Gregorian Bivolaru

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Gregorian Bivolaru (nicknamed Grieg, Grig or, by the press, Guru)(born 12 March 1952) is the founder of the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA), a member of the International Yoga Federation. In 2005, the Supreme Court of Sweden agreed to grant political refugee status to Bivolaru in response to his claims and clear evidences of persecution in Romania.

1 Early life
2 MISA
3 Legal problems
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Early life

Gregorian Bivolaru was born in Tărtăşeşti, Ilfov County, (now in Dâmboviţa County), Romania. He studied at a high school in Bucharest and in 1971 he started to teach his first yoga courses. The Securitate (Romanian State Security) began watching him due to his correspondence with Mircea Eliade a historian of religions, philosopher and writer who was considered to be a "public enemy" by the communist regime.

In 1977, he was charged with distribution of pornographic materials by the totalitarian communist regime (a typical cover-up accusation for political repression) and sentenced to one year in prison, but he did not complete it due to an amnesty granted by Nicolae Ceauşescu.^[1]

His home was searched and all his books of Eastern and esoteric philosophy, all his personal correspondence and notebooks were confiscated.

Bivolaru started teaching yoga in Bucharest in 1978, allegedly collaborating with the Ministry of Health and the Association of Psychosomatic Medicine in Bucharest.

In 1982, after the Trancendental Meditation Scandal, the Yoga courses were banned by the communist regime (this also happened to martial arts and to all forms of esoteric or spiritual practice, even the Faculty of Psychology was closed down), however he continued to teach yoga illegally. He had at that time more than 170 students, even though the risks for both the students and the teacher were significant. All those who were attending at that time professor's Gregorian Bivolaru yoga courses were arrested and agressed by the Secret Services agents.

Gregorian Bivolaru continued to teach illegally. In the following years, he was watched by the Securitate, his residence was constantly searched. On 17 April 1984 he was arrested and charged with conspiracy against Ceausescu. He spent two years in jail for escaping from Rahova prison.^[2]

In 1989 he was arrested again, although there were no charges against him. The communist regime put him this time into the High Security Mental Hospital of Poiana Mare - a place used to “make lost” political dissidents - with the recommendation to be put under strong medication, together with prisoners with real mental diseases, with a diagnosis of having a "personality which has a paranoid developing, with obsessophobic elements on a psycho-schysoid background". We have to mention here that despite the risk of opposing a despotic order, dr. Leonard Hriscu, refused to give him the respective medication considering the diagnosis to be made up (see doctor statement in the movie “Who is afraid of Gregorian Bivolaru?”). This diagnosis was revoked in January 1990 and Bivolaru was freed.

Helicopter view of a yogic yang spiral of approximately 3,500 people, Costineşti, Romania, 27 August 2005

[edit] MISA

After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, practicing yoga became legal again and Gregorian Bivolaru founded the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA). MISA came to be the largest yoga school in Romania, reportedly with more than 30,000 followers.MISA opened yoga classes and holds also lectures on related disciplines such as kashmirian philosophy, and ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine). Also, the movement proved to contribute at the enhancement of moral and cultural values of the Romanians (see the official web-site of MISA, www.yogaesoteric.net).

The yoga courses opened first in Bucharest spread soon all over the country. Competent teachers were trained under the guidance of Gregorian Bivolaru. Based on the ancient yoga knowledge and also on his own reach experience, he succeeded to found an extensive and integral yoga system.

Due to its effectiveness, this yoga system was implemented in a similar manner in more than 20 countries in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa, even Australia . This is how The International Federation of Yoga and Meditation, ATMAN, was created. It is an organisation that brings together spiritual movements from different parts of the world having as their main goals the awakening of the spirituality on Earth, the reconsideration of the fundamental truths, the reorientation of the humanity towards the highest possible aim of a man's life, spiritual liberation. Mr. Gregorian Bivolaru is the spiritual mentor of this federation.

He published over 38 books, translated many others, signing also more than 200 articles. He has also became famous for introducing tantric sexuality in Romania. At Gregorian Bivolaru's suggestion, new and original ways of practicing group meditation have been introduced, such as the Yogic Yang Spiral, a group meditation where hundreds or thousands of people meditate while holding hands, arranged so they form a spiral. The spires are made by a certain pattern: men and women alternate, in the logical order of the zodiacal signs, forming a spiral with an anti-clockwise rotation by holding hands.

In November 2005 Gregorian Bivolaru, the spiritual head of MISA has been elected full member for life in the International Senior Yoga Teachers Advisors of World Yoga Council, within the International Yoga Council, the highest board of the International Yoga Federation. (International Yoga Federation - a federation of 300 yoga schools around the world).

[edit] Legal problems

After 1990, Bivolaru and his students where subject of many authorities abuses and discriminations.

