Armin Gottmann

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Armin Gottmann (born May 26, 1943 in Berlin ) is a German neurologist , psychotherapist and yoga teacher . From 1999 to 2015 he was the supreme leader of the worldwide Buddhist order Arya Maitreya Mandala .

Life

Gottmann spent the first years of his life in Berlin, where he attended the Evangelical High School, Schmargendorf . As the son of the doctor Karl-Heinz God man , who in Gujarat one of Naturopathy dedicated clinic spent Armin Gottmann built, the large part of his youth in the 1950s and 1960s on the Indian subcontinent . There he underwent systematic spiritual training under various teachers with a focus on yoga and Buddhism. In Lonavla in the Indian state of Maharashtra he completed several years of training as a yoga teacher under Swami Kuvalayananda . In Bangalore , Gottmann was a student of Acharya Buddharakkhita, with whom he studied Vipassana and Metta meditation . He spent some time in Kalimpong with Sangharakshita . From early youth, Gottmann was a personal student of Lama Anagarika Govindas , who became an authoritative spiritual teacher for him. In 1964, Gottmann became a fully ordained member of the Arya Maitreya Mandala founded by Govinda with the religious name Asanga.

Back in Europe, Armin Gottmann began studying Indology and medicine at the Philipps University in Marburg . The Medicine, graduating in 1972 at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz with the promotion from a Doctor of Medicine. This was followed by training as a specialist in neurology and as an analytical psychotherapist using the Carl Gustav Jung method at the CG Jung Institute in Stuttgart . Gottmann worked in medical research and in mental hospitals. For two years he headed the addiction department at the Northern Black Forest Clinic . From 1974 to 1978 he edited the magazine Yoga and our world . In 1982 he established himself as a freelance psychotherapist. In 1999 he was called to be the supreme spiritual teacher ( Mandalacharya ) and world leader of the Arya Maitreya Mandala. He passed this office on to the Austrian philosopher Volker Zotz in March 2015 . Armin Gottmann was also chairman of the “ Lama and Li Gotami Govinda Foundation ” based in Munich , which administers the artistic, literary and spiritual estate of Lama Anagarika Govinda and Li Gotami Govinda . This position has also been held by Volker Zotz since 2015. From 1999 to 2014 Gottmann published the magazine Der Kreis , which is dedicated to topics of Buddhism and spirituality.

On Armin Gottmann's 70th birthday in 2013, Volker Zotz published a commemorative publication entitled Interfaces. Buddhist encounters with shamanism and western culture , to which the psychologist and Indologist Robert Janssen , the writer Heinz Pusitz and the literary scholar Yukio Kotani contributed, among others . In his introduction, Gottmann describes Zotz as "crossing the border between India and Europe, Buddhism and Western culture, medicine from Western tradition and the classical healing methods of yoga."

Yoga and Buddhism

Gottmann is researching, journalistic and active as a teacher in the fields of yoga and Buddhism. As part of research at the University of Mainz, for example, he demonstrated that the pranayama exercise Bastrika (ie bellows) raises the limit of flicker fusion, i.e. the limit at which a sequence of individual images of a film can still be recognized as individual images. It was thus proven that a breathing exercise in yoga improves visual perception. An annotated bibliography of Gottmann's works on topics of yoga, Buddhism and medicine can be found in the commemorative publication on his 70th birthday.

Gottmann is active in the yoga teacher training in Germany, among others at the Society for Humanities Further Education eV (GGF) in Düsseldorf . He combines “Buddhist meditation practice with psychotherapeutic or body-active elements.” He also emerged as a vehement critic of the Transcendental Meditation according to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi , emphasizing that Westerners need to know about the “content and background” of mantras before taking up appropriate forms of meditation would have to convey, because otherwise they would not find access to it.

Works

  • The Influence of Autogenic Training and Bhastrika Pranayama on the Flicker Fusion Frequency: An Experimental Comparison between Autogenic Training (JH Schultz) and a Yoga Breathing Exercise. Mainz 1972
  • Journey to the inner light. Spirituality for Beginners. Stuttgart: Theseus Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-7831-9560-6
  • Lama Anagarika Govinda and Tibetan Buddhism . Pforzheim 2010
  • Buddhist meditation and mental balance. The circle. Pforzheim 2012.

literature

  • Martin Baumann : German Buddhists. History and communities. Diagonal-Verlag 1993, ISBN 9783927165144
  • Martin Baumann: The Buddhist order Arya Maitreya Mandala. Religious studies representation of a western Buddhist community. Religions on site - Vol. 3. Marburg 1994, ISBN 3-9802994-4-9
  • Hellmuth Hecker : Buddhism in Germany: a chronicle. Munich 1978
  • Volker Zotz (Ed.): Interfaces. Buddhist encounters with shamanism and western culture. Festschrift for Armin Gottmann on his 70th birthday. Luxembourg: Kairos Edition 2013, ISBN 978-2-919771-04-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The biographical information largely follows Birgit Zotz : "You stand under the sign of Śiva." On the biography of Arminn Gottmann. In: Volker Zotz (Ed.): Interfaces. Buddhist encounters with shamanism and western culture. Festschrift for Armin Gottmann on his 70th birthday. Luxembourg: Kairos Edition 2013 ( ISBN 978-2-919771-04-2 ), pp. 17–33
  2. ↑ Cf. Birgit Zotz: “Armin Gottmann: Journey to the Inner Light. Spirituality for Beginners. Stuttgart: Theseus Verlag 2009 (review). “In: Damaru 34 (spring 2012), ISSN  2225-4803 , p. 30
  3. ^ Michael Zils: World Guide to Foundations: Europe. KG Saur Verlag 2001, ISBN 9783598222528
  4. ↑ Cf. Change in the Office of the Mandalacarya. In: Der Kreis No. 271 (May 2015), pp. 46–47
  5. ↑ Volker Zotz (Ed.): Interfaces. Buddhist encounters with shamanism and western culture. Festschrift for Armin Gottmann on his 70th birthday. Luxembourg: Kairos Edition 2013 ( ISBN 978-2-919771-04-2 ), p. 7
  6. ↑ D. Mitzinger: Yoga in Prevention and Therapy: Manual for Yoga Teachers, Therapists and Trainers. Deutscher Ärzteverlag 2008, ISBN 9783769105674 , pp. 35–36
  7. ^ Renate Huf: Armin Gottmann - An annotated selection bibliography. In: Volker Zotz (Ed.): Interfaces. Buddhist encounters with shamanism and western culture. Festschrift for Armin Gottmann on his 70th birthday. Luxembourg: Kairos Edition 2013 ( ISBN 978-2-919771-04-2 ), pp. 35–45
  8. ↑ Martin Baumann: German Buddhists. History and communities. Diagonal-Verlag 1993, ISBN 9783927165144 , p. 189
  9. ↑ Michael Mildenberger: Heil aus Asia? Hindu and Buddhist movements in the west. Quell-Verlag 1974, ISBN 9783791860015 , p. 58
personal data
SURNAME Gottmann, Armin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor and Buddhist order leader
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin