This past summer, eight highly motivated participants came to MA Center Switzerland, Flaach on June 22, 2025 for the first online-based retreat with Swami Atmananda Puri, one of Amma’s senior disciples. This was a special collaboration with Amrita Virtual Academy, where their popular “Mantra Japa: Level 1” retreat was streamed in English at the Center and translated live into Swiss-German.
Welcome to the participants
If you’re already familiar with MA Center in Switzerland, then you know: A day of focused practice can initiate profound inner transformation. This new retreat format was for anyone who wanted to not only repeat their personal mantra, but truly experience it–mindfully, powerfully, and in connection with the body, breath, and inner stillness.
Meet Swami Atmananda Puri In the online videos, Swami Atmananda Puri guided participants—in recorded video lessons—through a holistic process of practice, theory, and reflection.
Swami Atmananda Puri is a monastic disciple of Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, the “hugging saint” affectionately known as Amma. He first met Amma in 1989 and has been living at Amma’s ashram in Kerala, India since 1993.
Under Amma’s guidance, he has been conducting meditation retreats and spiritual discourses in Singapore, Malaysia, Europe, Mauritius, Australia and New Zealand, to guide individuals toward finding greater peace in their everyday lives. He is a Global Teacher of the IAM® Technique and deeply involved in both Amrita Virtual Academy and Amrita Silent Retreats in Amritapuri where he leads popular and inspiring retreats.
Swami Atmananda Puri gives retreats and spiritual talks worldwide.
Local Host On-site in Switzerland, participants were accompanied by Beat Prashant Baumann, a long-time spiritual guide at the MA Center, as the moderator for this special, nurturing program.
“We felt it was important that we had an experienced moderator who had practiced the retreat online several times and was therefore able to guide the participants through the video sequences in a relaxed manner,” explained Vijayan Iser, one of the event organizers.
Beat Prashant Baumann moderated the sessions.
Contents of the Retreat Whether participants wanted to have their first intensive experience with mantra japa or deepen their existing practice, this retreat gave sacred space to recharge and consciously renew their sadhana (spiritual practices).
The contents of the retreat included:
Guided mantra cleansing visualization
Mantra japa meditation with a japa mala
Walking meditation with mantra
Satsang lecture: The Power and Meaning of Mantra Meditation
Q&A Sessions with Swami Atmananda (Pre-recorded)
Self-practice & delicious, contemplative lunch
Each session was complemented by a thematic introduction, thus creating a harmonious flow between knowledge, experience and silence.
“A mantra will carry you to the threshold of God-realization. From there you can easily reach the ultimate goal.” – Amma
Participants meditate in peace, tranquility and concentration together.
Retreat Promises Before taking the retreat, participants were suggested that these are some of the outcomes to look forward to in taking the retreat:
To deepen your mantra practice, guided by an experienced Swami
To spend a day in focused mindfulness
To realign yourself internally and strengthen your sadhana
To recharge in a familiar atmosphere
And the Results? After taking the retreat, the feedback from participants was very promising. Many now want to participate in the video-based Mantra Japa: Level 2 retreat later.
Here is some feedback from participants:
“A wonderful new offer, pleasant, supportive atmosphere, lovely hospitality.” Marianne B.
“Very sensitive and competent course guidance from Prashant. His instructions were very clear and I felt very comfortable.” Sandra L.
“I would like to attend Mantra Japa Level 2. I thought the swami was great.” Heidi E.
“I felt very comfortable from A-Z.” Anna H.
Host or Take Your Own Retreat If you have a local satsang group which would like to host a similar experience, please contact support@amritavirtualacademy.com in order to make arrangements.
Or, treat yourself now, at home, to Mantra Japa: Level 1 today by joining the fabulous Amrita Virtual Academy Membership. With over 20 on-demand retreats and over 100 offerings total, including courses and Amma movies, there really is something for everyone.
Time flies! It’s already June 2025. AVA is focusing on student favorite videos, and in thinking about my favorites I got an idea!
Why not design a weekend retreat using material in the AVA collection?!? I couldn’t wait for my morning coffee break to look at the content with this in mind.
Opening my Student Dashboard with this idea, I saw all the content differently. Usually I go to AVA for a specific reason such as for a satsang, or a recipe, or information on how to grow tulsi. This time I had a completely different perspective on the content. Staring at it all, a general outline started forming. I would start the mornings with a little movement, then a guided meditation, then a satsang, followed by some journaling. Then after lunch I could learn something. After that I would do a little more movement and then another guided practice. And possibly another satsang or learning exercise.
For Sunday, I would do something similar, but much less, leaving time to run errands to prepare for the week ahead.
Selecting An Art to Learn
Looking at all the things I could learn: gardening, Indian cooking, Malayalam, music, devotional art, etc…Wow! I have two little grandkids, five and two so I wanted a course on something I could do with them. A whole lot fit that intention!
