Biography of Gregorian Bivolaru

A Remarkable Modern Yogi

Eminent Yoga Teacher Gregorian Bivolaru brings a remarkable contribution to the modern and universal spirituality, revealing perspectives, methods and techniques which are truly revolutionary. Their variety and abundance of his teachings matches the challenges of the contemporary world, offering life-transforming solutions and practical insights to people of various backgrounds and understandings.

Youth and the call to spirituality

Childhood and first steps in Yoga

Gregorian Bivolaru was born on 12th March 1952 in Tărtășești, a small village near Bucharest. He was an introverted child, inclined towards contemplation and with an immense thirst for knowledge. Because his family did not have big financial means, he used to go to the village store that had a library corner. There, he read with eagerness, about everything. His schoolmates remember him as an eminent pupil, who impressed his teachers with his vast knowledge that went far beyond the level of an ordinary schoolboy.

Since childhood he lived overwhelming spiritual experiences and states of Cosmic Consciousness and perceived that he would have an exceptional spiritual destiny. Upon return to the normal state of consciousness, he found himself crying for hours on end because of overwhelming happiness, feeling a state of completeness and unity with a grandiose and eternal reality that continued to exist and manifest itself in his being in all moments of the day. These experiences left him charged with a profound state of gratitude towards the Creator and with an unstoppable aspiration towards perfection. All these moments mark the beginning of a spiritual journey that was crowned with success and exceptional achievements.

Assiduous yoga practice and diligent study

He attended high school in Bucharest, which allowed him to frequent the great libraries of the capital. There he studied, very carefully and sometimes for days in a row, fundamental yoga treaties, alchemy, parapsychology, sexology and esotericism. Discovering the fundamental yoga tradition was a great revelation and throughout his studies, he translated directly from English and French, since spirituality books in Romanian were almost nonexistent. Thus, at the age of fifteen, his life was already divided into two major parts: practicing yoga with assiduity and reading books from all related fields, which back then were despised by the communist regime in Romania (yoga, alchemy, parapsychology, sexology, esoteric traditions).

Gregorian Bivolaru understood very soon that yoga offers very effective, practical methods that lead to the discovery of genuine answers about the human subtle structure and the way it works, about reincarnation and the meaning of existence, about intimate mechanisms and attributes of the Consciousness and much more. He tenaciously practiced yoga techniques, up to nine hours daily. He soon achieved remarkable results and profound inner transformations guiding him to spiritual revelations about the Absolute Reality, the Universal Supreme Consciousness, the Creator of All and Everything – God. Also, his expertise in the practice of many different yoga branches together with his great erudition about many spiritual traditions inspired and impelled him to start to share the mysteries of the millenary yogic tradition with his friends who were eagerly asking for it.

Thus, from a very young age, he began to teach yoga to small groups of acquaintances and friends, because in those years, the communist regime in Romania forbade spirituality of any kind – promoting heavily the dialectical materialism doctrine. (Note – Dialectical materialism is an aspect of the broader subject of materialism, which asserts the primacy of the material world: in short, matter precedes consciousness. Materialism is a realist philosophy of science, which holds that the world is material; that all phenomena in the universe consist of “matter in motion,” wherein all things are interdependent and interconnected and develop according to natural laws; that the world exists outside consciousness and independently of people’s perception of it; that awareness and consciousness is only a reflection of the material world in the brain, and that the world has only material causes and is in principle knowable.)

As expected, his spiritual interests and researches soon brought him to the attention of the communist authorities. The communist regime under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu accepted no philosophy other than dialectical materialism. The country was suffocated by the pressure of the iron curtain and was under the mute terror of the famous Securitate (the communist secret service organization assuring state security – subordinated to the dictator Ceausescu).

Anyone who showed an interest in spirituality was put on the Securitate’s “blacklist” and then systematically watched and monitored because of the potential danger they presented in generating currents of opinion contrary to communist ideology. This was the case with Gregorian Bivolaru.

