by Monica Gentile, Santi Maha Sangha instructor

ATIF is a foundation with the task to make the heritage of Chögyal Namkhai Norbu known to the world.

It has different departments for many different aspect of the teachings.

One of the main Departments called Ati Movement and Mind Department, led by Fabio Andrico, comprises four other departments: Yantra Yoga, Vajra Dance, Khaita, and Meditation

Each of these is coordinated by a group of experts of those teachings (called the Scientific Committee), comprised of the four International Instructors (Fabio Andrico, Laura Evangelisti, Prima Mai and Adriana dal Borgo) for Yantra Yoga, Vajra Dance and Khaita, and a group of Santi Maha Sangha Teachers for Meditation.

As for the Meditation Department, five Santi Maha Sangha teachers volunteered to work with ATIF for a period of three years and started to collaborate In May 2020. They are Monica Gentile, Gabriella Schneider, Gino Vitiello, Arnaud Coquillard and Mariano Gil.

The first task was to draft guidelines for anti Maha Sangha instructors regarding open courses on meditation under the patronage of ATIF. In July 2020 the first draft was finished and submitted for discussion to the anti Maha Sangha forum and to the Board of Directors of ATIF. After taking into account the different suggestions, the final version was published in October 2020 and enjoyed positive feedback. After this task was over, Gino Vitiello left the committee for private reasons.

In November 2020 the new website of ATIF was launched, and at the request of ATIF we started to work on a possible website for Meditation, similar to those already existing for Yantra Yoga, Vajra Dance and Khaita. In February 2021 the first draft was ready, later adjustments were made, and finally, in June 2021, thanks to Arnaud Coquillard’s work in collaboration with Anton Rutkovsky, the website Meditation was presented to the SMS-Forum and to ATIF. This achievement was also well received. The last updating was in August 2021, as a course application form for teachers has been added. You can look at it by visiting https://meditation.atiyogafoundation.org/.

In summer 2021 ATIF asked us as advisors to draft guidelines also for teachers outside of the IDC, who would teach meditation under the patronage of the Atiyoga Foundation in the legacy of Prof. Namkhai Norbu. This task has been finished in August 2021, you can find the guidelines on https://meditation.atiyogafoundation.org/course-application/.

Other issues faced by the department were requests to use the ATIF Logo, questions about the content of open courses, exchange of information with the IG regarding the use of the IDC Logo together with that of the ATIF, etc.

After completing all these tasks, Arnaud and Mariano resigned in October 2021 for private reasons. We are looking to welcome new members and continue to work on a curriculum for public courses. We encourage all those interested to become part of our team and to support us in keeping alive and spreading in the world the heritage of our master.

If you are interested to help please contact: [email protected]