Finally I settled on rangoli, a devotional art form. Rangoli is a beautiful art using colored powders, flowers, colored rocks, grains, or a combination of these to make mandalas or images. During traditional Indian festivals like Diwali (celebration of light over darkness) or Onam (the harvest festival), these designs are made, often at the threshold of people’s homes.
During the AVA course, the instructor, Bramacharini Lakshmiprabha made an absolutely beautiful Ganesha. The mini-course is only 30 minutes long, though obviously it would take longer to actually make something, even if it was simpler. I decided this was the one for me and went out to a local art store to purchase some colored powders and some easy-looking mandala patterns from coloring books. I decided to try a couple on my own and the following weekend together when I had the grandkids.
Selecting Some Sacred Movement
For the movement flow, I was initially drawn to Amrita Yoga’s Divine Love Flow, which is in the library of Guided practices. If you look at the Wellness selections, other options include myofascial stretching, Mindful Movement (based on QiGong), or Acupressure. I had done all of the incredible myofascial stretching routines before.
Tuning into Amma internally, I felt strongly that the Acupressure for digestion and the immune system was what I needed most but I would do it in the afternoon. The morning movement would be Mindful Movement.
Selecting a Meditation
For the meditation I looked through the library of guided practices, which has soooo many attractive items. I kept coming back to the series of the six guided manasa puja’s (mental visualization and offering) with Amma’s 108 names following the meditation. I am regular with archana (as in, I do it most of the time) but I always skip the manasa puja. I’ve heard people describe how they’ve created their own manasa puja with their own special imagery but for me…well I just usually skip it because it is hard for me. But these guided ones, by Swami Atmananda Puri, are beautiful. He is one of my personal favorite swamis. I’ve taken some retreats with him in person and I adore him. I felt soft and sweet all through my insides when I did one, so I decided to make that the morning meditation both Saturday and Sunday, using a different version for each day.
Choosing a Satsang
For a satsang, I was almost stumped. The Amrita Gita course is one of my favorite offerings on the whole platform but I am pretty current with it. Then there’s the satsang library, which I’ve barely scratched the surface.
There are a LOT of choices that seem perfect for me right now. Gratitude! Mantra Japa! Gita in A Day! Eight Practices (Ashtasadhana)! Art of Prayer! Overcoming Fear! Regaining Our Innocence! And this isn’t all. I finally selected “Overcoming Fear”.
Once I was finished, my Saturday looked like this:
Archana
Mindful Movement
Guided Manasa Puja #1 (there are 6 to choose from)
Overcoming Fear: Satsang 1
Lunchbreak
Playing with Rangoli and Patterns
Acupressure Techniques
Guided Manasa Puja #2
Sunday looked similar but I made it shorter.
Mindful Movement 2. Guided Manasa Puja #3
Overcoming Fear: Satsang 2
I fiddled around a little with the art supplies and planned how to do it with the grandkids without making my house look like a rainbow of colored powders on the walls or floors. I went to my favorite coffee house and wrote some notes about my experience and then took the rest of Sunday to do anything I wanted. In my case this was a hike in the woods with a friend, a little shopping, and preparing a simple meal.
I Want to Make it a Regular Thing!
I resolved to try to design my own retreat from AVA content at least once a quarter. It was rich, it felt empowering to select and find things with Amma’s internal guidance, and I felt sooooo good!
Amma recommends that we try to spend a day a week in silence and focused on spiritual practices. It is tough for many of us to do this when weekends are also the best time for errands, seeing friends and family, and just putting my mind in neutral with a Netflix show or something.
But what I found in this self-designed retreat was that it was actually nurturing and energizing. I felt much better on Monday than normal. The whole experience showed me how what I look for in my weekends through friends, family and other activities is much more available if I focus on spiritual time. I want and need weekends to be relaxing but also to give me a sense for forward motion. I often used to feel like I’m just living to work to pay bills but spending this time in retreat showed me how easy it is to really and truly live.
Finally, these are turbulent times. One of the reasons I selected the overcoming fear material was related to this. I am certain that when I am centered and joyful and focused on real meaning, that waves of this energy flow into the world and have an effect. In this way, the darshans I have received from Amma allow me to pass it on. It’s magical that doing something I need to do for myself, for making more meaning and love in my own life can affect the world in a positive way.
The idea that spiritual practices are dharmic—centered on right living—became firmer and more practical in this simple self-designed weekend retreat. ___________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks to Kamala for sharing her inspiring experience with Amrita Virtual Academy. We encourage you to try out building your own retreat, by visiting the AVA catalog here. All the classes and satsangs in this blog article are part of the AVA Membership. As an Amrita Virtual Academy member, you have access to more than 80 different courses and retreats in different fields. Discover more about the AVA Membership here. Or sign-up here.
One of the most popular retreats in Amrita Virtual Academy is the Mantra Japa retreat with Swami Atmananda Puri. Several students have given glowing reviews after participation. In this blogpost we will go deeper into a mix of three students’ experiences, put into one text.
