YOGA VEDANTA SPECIAL IMMERSION RETREATS
Duration - 2 weeks
Course Location
Course location is Kodakkad, North Kerala, India. Please find the details of location here
Please find all Course Names, Course Dates and corresponding donations:
for Indian Nationals here for non Indian Nationals here
The Course Donation includes cost of food & accommodation from the last arrival date to the first departure date, tuition as per the daily schedule shown below and the use of ashram facilities.
Module 1 - Oct 1 to 15, 2026
YOGA VEDANTA RETREAT – HEALING THE WOUNDED MIND Patanjali, Neuroscience & the 14-Day Journey Back to Wholeness
Understanding how suffering takes root in the mind - and how yoga, science, and self-inquiry offer a genuine path to healing
Pre-requisites - Eligibility
This retreat is open to all.
No prior background in yoga philosophy, psychology, or neuroscience is required.
Those with an existing yoga practice - whether beginners, regular practitioners, or yoga teachers - will find this retreat equally accessible and enriching. A sincere wish to understand oneself more deeply and to live with greater clarity and ease is the only prerequisite.
Course Details
Every human being carries wounds that quietly shape how we think, feel, react, and relate. Patanjali called these deep impressions samskaras. Modern neuroscience calls them trauma responses. Across two thousand years, they are describing the same human experience.
This two-week residential retreat brings these two great traditions of understanding the human mind into one integrated and deeply practical journey. Using Patanjali's Yoga Sutras as the philosophical backbone - exploring the kleshas (roots of suffering), chitta (the mind-field), vrittis (thought patterns), and samskaras (deep impressions) - and weaving in accessible neuroscience on memory, neuroplasticity, and nervous system regulation, this retreat offers a path to healing that is both ancient and rigorously grounded.
Each day is carefully structured to support both intellectual understanding and embodied transformation. Participants engage with one teaching session, two asana practices oriented toward nervous system regulation, two satsangs, somatic body-based practices, and guided self-inquiry journaling rooted in the yogic tradition of svadhyaya.
The retreat unfolds across five natural phases: understanding the roots of suffering, mapping the mind-field, recognising the patterns of thought, exploring the impressions that drive behaviour, and arriving at integration and wholeness. By the final day, participants will have not only a clear philosophical map of the healing mind - they will have begun to feel its truth in their own bodies and lives.
This is not a lecture course. It is not therapy. It is an immersive, held, embodied environment in which the human being can slow down enough to see itself clearly - and in seeing clearly, begin to genuinely heal.
Curriculum
This retreat unfolds across five progressive phases, each weaving Patanjali's classical framework together with insights from modern neuroscience, somatic awareness, and guided self-inquiry.
Phase 1 - The Roots of Suffering An introduction to the five kleshas - Patanjali's map of how suffering takes root in the human mind - alongside an accessible introduction to the nervous system and how the body holds pain. Participants begin to understand that suffering is not a personal failure, but a patterned response that can be seen, understood, and gradually released.
Phase 2 - The Mind-Field An exploration of chitta - the vast storehouse of memory, identity, and conditioning - and how modern neuroscience's understanding of the brain's memory systems and neuroplasticity illuminates what yoga has always taught: that the mind that created the pattern can also transform it.
Phase 3 - The Waves of Thought A study of the vrittis - the movements of the mind - with particular attention to how rumination, mistaken perception, and memory loops perpetuate suffering. Participants learn practical tools from both yoga and neuroscience for returning to clarity and present-moment awareness.
Phase 4 - The Deep Impressions A deeper inquiry into samskaras - the grooves of conditioning that drive automatic thought, emotion, and behaviour. This phase explores how impressions form, how they live in the body, and how Patanjali's teaching offers a precise and practical method for their transformation.
Phase 5 - Integration & Wholeness The retreat closes with the fruits of practice - viveka (discernment), post-traumatic growth, and the design of a personal practice to carry the journey forward. The final teaching points to kaivalya - freedom not as a distant destination, but as a recognition of what was always already present beneath the noise.
Throughout all five phases, each day includes somatic body-based practices, guided journaling rooted in svadhyaya (self-inquiry), and asana sessions oriented toward nervous system regulation and embodied healing.
Daily Schedule
Suggested Texts
Mind: Its Mysteries and Control - Swami Sivananda (Divine Life Society)
Meditation and Mantras - Swami Vishnudevananda (Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre)
Assessment and Certification
There will be no written exams. Students are assessed throughout the course based on regular attendance of all classes and active participation in teaching sessions, journaling, and somatic practices.
Presenters
The main teacher of this retreat is Mani Raman, an internationally experienced yoga teacher with over two decades of study and practice rooted in the classical tradition of Swami Sivananda and the philosophy of Swami Krishnananda of the Divine Life Society.
Mani Raman teaches yoga philosophy not as renunciation but as daily life integration - making the depth of the Vedantic and Patanjali traditions genuinely accessible to modern, urban practitioners. His teaching brings together yogic psychology, contemporary neuroscience, and behavioural insights within a Gurukula-inspired learning environment, helping students understand that spirituality is fundamentally the work of character-building, self-knowledge, and compassionate living.
With a particular gift for storytelling and for bridging the ancient with the contemporary, Mani Raman has taught internationally across India, Europe, North America, Asia, and beyond. He works with yoga teacher trainees, experienced practitioners, and sincere seekers - guiding each with equal warmth, intellectual rigour, and the grounded compassion of a teacher who has himself walked the path he teaches, with all its ups and downs.
Yogacharya Sudarsan with over three decades of study and practice rooted in the classical tradition of Swami Sivananda and other ashram teachers will assist in leading satsangs and teaching the asana and pranayama classes.
How to register:
Please fill in all the required information in the application form online itself, then submit the completed application form.
Fill in the Course Application Form - Click here
Once the filled up application form is received and accepted the applicants will be informed by email, of how to proceed further in the registration process.
To finish the formality of registration:
Indian nationals: Need to send a non-refundable deposit of donation of rs 5000/-
Non-Indian or non-resident Indian nationals: Need to send a non-refundable deposit of donation for three days.
Please note:
Course donations are non-refundable, however any unused amount may be transferred, minus an administration fee, to another course within one year of the original course starting date. Or a credit note may be issued minus the administration fee. Credit notes are valid for one year from date of issue and can be used for any other courses/ programs or for anybody recommended by the depositor and also for boutique items or any other supplementary services.
General Information
Please read course details as well as the course location information carefully before making a decision to register.
Admission to any course is on first come first serve basis.
All the courses are taught in English, there is currently no translation facility available into any other language.
Dates and donations are subject to change without notice.
For all programs, guests are subject to the suggested donation in effect at the time of final payment.
To maintain the spiritual atmosphere we ask all ashram guests to comply with the ashram rules.
Kindly refer to the Ashram rules and guidelines for more information.
The ashram reserves the right of admission and students may be asked to leave if their behavior goes against the ashram rules and teachings.
Email sivanandapeetham@gmail.com if you need further information.