Teaching yoga under Romania’s repressive communist regime

Under the observation of “Securitate”

In 1971, before he turned 20, Gregorian began to correspond with Mircea Eliade, the well-known Romanian philosopher and writer who also studied and practiced yoga in India, one of the biggest historians of religions of the 20th century, who was living in France at that time, and was considered a so-called dissident, an “enemy of the people” by the Communists. Soon after, Gregorian Bivolaru’s home was raided for the first time by the Securitate. Under the absurd pretext that they were looking for weapons that had disappeared from a warehouse, three Securitate agents were given the task of searching his modest apartment. In reality they sought to intimidate him, and took away all his books on spirituality, all his diaries, studies, notebooks, notes and correspondence with people abroad. Thus began for Gregorian Bivolaru 19 years of terror and harassment by the Securitate (lasting until December 1989, when Ceausescu’s regime fell).

Aware of the risks he was exposing himself to, Gregorian Bivolaru began teaching yoga in the early 1970s, but calling it “Psychosomatic Gymnastics”, in various cultural houses and student centres. As an example of the difficulties he was facing, in 1972, when he was planning to start a new group of yoga practice, he placed posters throughout the city to announce it, but the Securitate blocked the phone number given as a contact on the posters, sabotaging his activity.

Despite obstacles, Gregorian Bivolaru taught yoga openly, until a great scandal around the Transcendental Movement broke out in Romania in 1981. On that occasion, the Ceaușescu regime arrested and imprisoned hundreds of Transcendentalist practitioners on charges of, “suspicious mysticism that could lead to the destabilization of the state”. Subsequently all Eastern spiritual practices, including yoga and martial arts, were banned.

Imprisonment and torture during communist regime

Nevertheless, by taking on greater risks, even after 1981 Gregorian Bivolaru continued to secretly practice yoga and to teach it to those interested, under constant surveillance and harassment by the Securitate. On 17th April 1984, Gregorian Bivolaru was arrested along with 17 other people to whom he was teaching yoga in a private residence. They were all investigated and intimidated, but Gregorian Bivolaru was imprisoned, severely beaten and tortured in the Securitate detention centre, without the possibility to communicate with family and friends, or to consult a lawyer.
He was accused of plotting an attempt on the life of the dictator Ceausescu. This false accusation was based on the deceitful confessions of informers (people who were hired by Securitate to spy and report on various activities) and who said that the activity of the yoga students led by Bivolaru were extremely dangerous, that they wanted to make a group of yogis that would annihilate Ceausescu by paranormal means, from distance.

At that point the Securitate set up an absurd masquerade, claiming that by arresting Gregorian Bivolaru, they would save the life of Ceausescu. Thus, officers involved in this case would get promoted to higher ranks by foiling this plot, and the Securitate as an institution would further consolidate its authority and its position inside the state. In response to this completely abusive attitude of the Securitate – which could have led to his secret annihilation – Gregorian Bivolaru decided to protest by organizing his escape from the prison. By doing this he wanted to draw attention to his case and to protest against these abuses of Securitate officers.

Thus, by using some of the paranormal abilities that he had acquired from yoga practice, Gregorian Bivolaru managed to break out of the prison without any exterior help, an exceptional and unique fact in the entire history of this institution, renowned for the severity of its surveillance. A few days later he was arrested again, and the communist legal system convicted him for “escaping from the Securitate prison”, without charging him with any other crime – which, in theory, would have been the reason for his initial arrest. He was imprisoned for a year and a half in very harsh conditions of detention, with 7-8 kg chains on his legs, in cells without windows or heating, even in winter.

Since then, Gregorian Bivolaru was constantly mentioned on the list of the ten most dangerous people to Ceausescu’s communist regime, considered much more dangerous than serial killers, and this only because he taught yoga.

The last years under communism

After his release from prison in 1986, he remained on the list of dangerous people for the communist regime. He was constantly under observation by the Securitate, yet at no time did he stop practicing and teaching yoga, achieving thus a unique act of spiritual resistance in communist Romania. The Researcher of the CNSAS archives (Consiliul National pentru Studierea Arhivelor Securitatii / The National Council for Studying the ”Securitate” Archives), dissident and human rights activist Gabriel Andreescu, stated in his book, “MISA – Radiografia unei represiuni” / “MISA – Radiography of a Repression,” that the group of yogis coordinated by Gregorian Bivolaru is “the only example of long-lasting collective resistance under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s regime”.

