![\"\"](\"http:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Brunton-150x150-1.png\")
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0PB in Prague 1937.<\/p><\/div>\n
The Haich-Yesudian yoga school was one of the first European yoga schools, founded in Budapest in the early 1940s. It was the first school run by an Indian yogi. Yesudian Selvarajan taught Hatha-yoga, which he had studied in India since his childhood. Elisabeth Haich, who had not been to India at that time, taught Raja-yoga and Christian mysticism. Paul Brunton, who spent several weeks in Budapest in 1937, played a major role in her teaching. Some of the details of their meetings are recorded in Haich’s autobiography, Initiation<\/em>. The records in Brunton’s estate complete and confirm the story in several aspects. The post-war events in Hungary led to the yoga school moving to Switzerland in ’48 and becoming world famous there. The spirituality of the school continued to operate in secret in Hungary for decades through Elisabeth Haich’s sister Luca Haich.\u00a0 Luca Haich’s spiritual work and esoteric vision is attested to in her paintings, which are steeped in occult symbolism. Unfortunately, her life\u2019s work remains unknown and inaccessible, until today.<\/p>\n Their decades-long collaboration behind the scenes has always been characterised by a master-disciple relationship, in which Yesudian consciously took on the role of disciple, not only because of the twenty-year age difference between them.<\/p>\n Years before they met, Elisabeth Haich had been giving weekly lectures on a wide variety of esoteric topics on her own from 1938. In 1941, together with a family member, they published a book under a pseudonym entitled Mysticism as a Worldview<\/em>. Her knowledge came from two sources. On the one hand, his self-education, which consisted of ‘reference books’ on the period and the subject, from theosophy and yoga literature to Rosicrucian books such as Secret Symbols of the Rosicrutians of the 16th and 17th Centuries<\/em> and a meditation practice. On the other hand, she drew from an inner source, which she describes vividly in her autobiographical novel, Initiation<\/em>, namely from the memories of a previous life in ancient Egypt. Her spiritual-meditation retreats were spent in solitude in the family’s mountain cottage. She possessed a kind of knowledge of the essence of Western and Eastern religions, as well as of yoga and esoteric teachings, which fascinated the young yogi.<\/p>\n “By some unpredictable quirk of fate, I came into contact with one of the greatest Western interpreters of the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita and yoga philosophy, someone who was also well versed in Western philosophy, and who had an excellent knowledge of the Bible. This esteemed teacher was Elisabeth Haich, in whose vast studio we opened our first yoga school together.”<\/em><\/p>\n An important, defining moment in the intellectual life of Elisabeth Haich was her personal encounter with the well-known writer Paul Brunton. Brunton was already a world-famous writer thanks to his book A search in Secret India<\/em>, in which he introduced his Indian master Ramana Maharshi to the Western public. Brunton returned to Europe from his second trip to India in the summer of 1937.<\/p>\n Mrs. \u00c1kosn\u00e9 R\u00e1thonyi with Ramana Maharshi at the hill of Arunachala<\/p><\/div>\n He spent a few days in Paris at a religious conference and then a few days in Switzerland at the home of C.G. Jung. From there he travelled on to Prague at the invitation of Karl Weintfurther. He arrived in Budapest on 30th of September. He was invited by Mrs. \u00c1kosn\u00e9 R\u00e1thonyi, former president of the Theosophical Society and the Maharshi’s only Hungarian disciple. During his stay in Budapest, Brunton stayed at her house, in a big villa and gave lectures there, which were attended by nearly a hundred people. He also held some more serious common meditation exercises for selected people. These small group meditations were also attended by Elisabeth Haich and some of her family members, according to records found in Paul Brunton’s estate. Brunton recorded the participants’ accounts of their experiences after the guided meditation.<\/p>\n We know from the Initiation<\/em> that there were several one-to-one conversations between the two, one of which was particularly significant for Haich’s inner journey. With Brunton’s help, an inner, spiritual barrier that had been causing Elizabeth great frustration for some time was removed. It is this breakthrough that will lay the foundation for a later significant spiritual experience in which she will gain insight into the meaning of her life in Egypt and her present life, in which the two will be one.<\/p>\n In Egypt, initiation takes place in the inner chamber of the Great Pyramid. And in her current life, the worse events provide the same catalytic backdrop. On the other hand, it is this encounter and this event that will legitimize the yogic school’s connection to Ramana Maharshi’s lineage and, as it were, empower Elizabeth to teach meditation.