studying the principle causes of unhappiness (KLESAS) as put forward by Patanjali, the nature of the bliss (ANANDA) of the nondual Self, the roles of Bhakti, Karma, Jnana, Ashtanga and Tantra Yoga, the place of pursuing emotional balance within spiritual growth (BHUMIKAS), the natural maturing of desires in our energy centers (CHAKRAS), the importance of the 6 treasures of the yogi (SATSAMPAT) and the 9 impediments for having a happy yogic mind (ANTARYAS).
Workshop 2 : Nine Emotional Essences
On top of the more general yogic approaches to happiness, the ancient Tantric science of Rasa Vidya offers unique insights into the nine emotional essences (RASAS) that produce our thousands of distinct emotional states (BHAVAS). The 9 essential emotions of love, joy, wonder, courage, peace, anger, fear, sadness and disgust can thus be mastered through a practice of emotional fasting (RASA SADHANA). Even for simply becoming more emotionally balanced, be ready to find out how each of the 9 Rasas can be understood and approached in the most satisfying manner.
Workshop 3 : Emotional Energies
We will see how emotions are energies in motion, seeking expression. These vibrational feedback loops between our 5 sheaths of individual consciousness (KOSHAS) represent the basic yogic psychology. We will look at how the vibration of our pranic energy (GUNA) supports a variety of emotions and how we can rapidly change our feelings through breathing and other practices. The impact of our body types, foods and exercises that promote energy circulation should also not be underestimated. Equally important on longer term are our subtle energy reserves (OJAS/TEJAS) as well the most essential yogic insight into neutralizing solar (PINGALA) and lunar (IDA) energies.
Workshop 4 : Persistent Unhappiness
We must be aware that all our great yoga techniques can be used for emotional suppression, just like people more usually abuse alcohol, sweets or social media. Persistent unpleasant emotions must be digested, not avoided, lest we literally become sick with them. We can make it easier by managing our energy well, so that we can let our light shine within the darker nights of our soul. Each flavor of persistent unhappiness thus brings us to understand some fundamental spiritual truths, which then must be applied to our particular issues. Enters also the mysterious game of Karma and other spiritual dimensions, where a more Shamanic kind of healing may complement the more fundamental yogic transformation of our very souls.
Workshop 5 : Emotional Balance
Choosing happiness, the practice of contentment (SANTOSHA), is easier than it may feel, giving that it is largely a self-fulfilling prophecy. Understanding our emotions, coupled with the ability to exchange old for fresh thought patterns, allows us to become warriors of the smile, to maintain dynamic emotional balance. We will go through a number of energizing practices that may serve to always bring back our good feeling, such as heart breathing, the more therapeutical mantras, emotional and sensory purification, breath, chanting in support of our spiritual moods (BHAVAS) and a lot more. At all cost, we avoid the inauspicious moving forward from unhappiness and fix our mood issues first, becoming masters of our own good feeling (SATVAPATTI).
Language
French – English translation
