Reviews

"Who are you?" The answer to this question of my heart appeared to me so natural, so absolute, as if there was no other possibility, as "You are I". To this certainty followed with great clarity the absolute wish to simply live this! My yearning had a face at last. There is no other "way" for me to live. New life, in love, to explore the truth – together with you and with others. A heart's desire.
"You need to practise (meditate) more even if we are not together!" Your words are in my memory. "I cannot do it on my own" was my reaction then. Since then I sit, almost day by day, alone and yet you are ever present. To this day you invite me again and again to practise with you and with the people who surround you and me. Today sitting – Zazen – is, according to my mind, the only thing permanently to do – a lifelong and even beyond. This practice became my life.
You meditate with me – "I am being meditated". We stretch, each one for itself and yet together. We move into something which we experience as nearing eternity, the true and unique greatness. This divine strength, this divine energy which is given to me and of which I may become a part, gives me the feeling of gentleness, richness and preciousness.
Constantly I am reminded by you to direct myself to the non-changing, to the eternal being – God. I may experience the divine existence directly through you. In touch with this I may experience and take into my life and into the world holy and healing moments. Healing – physical, mental and emotional – is a reality. You take the pain so that I should be well. By and by I may discover the healing in me. For twelve years I suffered of severe chronic bronchitis. We sat in meditative posture when your physical body ejected with great power and strength what actually was in my body from the lungs and bronchi. You had taken my cough upon you – for me. At that time I could hardly believe it – what for do you take my cough? There it was, the connection. You let me experience it. In the same way my backache went when I was near you. When I told you about it you said: "Then simply stay near me". I tried it out and the pain was gone.
In love, gratitude and being connected with the heart I thank you, my teacher from without, who gives life to and lets me experience my inner teacher to whom my trust may grow steadily. M. T.

Dear Daniel, when I came along to a retreat for the first time, as a complete novice you might say, I had no idea of what lay in store for me, who lay in store for me. After the first evening together I felt well received and integrated into this wonderful community around you. Never do I have the feeling of being excluded because I cannot regularly be present. Open arms – always.
I asked you for a very meaningful favour: the life of a baby friend of mine hung from a thread, intensive care. Severe illness. I asked you for help and two days later the child, completely contrary to the expectations of all doctors and the parents, was no longer connected to a single drainage or infusion, was recovering remarkably quickly and well. In my view, even if that sounds strange to a "non-practitioner", you saved his life (a few years ago I would also never have believed in miracles). I am infinitely grateful to you for that and I experience that this greatly strengthens my belief in the divine. Thank GOD – your nearness is very wholesome. In the deepest trust. D. L.

Dear Daniel, thank you that you accompany me in such a clear, sincere and at the same time such a sensitive way and help me to find an inner balance which allows me to be actively in life without losing myself in the activity ... thereby staying open for the tasks of the moment ... for the tasks life brings.
Through the intense work with "physical blocks" my life has changed fundamentally. I have learned to permit my feelings, to accept my limits and nevertheless not to see them as absolute ... I have even become a mother which seemed impossible from a medical point of view.
Thank you that I could experience a state of complete bliss even in times of severe illness through our time together. That is so infinitely valuable! Thank you that you repeatedly show me the way into the world of complete trust and that you have such an unerring feeling for the "things in my life" which let me fall out of this wide space. A. V.

Dear Daniel, I cannot describe what I felt in your lesson yesterday because it was so unbelievably large, wide and beautiful – there just don’t seem to be any words that could even come close. No sooner had I sat down it hit me like a wave of sound emanating from you. With an unimaginable strength and intensity. As if the air, simply everything around me were made of small particles which are vibrating at a hitherto unfelt speed, at a high frequency, as if magnetised. Intense, but indescribably fine.
I sat STILL, inwardly still and through me, along my spine, an unbelievable energy flowed, around me as well, in fact this energy WAS everywhere. The spine was like a column of green and white light which held me, which allowed "me" even to be there in this overwhelming stream. Space and time dissolved, I did not know "where I" sat anymore. The body was not there at times, merely lines of light in my arms, no muscles, bones or skin. This space and this incomprehensible energy and intensity outshone everything. A wideness, largeness and intensity were able to be felt, far beyond everything I had previously felt or believed possible. This "movement" was so incomprehensibly fine in its vibration. I still have the feeling that the world around me could dissolve and disappear at any moment. Everything I touch could simply have no substance any more.
As if you had given me a fleeting glimpse of the world as it truly IS, as if you had lifted the veil for an hour and a half, shown me a miniscule extract and even that takes me to the limit of my perception. I needed to be still, simply open, otherwise this intensity couldn't have been borne. As if any resistance, anything this energy could have rubbed against must burst in the vibration.
I was so sceptical. I see myself now with my small thinking, with my worries about money, work, partnership, existence ... it's as if my fundament was brushed away in this wideness and largeness and it's not even a loss because it’s unimportant. The fundament was actually heavy cement blocks attached to my feet. It was so incomprehensibly large, wide and quiet. Nothing of what I think of as true or real is there. Nothing at all, no feelings of fear, worry or guilt.
Maybe that's where the healing is, in that we can see that, really, all that which is not-heal in us is not there at all ... If only EVERYONE could experience that, then our world would be a different one! So much could just drop away from us. V. W.