The repression against Gregorian Bivolaru culminated in 1989 with his arrest, political conviction and internment at the Poiana Mare Psychiatric Hospital, a so-called clinic for nervous diseases. This was, in fact, a desolate and terrible place where undesirable political prisoners who did not share the vision of the communist regime were sent for hasty extermination. Gregorian Bivolaru’s medical records show that he was prescribed drugs that would have killed an ordinary man in just a few weeks. The doctor who was supposed to administer this treatment, however, risked his career and did not carry out what was requested of him. Many years later, this doctor Leonard Hriscu said in an interview: “Gregorian was not a man who needed any kind of psychiatric treatment; he knew a lot and was a man of great culture, so I often failed to stand up to him in the discussions we had, and had to withdraw. There was no way I could accept the diagnosis that was imposed on him.”

A political dissident

All these abuses and violations of the elementary human rights that were directed against Gregorian Bivolaru were clearly presented by the well-known professor Gabriel Andreescu, a famous defender of human rights in Romania and a known dissident and anti-communist fighter during Ceausescu regime. In his book, The Repression of the Yoga Movement in the 80’s (Polirom Publishing House, 2009), Mr. Andreescu makes a very well documented analysis of the repression of the yoga movement in communist Romania, an analysis that is based on the documents of the feared Securitate, which the author directly accessed.

As further confirmation, in July 2011 at a final court ruling under the law on political convictions during the communist period, the Bucharest Court found that both the 1977 and 1984 convictions of Gregorian Bivolaru, as well as his internment in Poiana Mare Psychiatric Hospital in 1989, were of a political nature. In other words, Gregorian Bivolaru was not guilty of violating common law rules, but of “political rebellion,” by upholding values and principles other than those accepted by the totalitarian communist regime.

Co-founding MISA after the fall of the communist regime

In December 1989, when the communist regime officially fell in Romania, an emergency commission decided to release Gregorian Bivolaru from the Poiana Mare Psychiatric Hospital. On 12th January 1990, he was already giving his first lecture and opening his yoga class, resuming his spiritual activities in an apparently free country. Also in January 1990, together with several of his closest disciples from the communist times, he founded what would later become one of the largest yoga schools in Europe and a true pole of fostering spirituality and the discipline of yoga in Romania: the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute – MISA.

Unfortunately, the situation in Romania after the fall of the dictator Ceaușescu had changed only in appearance. The communists managed to seize power in the vacuum created by the revolution, and the SRI (Serviciul Român de Informații / Romanian Intelligence Service) became the heir to the dreaded Securitate. Many prosecutors of the old regime remained in office, continuing to apply communist practices and persecute those who had previously defied them. The harassment of Gregorian Bivolaru continued more or less openly, now accompanied by a veritable media lynching unleashed by newspapers under the SRI umbrella. Their aim was to destroy his credibility, his public image and, last but not least, to destroy the school of yoga he created. Despite all obstacles, Gregorian Bivolaru continued his spiritual activity, guiding and mentoring the development of the yoga school, as well as his literary activity, publishing more than 150 books and booklets and hundreds of articles to date.

His teachings spread worldwide

Continuous growth

Although still under huge pressure from the Bucharest authorities, Gregorian Bivolaru went to develop one of the most comprehensive and intensive yoga courses in the world, so that by 2004, yoga schools following his curricula of teaching had opened in more than thirty countries. As a result of this expansion, the Atman Federation of Yoga and Meditation was created, in order to help the translation of course materials and ensure the spiritual alignment of the teachings, offering on request support to the different schools regarding the activities, classes, spiritual knowledge in general, expertise and mentoring.

Enduring persecution and Operation ‘Christ’

A person that irritates the power structures

Strongly believing that a spiritual person is integrated in society and cannot remain indifferent to what is going on around him, Gregorian Bivolaru has written numerous articles and held several lectures in which he has courageously exposed the shady actions of various interest groups that have come to influence and even control political and economic structures worldwide. He particularly referenced the occult, diabolical grouping nowadays often referred to as the “Cabal”, “Deep State” or “Global Elite”. Moreover, he was one of the first persons in Romania who drew attention to the strange orientation of the new governmental power that took over in 1989. As a result, he received threatening letters asking him to “stop his revelations” and in February 1995 a devastating explosion destroyed his apartment in the Rahova district of Bucharest. A criminal hand had cut through the metal grating of his bathroom window and tampered with the gas installation. Fortunately, the explosion was triggered before Gregorian Bivolaru returned home. An independent commission proved that this was an intentional criminal act, yet strangely the authorities did not investigate further this explosion, deciding it was Gregorian’s negligence.

