Ayurveda in Seelisberg
UPDATE: The Sonnenberg Hotel property, on which the Maharishi Health Centre is located, has been sold to a real estate developer who has a project to renovate the hotel to promote local tourism. The plan is to create 150 rooms and 30 apartments. The TM administration, which has owned the hotel and surrounding property since the 1970’s, welcomed the project, since the hotel is no longer needed by the TM Movement. The Sonnenberg Hotel is a legally-protected monument, which means that the original building must be preserved. The proposed project was presented to a Seelisberg town meeting in November 2024, and was approved by local voters. It is unclear what will become of the Maharishi Health Centre, which is in a separate building next to the hotel. The Centre says it will remain at its current location on the property at least until October 2025. The future of the Centre after that point remains to be seen.
Seelisberg is a small mountainside village overlooking the southern extension of the Lake of Lucerne in central Switzerland. Directly below the village, at lakeside, is the Rütli Meadow, where the Swiss Confederation was born on August 1, 1291, when local patriots swore the Pack of Everlasting Alliance, to defend themselves against the tyranny of the Hapsburgs of Austria. This is a place of historic and patriotic pilgrimage, and is regarded as sacred by the Swiss.
But Seelisberg is also a place of pilgrimage for thousands of people who go there every year for treatments according to “Ayurveda”, the 6,000-year-old traditional medical system of India – the world’s oldest form of medical practice.
The legendary Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made Seelisberg his world headquarters in the 1970’s and 80’s. One of his worldwide projects was to bring Ayurveda to people everywhere, by setting up “Maharishi Health Centres”. The Centre in Seelisberg was among the very first to be established anywhere, and is the oldest public Ayurveda facility in Switzerland.
