Zinal is a place where the vibrant life force can be experienced up close. The ancient rock of the mountains; the cold of the torrential stream, Navisence; the simultaneously nourishing and demanding heat of the sun; the wrath and loveliness of the air, the sky. In August 2024, yoga practitioners from twenty-four European countries came together here to learn and experience what life force, prāṇa, is. I have been sent to Zinal by the German association, BDYoga, to give workshops on prāṇāyāma and meditation. On site, I am given another purpose. In interviews, I collect a bouquet of impressions to pass on together with my experiences.

In almost all conversations, I encounter a feeling of openness, cheerfulness and happiness. It’s no wonder that some people see the congress as a festival. When I step out onto the street early in the morning, I see people with happy faces walking to various teachers in the twilight of the dawning day. A teaching focusing on āsana and prāṇāyāma is taking place in the large hall. The teacher leads the group through the exercises in a calm tone and with clear words. After the morning practice, the participants go their separate ways, for breakfast, for a walk along the rushing river, to rest in an accommodation in the village center or in a cottage up on the mountainside where they have taken lodgings. They flock together again for the next practice. Expanding, coming together. Breathing in, breathing out. Fullness there, fullness here, pūrṇam-adaḥ pūrṇam-idaṁ.

The day is filled with over twenty events and an accompanying program in the evening, which creates space for encounter and offers spiritual and mental nourishment. In addition to the main sessions, where the guests of honor Swāmī Maitreyī and Siddharta Krishna alternate in the mornings and afternoons, there is a wide range of other offerings. These include those that incorporate the experience of nature into the practice; for example with a bath in the ice-cold Navisence after an appropriate preparatory practice. Others practise ṣaṭkriyās, āsanas and concentration exercises such as trāṭaka and incorporate impressions of nature into meditation. One offer combines voice, breath, mind and body exercises. One offer explores through mindfulness in interaction the concept of the inbetween (madhya), emptiness (śūnya) and encounter. Of course, there are also the classic forms of yoga with āsana, prāṇāyāma, pratyāhāra, concentration and meditation, each course with a specific focus as presented by the respective teachers. In conversations, I realize how small a part of the overall picture in Zinal I get to know and what a wealth of different experiences are on offer here. The diverse perspectives of the teachers, together with the manifold approaches of the participants, create a colorful kaleidoscope to take a look at the facets of yoga. 

What is yoga? How is yoga to be found – in Zinal and elsewhere? Patañjali describes yoga as a transformation of the mind (citta) in order to move from delusion about the reality of being (avidyā) to discernment (viveka). Overcoming the idea of an independent ego existence (asmitā) plays a special role here. The Sāṁkhya philosophy, on which Patañjali’s explanations are based, divides mind/consciousness (citta) into three aspects: “I-maker” (ahaṁkāra), cognition or mind (manas), and insight (buddhi). It is the buddhi part that provides the link to the clear realization (viveka) of truth. In slightly different words, the Bhagavad Gītā describes yoga as a process of detachment from the “I-maker” (nirmamo-nirahaṁkāra) in order to achieve an attitude of open-mind, open-heart and open-will, thus contributing to the good of all in the world (lokasaṁgraha). The Gītā maintains: „Whoever sees the innermost essence of Being (īśvara) equally present everywhere, doesn’t harm the Self by the self. This person attains to the supreme goal.“ (BhG 13.28) What both expositions have in common is that the core of this transformation process is not about obtaining and posessing something, but rather about letting go. Patañjali as well as the Gītā mention the pair of practice (abhyāsa) and non-attachment (vairāgya) as a requirement for approaching the goal of yoga.  Like a bird needs two wings to fly, we need both abhyāsa and vairāgya. 

At this point I would like to remind that words are just symbols. Especially in the different languages, such as those we use in the EUY, they carry with them culturally colored and sometimes divergent connotations. The newly elected interim president of the EUY, Dmytro Danylov, reports on the influence of cultural background on the understanding of symbols – as well as on the access to yoga. While red and orange are seen as fire in Spain, he says, people who were socialized in Eastern Europe associate blood with the color red. Words, symbols and concepts are not reality. They are like the finger pointing to the mountain in the distance. They are not the mountain. Along the way, we have to develop our own understanding based on our experiences. In order to live, understand and realize the yoga concepts, practice is essential.

During these days in Zinal, both participants and teachers repeatedly describe the beauty of the experience of how people of all ages from so many different countries come together here to form a peaceful and happy communion, a unity. Cheerfulness, lightness and simplicity are the attributes they use to describe this feeling. The feeling of togetherness is also visibly expressed at the end of the kirtan concert in the evening: people form two circles, one inside, one outside, holding hands, humming, swinging, while the circles begin to move slowly.