<\/p>\n In 1951, Elisabeth Haich published her autobiographical novel Initiation<\/em> in Switzerland. The book is based on the events of a previous life in Egypt, which included the figures of Yesudian and Brunton. Brunton also has a book about his travels in Egypt and his experiences in the Great Pyramid, published in 1936 under the title A search in Secret Egypt<\/em>. There are several similarities between the two writings, although Haich does not mention this book in the Initiation<\/em>.<\/p>\n Elisabeth Haich and Selvarajan Yesudian left Hungary together in 1948 due to the political changes and settled in Zurich, Switzerland, where they continued their teaching. Later, they opened a yoga school in Ponte Tresa for the summer.<\/p>\n In the 1950s, Brunton also settles in Switzerland, less than 100 km from the Haich-Yesudian yoga school. He made a lot of notes and extracts from his personal readings for himself. Even during his voluntary clause he kept up with international spiritual literature. These included extracts from several books by Yesudian and Elisabeth published in English. There is also evidence in his correspondence that Brunton had a disciple who practised yoga with Yesudian, so he must have known or heard of their activities in Switzerland. However, there is no information that they met in person in Switzerland. What can be said for sure is that Brunton’s name was always mentioned with great respect in the Haich-Yesudian school, along with the names of Ramana Maharshi and Vivekananda.<\/p>\n In the Haich family, besides the occult, music and the fine arts have always played a very important role. Elizabeth, like her brother, studied at the Academy of Music in Budapest, but later chose sculpture. In the 1930s she was a busy, well-known artist.<\/p>\n In Hungary, due to the post-war political climate, yoga could not be taught publicly. However, there were some students who did so despite all the risks.<\/p>\n One of them was Mrs. Luca Haich F\u00fczess\u00e9ry, Elizabeth’s sister, who herself was brought up in this spirit and is known from records to have attended Brunton’s private meditation sessions. With his friends, her kept the work of Elizabeth and Yesudian alive in Hungary during the decades of prohibition. There is another very significant area of her activity, which is manifested in the spiritual content of her paintings. Her most productive creative years were spent in solitude in his small Budapest apartment in the midst of communism in the 50s-60s and 70s. Alongside his civilian occupation, her work as a graphic artist, she lived in a constant, inspirational state, in a fever of creating paintings with a virtually ‘spiritual’ theme.<\/p>\n The age of Aquarius painted by Mrs. Luca Haich F\u00fczess\u00e9ry<\/p><\/div>\n The graphic works of several miniature books on historical subjects praise his skill, but his paintings are completely unknown to the Hungarian public and even to Hungarian art history. Most of the paintings are done in tempera paint in A3 format. Nearly a hundred of them. It is hoped that the heir, to whom I am grateful for having made some of the photos available especially for this presentation, will make Luca Haich’s valuable legacy available to the public in the future.<\/p>\n –\u00a0 Attila J. Hal\u00e1sz<\/p>\n The Haich-Yesudian yoga school was one of the first European yoga schools, founded in Budapest in the early 1940s. It was the first school run by an Indian yogi. Yesudian Selvarajan taught Hatha-yoga, which he had studied in India since his childhood. Elisabeth Haich, who had not been to India […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[93,54,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1168,"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions\/1168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Haich-Erzsebet-fiatal-kori-portreja-240x300.jpg\")
The Haich-Yesudian Yoga School is one of the largest and oldest schools in Europe. Officially opened its doors in Budapest in 1941. Selvarajan Yesudian, a young Hindu yogi, came to Hungary in 1937 to study at college of physical education. From his memoirs, he recalls that, although he grew up in a Christian family, he studied and practised Hatha Yoga from an early age with authentic masters in India. The meditation lineage of the yoga school, the path of Raja Yoga, was represented by Elisabeth Haich, one of the two.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/yesudian_01-187x300.jpg\")
Yesudian was introduced to Elisabeth Haich in 1941 and their lives were intertwined from that fateful meeting until their deaths. They revised and expanded Yesudian’s book Sport and Yoga<\/em>, published in 1941, before they met. From then on, the book was published under their names, and in the following years it went through 15 more editions, with a circulation of nearly 100,000 copies in Hungary alone. Its later international success is shown by the fact that it has been translated into 18 languages with millions of copies. Despite all this, however, Elisabeth Haich’s name has become world famous thanks to her book, Initiation<\/em>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/onedropzen.hu\/karate\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Rathonyi-Dr-Suzanne-Alexandra-and-Ramana-Maharshi-with-Western-devotees-300x278.jpg\")
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