Bhakti | Kirtan | Satsang | Yoga

We are thrilled to annouce the 2024 Bhakti Pilgrimage to India with Visvambhar Sheth and Petros Haffenrichter in January to Jaipur and Govardhan/Vrindavan.

13 days of immersing into the spiritual heart of Yoga, exploring the places these ancient practices originated from. Join Vish and Petros and discover India with those, who have lived in and travelled the country many years – ready to share their personal practices through music, story telling and yoga as much as taking us to experience Indian bhakti tradition to make this trip a truly special one.

Jaipur: Jan 9 – 15th

Govardhan & Vrindavan: Jan 15th – 21st

The external places that we visit may be sacred hills, rivers and temples, while the internal journeys are inspired through personal practice and meeting with beings of great wisdom who recognize our internal mapping. These are locations where the divine is intuitively present and experienced. Every day, huge numbers of Yatris (pilgrims) visit these sacred places to have “Darshan” of their favourite gods or goddesses. Darshan derives from the Sanskrit verb ‘drs’: ‘to see’ or also ‘to be seen’. Not only do we seek to see the deity but also to be seen by the Divine. It brings us spiritual renewal.

The ancient ‘Puranas’ of India are large literal volumes containing stories of the makings of the universe as well as fascinating tales of innumerable gods and goddesses. The geography of the Puranas coincides with that of the entire Indian sub-continent. Countless places mentioned in these ancient texts are alive today and are important places of yatra.

Example for a day in India with Vish and Petros:

After we rested in beautiful and comfortable high standard rooms there is time for a tea or coffee before a short yogasession with Petros for all levels, followed by a superb breakfast / brunch.

Then we will head out to the local temples and sights by foot, rikshaw or bus – according to the distance.

After a day of pilgrimage with ongoing kirtan and satsang, exploring India and its bhakti yoga through the lense of Vish and Petros we head back to the Hotel for dinner.

I am thrilled to be co-facilitating a retreat/pilgrimage to India. The special aspect of this retreat is that we will be spending 7 days exploring the Holy Land of Vraja, including Vrindavan and Govardhan, the playgrounds of Krishna and Radha.

I spent many years of my youth practicing Bhakti and learning from teachers in this sacred land. My father brought me on a one-month walking/ barefoot pilgrimage around Vraj (Vraja Mandala Parikrama) when I was 5 years old.
I feel honored to be able to share the sacred stories and moods of these places with the retreat participants

Musician & Advanced Certified Jivamukti Teacher

Petros, musician, yogi, life-artist is senior jivamukti yoga teacher and globally one of the most renown teachers & musicians on the global yoga-train

Petro’s honest, funny and challenging teaching inspires to be fully aware in the present moment. So experience comes through intuition and not from a place of personal preference or dislikes.

Returning to that place, where, independently from outer circumstance there always is peace: the pure light of the heart. There are many obstacles, yoga gives us the possibility to free ourselves from. So our true nature remains no longer hidden. We really are free, wild, full of love and joy – without conditioning, without fear.

He has great gratitude for all teachers, known and unknown, he had the honor to study with and is grateful to all circumstance that gives the chance to experience this feeling of unity, of non-separateness. To learn to accept the greatest of all teachers: life & nature.

Visvambhar Sheth, starting at the age of 5, he has spent his life leading Kirtans in the ISKCON (Vaisnava) tradition.

He is a multi-instrumentalist, and a master of the Mridanga drum and performs in traditional as well as fusion styles. Vish started performing in the modern yoga studio culture 2009, and since then he has performed at countless studio gatherings and well known spiritual venues like BhaktiFest and Omega Institute. Today he is one of the best known Kirtan players worldwide.

Vish is the lead singer of the internationally acclaimed group ‘The Mayapuris’, a headlining Kirtan group that has rocked stages from India to Florida, Australia to South Africa. He also sings and plays percussion with ‚The Hanumen‘. Vish is currently based in Mayapur, India – a heartland of Kirtan and Bhakti Yoga – and shares his love and talents for Kirtan weekly.

In addition to being a master percussionist, Vish also sings, and plays harmonium and bansuri flute and has many more talents like sharing bhakti tradition through his exeptional and captivating story-telling. Vish has not only mastered his art but has a rare capacity to invoke the ‘rasa’ of the essence do the transcendental energies that define the Kirtan path.

*In case there are not enough participants for a double room, we have to change your booking to the next category for the regular price.