“Operation Christ”

Despite the smear campaign in the Romanian press, and even some police intimidation, the MISA Yoga School continued to grow, awakening and imparting spiritual ideas and values to tens of thousands of people. Because such a large group is troublesome for the structures of power, and because Gregorian Bivolaru was already an inconvenient person in many ways, in March 2004 MISA became the target of what the media trumpeted as “the biggest operation against organised crime in Romania since the 1989 Revolution”.

In a desperate attempt to create an event that would draw the public attention away from the scandals and illegalities that affected the ruling party in an election year, the government started the so-called Operation Christ. As proven by the transcripts of the Social-Democrat Party (PSD) meetings, published by several newspapers in November 2004, Adrian Năstase, the prime-minister and presidential candidate of PSD, was involved in the arrest of Gregorian Bivolaru and in the big police operation against yoga students. These minutes were published by a former employee of the secret services in a book that stirred many reactions at the time. In an interview for the Romanian TV station Antena 1, Adrian Nastase admitted that Operation Christ was a big mistake which cost him the presidential mandate in the 2004 elections.

More than 200 paramilitary police, prosecutors, policemen and masked masked special forces members raided 16 private homes of yoga students, physically abusing and terrorising them, whilst claiming to be dealing with a prostitution, drugs and arms-trafficking gang. As it was later disclosed, the whole operation was aimed at silencing Gregorian Bivolaru and closing down MISA.

The severe abuse committed by authorities on this occasion later became the subject of legal proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights. After twelve years, in 2016, the yoga practitioners who sued the Romanian state won their case, with damages awarded to the sum of 292.500€. Meanwhile, in Romania, investigations aimed at exposing those who were guilty of this abuse were long since covered up.

Political asylum in Sweden

Forced by these dramatic circumstances, and convinced that he would not receive a fair trial in Romania, Gregorian Bivolaru left the country and sought political asylum in Sweden.

The Romanian authorities repeatedly sent prosecutors to have Gregorian Bivolaru sent back to Romania, thus preventing him from talking about the injustice he has been subjected to. After a dramatic trial, the Stockholm Supreme Court investigated the case and refused extradition requests issued by the Romanian state, granting Gregorian Bivolaru protection and political asylum in January 2006 as well as a new identity under Geneva convention. 

The Romanian authorities fabricated two criminal cases against Gregorian Bivolaru on the basis of declarations extracted by force or blackmail, and in the absence of any hard evidence.

In the first criminal case, he was accused of sexual act with a minor, although the so-called ”victim” stated throughout the whole trial and until today that she had no relationship with Gregorian Bivolaru, and she was the victim of the prosecutors, who threatened her in order to get a false incriminating statement. Gregorian Bivolaru was found not guilty both in first degree and on appeal. The prosecutor, however, appealed to the Supreme Court, which on 14 June 2013, reversed the first- and second­degree verdicts after nine years of controversial legal proceedings and declared him guilty, without hearing him even once.

In the second criminal file, in which Gregorian Bivolaru and 21 yoga students and teachers were accused of human trafficking and organized crime and which was tried for 17 years (!), all of the accused were acquitted in two separate trial cycles (since after the first acquittal the prosecutors requested a complete re-trial, which ended again with acquittals on the merits and on appeal). In summary, the decision of the court was that the deeds the yogis were accused of do not exist.

During all this time, Gregorian Bivolaru stayed in Sweden, writing courses and books on various spiritual topics, preparing and delivering an impressive number of lectures for international events and congresses, answering a huge number of letters and messages from all over the world from people asking for advice or simply expressing their admiration for his work.

Recognition from human rights experts and renowned academic scholars

Recognition of the ongoing persecutions against Gregorian Bivolaru

Over the past 20 years, important voices of Romania’s post-communist democracy have spoken against these abusive behaviours targeting yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru and MISA. The report of Amnesty International and Helsinki Committee for Human Rights are only a few of the supporting statements and organizations emphasizing such obvious mistreatments by various authorities of Gregorian Bivolaru and the students of MISA yoga school.

It is questionable, to say the least, how the Romanian press never talked about the support that Gregorian Bivolaru received on an international level, from persons who understood that he is, in reality, the victim of a set-up. Discussions about the case of Gregorian Bivolaru that showed flagrant violations of human rights have taken place even with the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, but also with the vice-presidents Viviane Reding and Cecilia Malmstrom.