On the first day of the congress, Swāmī Maitreyī explains the relationship between the concepts of prāṇa and the teachings of Vedanta, Sāṁkhya and Tantrism. She uses a beautiful image to illustrate the idea of ātman and brahman: the individual is like a soap bubble that encloses a certain area of space and gives it a self-contained shape. The light and colors of the surroundings are reflected on its shimmering surface. Space within space, the same air inside as outside. This is reminiscent of a similar image used by the Amṛtabindu Upaniṣad to describe this relationship: When a clay jar is moved, it is only the vessel that changes its position. The space remains. Inside and outside, everything is a single space.

In conversation with her, Swāmī Maitreyī emphasizes the need to take a perspective beyond ourselves and include the totality around us in our practice. How we relate to other people and the environment matters. How are we connected to each other, how can we contribute something positive even to a demanding situation, how can we bring in beauty or realize commitment with a helpful presence? In connection with the day to day practice of yoga, she mentions the guiding principle of Swāmī Satyānanda: “serve, love, give”. These are the first steps in expanding the focus from the “I” of the ahaṁkāra to “All This!”.

When teaching yoga Siddharta Krishna spontaneously draws on his extensive knowledge of the classical scriptures. His focus in Zinal is on their relationship to prāṇa. Participants of the congress feel inspired to peace and kindness by the nature of his presence, as some of them tell me. I get an impression of his spontaneous approach as he reminds of some lines from the Ṛg Veda in the middle of a conversation about his observations at the congress: „We are spread over the surface of the earth,“ he quotes. „If we want to draw from the purifying waters of wisdom, we come together in common purpose from all sides.“

Truth or happiness cannot be collected from somewhere like mirabelle plums under a tree. Ultimately, we can only gain insight from within ourselves. We mature in the midst of our tasks, disappointments, conflicts and challenges, in our relationships with people, animals, insects and Mother Earth as a whole. Once we have recognized what we need for our development, says Swāmī Maitreyī, we begin to let go of what is not essential. „It’s about being, not obtaining,“ she says.

It is crucial that we open ourselves to the full experience, including the beauty and ugliness in the world, and realize that we are not an isolated, small individual. We are not the enclosed space in a soap bubble. Drawing from the wisdom of the elders, François Lorin, a member of the executive comitee of EUY, points out that it can be a dead end to believe that we need beautiful places and beautiful experiences to find yoga. He proposes to ask who is the one who is searching for happiness and bliss? It’s not the type and quantity of fuel that determines where a driver gets to, Lorin says, but the insight (buddhi) that he or she develops. The decisive factor is the answer to the basic question of yoga, which Rabindranath Tagore wrote about a few days before his death:

With the first rays of the rising sun

I asked at the beginning of my life:

“Who am I?”

Now, with the last rays of the setting sun

I ask at the end of my life:

“Who am I?”

To answer this question, it is only of limited use to acquire knowledge, to visit special places, to gather special experiences. In an effort to find happiness and to get the “Me, Myself, I” through life well, we want to sort things out, control them, master them. We resort to intellectual knowledge, explanations, strategies, we divide experiences into good and bad – but in doing so, we strengthen the part of the “I-maker” (ahaṁkāra) within us. The beauty of life lies in its vitality. Śiva and Śakti together.

François Lorin says that the real work starts when we’re back home, when the conditions are no more benign but challenging. How can we overcome the narrow notion of being a secluded „Me“? How can we overcome the anxious, clinging view and develop a virtuosity with which we dance through the pleasant and unpleasant in the world and “perhaps one day live into the answer”, as Rilke says, into the answer to the question “Who am I?” Patañjali describes as yoga this transformation from wrong-perception (avidyā) to discernment and realization (viveka). When the veils of ego identification (asmitā) begin to dissolve, when we become free from the thoughts and stories we get caught up in, wisdom (prajña) gradually begins to work within us. Gradually the sky clears and the luminous essence of who we really are slowly comes into appearance.

A kaleidoscope only shows a colorful image on the screen. In order to experience the luminous reality, we have to step through the projection screen between us and reality. A teacher in Zinal describes the yoga experience with a metaphor. She says, that it’s like when we look at a postcard and then suddenly enter the picture, “wow!”, whether bright or gloomy, everything begins to pulsate, to smell, to sound, to live.“

The day comes to say goodbye to the beauty high up in the valley, where the snow-covered peaks shine against a deep blue sky. I am grateful for the many encounters. I am also grateful to the organizers, the translators and the office team, who, sometimes like invisible angels in the background, have ensured with an incredible amount of voluntary work and helpfulness that all this can take place.  On the way back, as the bus reaches the edge, where the road winds down into the main valley far below, I catch a bird’s eye view. I am struck by the ugliness of the way we are violating and exploiting Mother Earth in the name of our civilization. How we are wounding this Self we are in everything. After a long train journey, I arrive at home. Bills, a letter from the administration, my bike with a flat tire and demanding conflicts in the work group await me there. And now? Where is the happiness and beauty in the relationships and actions of daily life? Now the practice of yoga begins.

Vyāsa says, “Live in yoga and you will attain to yoga.”