Gregorian Bivolaru has been victim of two serious attempts on his life (in 1994 and 1995), and in 2003 he still continued to receive letter of threats.
• In August 1994 a gang of hooligans broke into his room at Admiral Villa in Costinesti, beat him savagely and destroyed everything in the room. He was saved by some of the yoga students. Although the eyewitnesses identified the aggressors, the police made no investigation, since the aggressors were connected with some local VIP's.
• In February 1995 his apartment was destroyed by a strong explosion followed by a fire. The explosion affected as well the other apartments from his block, and Mr. Bivolaru would have been definitely killed if he had been home at that time. The investigations of the fire brigade and of independent experts proved the explosion was caused by a criminal hand, not by the negligence of Mr. Bivolaru, as the police rushed to state. Again, no investigation was made.

Police abuses where recorded in 1997 by 2 major Human Rights organizations: APADOR-CH and Amnesty International.

The peak of this abuses and persecutions against Gregorian Bivolaru and MISA was reached on 18 March 2004, when the authorities - prosecutors, police, gendarmes, secret services - started an unprecedented intimidation campaign. Troops were sent to private houses of MISA yoga practitioners. People were brutalized, threatened at gunpoint, personal belongings and documents were confiscated, false declarations were obtained by force, crimes, witnesses and victims were fabricated. A warrant of arrest was issued on 31 May 2004 against Mr. Bivolaru who decided to hide away, convinced already he has no chances for a fair trial in Romania, and following two serious attempts on his life.

In 2005, he was charged with eight counts, including sex with a minor, Tax Evasion, and illegally crossing the border to escape persecution. In March 2005, Bivolaru asked for asylum in Sweden, claiming that he feared persecution in Romania. On April 4, 2005, the Swedish police of Malmö detained Bivolaru.

The accusation of having sex with a minor was based on a declaration given by a 17 year-old girl who later retracted the accusation, saying it had been given under pressure. The charge was additionally suspect as sex with minors over the age of 15 is legal under Romanian law.^[3]

On April 15, the Romanian Police issued a second warrant in his name, in which he was accused of "person trafficking and other charges related to organized crime" (related to an allegedly sequestration of some persons in some ashrams and forcing them to work without being paid. Taking into account that Gandhi himself has practiced and taught his disciples to practice this noble form of yoga called Karma Yoga, we can only be happy that he escaped the vigilant eye and brilliant mind of some Romanian magistrates and he hasn't been accused of trafficking persons. Understanding that Karma Yoga is a completely voluntary practice is important to the understanding of the case.

Gregorian Bivolaru being set free in Sweden on October 20, 2005

On 21 October 2005, the Supreme Court of Sweden rejected the extradition request and set Bivolaru free. The Supreme Court judges concluded that Bivolaru would not benefit a fair trial in Romania. Anette Swedow, the chief prosecutor in the Gregorian Bivolaru case declared: The final decision is that should Bivolaru be extradited in Romania, he runs the risk of being deported, persecuted and harassed, because of his religious businesses he applies within the yoga movement.

This decision was transmitted to the Romanian Ministry of Justice on 16 December 2005. In response, the Romanian Justice Minister, Monica Macovei, sent the general prosecutor a request to verify the manner in which the investigations in this case took place. The same request has been sent to the president of the Romanian Supreme Court, Dan Lupaşcu.

The decision of the Swedish Immigration Authority that Gregorian Bivolaru should be granted political asylum was made public on the last day of 2005.

Currently the case is under monitor by independent organizations who fight for reforms in the Romanian Justice, like "SoJust". The September 2006 alternative report in the Human rights chapter shows:

"The prosecutor now investigates organized crime and human traffic cases concerning some of the MISA members. One has instituted the measure of “insuring arrestment” on 70 buildings for covering the damages that they claimed. Officially, one has noted that, under the cover of courses for initiation in the yoga practices, the investigated persons attracted, manipulated and exploited the participants (of whom many were minor) to their own personal interest, thus endangering their psychic development. Nevertheless, from the contradictory data published by the media, there are only 8 victims. Some of the investigated persons were sent to trial. A completely unusual thing for Romania, the entire indictment was made public by the penal prosecution body, which among violating the rights to an equitable trial and the protection of the investigated persons’ private life, may be yet another element for the manipulation of public opinion.

With all the internal investigations performed by the CSM or the judiciary ones performed as a consequence to the filed complaints, the presumptive negative aspects concerning the actual development of the investigation were not cleared up. From the 55 penal complaints that were filed in May 2004, only 9 were retained in view of solving at the Prosecutor’s Office, and those for a single offence. The rest got a non-prosecution resolution, without even questioning the victims; at present, this resolution is appealed at the Supreme Court.[..]

The inefficiency of the internal investigations concerning the claimed abuses is all the more serious as Bivolaru got the asylum and then the refugee status in a foreign country. From this viewpoint, the competence or the bona fide of the Romanian bodies is seriously questioned."

The lawyers of Gregorian Bivolaru filed two applications to the European Court for Human Rights. The applications cover the violations that occurred while issuing the two arrest warrants.

Being a constant fighter for the true values of the human life, for the right of every man to live in wellness, peace and harmony with its surrounding, professor Bivolaru found himself in opposition with any political system, no matter of which “colour”, based on constriction, manipulation, depriving of freedom, and especially of the freedom of choice. As a consequence, both he and the movement he initiated came to be considered by the political class as a threat, and this way becoming subjects of continuous harassment and discrimination.