Dear Daniel, just want to tell you again how Divine it was to be with you here. Thank you for teaching me to accept myself in a deeper way.
Sometimes when I remember you, tears come into my eyes ... I really want to be with you in meditation and learn and learn ... I miss "your" silence of the heart, and am very much looking forward to come to Munich. With love, D. T.

Dear Daniel, from the very start you surprised me again and again with how you see me. When you address exactly the issues in yoga class that are on my mind or when you touch precisely the spot on my body that currently bothers me most. It often frightened me initially when thereby blockades were removed or when I started to cry out of the blue. And sometimes I didn't return to the yoga sessions after such experiences. Yet something always made me come back and helped me to go on. From the very beginning I felt a deep connection to you although I wouldn't have been able to put it into words back then.
Now I know that sometimes it is important and liberating to feel pain, to cry, to be sad or furious or simply to laugh from the bottom of my heart. Some things are difficult for me to accept – who likes to be sad or furious ... Only gradually did I realise that it is particularly important during these phases to practise with you and the sangha. It has provided me with support, stability and strength and has helped me to go through difficult times. And that is very healing. Many complaints that I've had for a long time – some of them even for my whole life – gradually simply disappeared.
Even now it still surprises me sometimes when, during a satsang or a meditation session, you address in passing things that are on my mind at the moment or that I've recently experienced. In order to take my mind off things I once recited a mantra in my mind during a meditation session and promptly you said "... and we do not recite mantras." At least in my presence you've never talked about that before and never did thereafter again. When you appear in my dreams in which you answer my questions, explain connections or relieve my back pain ... or when I can feel you even though I am currently on the other side of the world, then it is difficult for me to accept that all of this is sheer coincidence. And at the same time it is so beautiful and important to experience all that and open myself to it.
Since it can change a lot. For example the space that you've given to me and my practice ... At the beginning it was only a place providing room and peace for my practice. Gradually this place has changed and still does – it is turning more and more into something that develops from out of me. A space in which you are always present, in which I receive answers, in which sometimes chaos and doubts occur – yet in which I am at peace with everything. In deep connectedness and gratitude, K. H.

Dear Daniel, I am infinitely grateful for your guidance. The intensive practice with you has changed so much in my life. The bulimia that accompanied me for 20 years of my life has left my life over the past few months.
Although it was never actually a topic as such in our joint practice. Owing to the meditations and conversations with you, I rediscovered access to my spiritual roots by which I could experience a power that gives me fresh courage, support and stability. The last time that I experienced this incomparable trust in God that carries me was when I was a child. Since I've been connected to this divine energy I experience such a deep gratitude for this precious gift of my life that I've got no other choice than to look after myself. That is like a commitment that has grown from within.
A while ago I said to you that I have the feeling that true healing can only take place from the inside. And exactly that could I now experience and still am experiencing in so many other areas of my life anew every day. Namaste. A. H.

After hours of intensive Yoga practice during a workshop, after hours of concentration on my own self, my body, my thoughts, my emotions, I felt a total inner openness and calmness. It felt as if my mind was no longer present. It did not stand anymore between me and my heart. I just sat there, deep within myself and could just let things be.
The hours we had spent practising yoga generated a common energy among all the people in the room and this seemed to pulsate within my whole body. I could clearly feel the others without having to direct my attention upon them – upon their outer form.
I could also clearly feel that Daniel began to concentrate on me. Instantly, an almost unreal warmth began to spread out in my chest. The feeling that developed inside of me had a lot to do with opening, with letting go and with freedom. It felt as though my heart had suddenly become larger and that my chest had become too tight for it. As if there was suddenly so much force inside that it could blast my chest open. The feeling of warmth, joy and freedom expanded slowly throughout my whole body. I sat very calm and could hardly believe it. My body felt so complete, so connected with all its parts and with all that could be sensed in the room. There was a deep feeling of happiness in and around me. A deep gratitude. I felt grateful for my feeling; grateful for being allowed to be there; grateful for yoga; deep gratitude for my teacher, for the other participants in the room, for my own self and for that which connects all of us. V. H.