soma is currently in the process of being built. However, the idea has been around for a very long time. Only the insiders around Dr. Wolfgang Schachinger know the whole story. Therefore, we have decided to create a small history series and tell newsletter by newsletter how this project came about.

In 2002, Dr. Rainer Picha, a cardiologist from Graz, approached Dr. Schachinger. At that time he was a close associate of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and was commissioned by him to find a property with a thermal healing spring.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who had been globalising Ayurveda since the 1980s, wanted to establish a medical centre that combined classical Ayurveda with local healing water treatments and modern medicine. He wanted to establish an institution that combined the best of East and West, medical tradition and modern research for the benefit of health.

At that time, the mayor of the municipality of Geboltskirchen approached Dr Schachinger to invite him to establish an Ayurveda Centre in this tranquil place. Mayor Alois Kastner had a special trump up his sleeve: his community is thermally supplied by a previously unused thermal borehole. All public buildings are heated by a geothermal pipe fed from the Dreikönigsquelle spring in the neighbouring village of Haag am Hausruck.

It soon became apparent that this warm groundwater had the qualities of a healing spring. Thus, the wish to use thermal healing water for an Ayurveda centre could be fulfilled.

Mayor Kastner conducted negotiations with various farmers and landowners in his community to find a suitable plot of land.

n summer 2002 the time had come: a site of about 4 hectares in the district of Reitting proved to be ideally suited. It had a slope to the east, it was unobstructed and directly adjacent to the Hausruck Forest, which is one of the largest contiguous forest areas in Europe. The pipeline that brings the thermal water from the spring to Geboltskirchen passes directly by the property.

Panoramic view

The view from the property is breathtaking. The Upper Austrian plains open up wide and are framed by the mountains and forests of the Mühlviertel to the north and the rolling hills of the Hausruckwald to the south. The rays of the rising sun hit the property at any time of the year and unfold their healing and invigorating effects.

Sunrise