“Receiving my Guru mantra from Amma was a blessed moment I will never forget”
I got my Guru mantra from Amma during a European tour almost 20 years ago. It was a blessed moment I will never forget, with Amma whispering in my ear, blessing me with a shower of flower petals, leaving me feeling high but also grounded. I sensed something important had happened, even if I did not understand what, nor the value of the mantra at that time. Amma says:
“When Amma gives you a mantra, She sows a seed of spirituality within you. She transmits a part of herself into your heart. But you have to nurture that seed by meditating, praying, and chanting your mantra regularly, without fail. You have to be totally committed.
“The natural way to get yogurt is by adding a spoonful of yogurt to warm milk. Having added the culture, you let it stand for some time, and thus, all the milk is transformed into yogurt.“In the same way, Amma has transmitted part of herself into you. Now you have to ‘let the milk stand’- you have to attain a state of inward stillness by constantly repeating your mantra and doing other spiritual practices. Your entire being will thus be transformed and you will then realize your divine nature.”
My intention was to practice mantra japa daily as Amma instructed. I knew intellectually what a big blessing it is to have received a mantra from someone like Amma, but it was not really clear to me how to chant it apart from knowing it should be internal and as continuous as possible. And if I am honest, I did fail in more hectic periods to sit down and do my round of at least 108 mantras a day, as Amma advises. In those periods, at least I repeated the mantra throughout the day as soon as I remembered it, but that meant that on some days I chanted more frequently and it almost flowed by itself, while on other, more busy or “emotionally busy” days, I almost didn’t remember it at all! However, whenever I did remember to chant, I always felt a sense of peace in the otherwise busy mind with all its different thoughts and feelings. That is how I knew the mantra was a precious gift I needed to treasure more.
When I read about the Amrita Virtual Academy retreat on mantra japa practice, I felt it might be Amma’s way of drawing me closer to the practice! I felt I needed guidance and inspiration to become regular with mantra chanting (japa), and tools to connect more deeply with it. I also had questions about the pace and the mental “volume”. So I did the one-day retreat. It was perfect! First of all, living in the world, it was a welcome day of rest from the daily grind. It was an opportunity to go within in a focused and guided way, which had a lasting and positive effect on my mind. The schedule is not that strict so I could be flexible and still have some time to take care of other things. But still organized so I had the opportunity and framework to go deep within. I remember that day: it was winter, it was snowing outside and I felt that the stillness of Nature reflected the stillness of the retreat.
“It (the mantra) was peacefully cleansing and put tensions to rest.”
The retreat exceeded my expectations. The waves of peace from taking that time to go within caressed my mind for days. Swami Atmananda is such a good teacher, his teaching style very clear, organized and down to earth.
In the retreat, he taught several different japa techniques and meditations on the mantra. One really spoke to me so I have been practicing that off and on since.
The best moments during the retreat were when I experienced the mantra being a wordless energy, full of divine light and subtle love, flowing through my body. Just like being in Amma’s presence. It was peacefully cleansing and put tensions to rest. A presence to rest within, a feeling of it being so intimate, almost being one with me. Or me being one with it. I am so happy I partook in the retreat.
“I have grown to consider my mantra my best friend who never lets me down.”
Afterwards, I have grown to consider my mantra my best friend who never lets me down. It makes me relax. I used to forget my mantra on rough days or not remember it until late. Now I often turn to the mantra as if turning to a friend when in distress, to feel more peace and clarity within. The problems might not get solved, but often my mind gets clearer and I can respond better to situations rather than react. When I cannot, I still feel more peace within, which is the biggest win. I still might not be as disciplined with the meditations I learned in the retreat as I wish, but as Amma says:
“Don’t feel sad that you cannot be as disciplined as you would like to be. Do what you can. Don’t be sad about what you are not able to do. Don’t push yourself too hard. Don’t suppress or judge yourself. Give the body the food and sleep it needs. There is nothing wrong in that. But don’t overly pamper yourself either. There may be lapses in your discipline. We may fall down. But we shouldn’t allow it to make us feel frustrated.”
Today I at least make my round of chanting 108 mantras every morning as I enjoy it and see the benefits; it sets the tone for the day and makes the mantra come more easily to the mind throughout the day.
Thank you Swamiji Atmananda and the Amrita Virtual Academy Team for making this retreat available to us. Though physically far away from Amritapuri, getting closer to the energy of the mantra brings me close to Amma.
Amrita Virtual Academy offers several sadhana retreats, including three Bhakti, two Gita, and others addressing challenges on the path such as taming the unruly mind, working with fears, or finding our purpose. There is also a new library of satsangs and guided practices. There are two Mantra Japa retreats, level 1 and level 2. The participant in the blog wrote about level 1. As a member you get access to all retreats, as well as over 60 other courses and workshops! Become a member now!