Moreover, several members of the European Parliament, amongst which Elmar Brok, Cornelis De Jong, Jens-Peter Bonde, Jose Bove, Rita Borsellino, Margarete Auken, Jean Lambert, Cornelia Ernst, Nirj Deva, Nicole Nielsen, Tatiana Zdanoka, together with other members of political groups were involved in stopping the persecutions that were launched by Romania against yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru and his teachings.

What renowned academics say about Gregorian Bivolaru

Unbiased experts in human rights, sociology and religious movements show a completely different picture than the scandalous media campaigns. Compared to superficial journalism, these professional experts take the time needed for thorough holistic research. The well-documented and professional evaluations of these experts, such as Massimo Introvigne, Willy Fautre, Eileen Barker, Karl Erik Nylund, J. Gordon Melton or Gabriel Andreescu, are unfortunately little known, or even purposefully ignored by the authorities and the public opinion.

With his book, “Sacred Eroticism: Tantra and Eros in the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA)”, Massimo Introvigne points out the huge challenge Gregorian Bivolaru’s movement is facing:

The radiography of a repression

By Gabriel Andreescu

“What the world cannot tolerate is to put together eroticism and religion. There is a limited tolerance for religion in our world, and there is a wide tolerance for eroticism, but there is ZERO tolerance for groups that transgress the boundaries and claim that eroticism is religion and religion is eroticism, and that after all for the initiate they are one and the same.
And those who do this, they do this at their own risk. These people are persecuted not because they had abused a girl, no, no, that’s not the real point – they are persecuted because they crossed the red line. Bivolaru mixed religion with eroticism, and that’s the reason why he was and is persecuted.”

Another edifying conclusion about the authenticity of yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru comes from Karl Erik Nylund, a doctor in theology, a priest and maybe Sweden’s greatest expert with regard to sects, being well known for his critical attitude. His report was an integral part of the defense evidence in the extradition trial of Bivolaru, ruled upon by the Supreme Court in Stockholm, on 12th October 2005, which finally and irreversibly decided to decline Romania’s extradition request. Nylund has proven with his investigations that MISA is not a radical religious group, nor a rigid spiritual movement or even a manipulative sect, finding NONE of the defining criteria.

“I could say about MISA that it is a movement supporting a different way of life, alternative therapies, displaying strong Gnostic syncretistic features. The basic ideas are reincarnation and self-transformation… A cult is a movement often emerging in an environment of psychic deprivation, when people gather around a leader. MISA is a yogi movement where the participants aim at self-perfecting and improving their state of health and harmony through a lacto-vegetarian diet and yoga techniques… As I could see by myself, the charges against him [Gregorian Bivolaru] are obviously untruthful.”

Pioneering spirituality

An active supporter of a new spiritual paradigm that would help modern man find the balance between millenary wisdom and contemporary science, Gregorian Bivolaru became a pioneer of the new wave of spiritual awakening on this planet, through his writings, as well as through easy methods accessible to anyone (among which are the art of blessing or the ‘lightning rod’ technique for tuning in with the Godly Will), Gregorian Bivolaru became an initiator for many domains that are currently bridging science and spirituality, these two traditions that in many ways have been separated for hundreds of years.

His revolutionary ideas brought the Romanian yoga school to the vanguard of world spirituality, Gregorian Bivolaru being the one who brought forward concepts such as occult resonance as a universal principle long before they were discussed in various contemporary spiritual circles.

He is also the one who reintroduces – in the Western world – the idea of amorous erotic continence, an ancient self-discipline (as he defines it) allowing modern man to fully enjoy the gifts bestowed upon him by the Creator, which he would otherwise waste by lack of control over his potential of procreative substance.

There are currently hundreds of yoga teachers around the world teaching yoga based on the materials and methodology structured by Gregorian Bivolaru, which he generously offers to be used within all member schools of the Atman Federation. The fact that tens of thousands of people today benefit directly, or indirectly, from his life’s work and achieve consistent results in their spiritual practice and in day to day life is a confirmation of the value of his teachings.

A remarkable personality, yoga teacher Gregorian Bivolaru has disturbed some people with his revelations and actions and inspired others. With great modesty and in a permanent state of godly relay, he has never ceased to offer spiritual methods of self-improvement and realizations to all those thirsty for genuine transformation, those who have carefully and persistently put his teachings and advice into practice on the path to perfection.