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Gloria Arieira
Gloria Arieira is a founder of Vidya Mandir, her institute dedicated to Sanskrit and Vedanta, located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Invited by Swami Chinmayananda in January 1974, Gloria Arieira went to India to study with Swami Dayananda Saraswati, who became her guru.
Gloria studied in a traditional gurukulam until July 1978, when she returned to Brazil. Besides her stay at Sandeepani Sadhanalaya, a place of study and living with the guru in Mumbai, she also studied at other ashrams in Uttarkashi and Rishikesh in North India. She has travelled throughout India to attend courses, lectures and pilgrimages to temples in the North and South of India, especially in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where she has been immersed in the cultural and religious tradition of the Vedas.
Since her return to Brazil, she has been teaching Vedanta and Sanskrit in Rio de Janeiro and other cities in Brazil since 1979, as well as in Portugal since 2009. Her dedication to the Tradition has led her to translate the Bhagavadgita, Upanishads and several other Sanskrit treatises into Portuguese. She is responsible for publishing Swami Dayananda Saraswati's books into Portuguese from her publishing house, Vidyamandir Editorial. She is the author of two other books in the Portuguese language “Millennials Prayers” and “Puja - the performance of a Vedic ritual”.
On Republic Day 2020, Gloria Arieira was awarded one of India’s highest civilian honors, the Padma Shri, for her years of service and dedication to the dissemination of Sanskrit and Vedanta.
Contact: vidyamandir33@hotmail.com
Vitor Arieira Harres
Vitor is a teacher of Vedanta, Sanskrit, meditation, mantra and Vedic chanting. He had studied with his teacher and aunt, Gloria Arieira at her Centro de Estudos Vidya Mandir until embarking for India, where he lived between 2007 and 2012, engaging in an intensive study program under Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati in the ashrams of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam Institute.
Contact: contatos@vidyamandir.org.br
Patrick van Lammeren
Disciple of Gloria Arieira since 2004, Patrick has undergone study during travels in India and the United States, as well as pilgrimages to temples and sacred places, studying in the ashrams of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, broadening his knowledge of the culture and the Vedic Tradition.
Since 2006, he has been a part of the team of Centro de Estudos Vidya Mandir. In 2007 he began conducting the course on Hindu symbology, then on Sanskrit, followed by classes on Puja, and finally, Vedanta.
Contact: patrickvlammeren@gmail.com
Paula Ornelas
Paula Ornelas started her studies of Vedanta and Sanskrit in 2002 upon meeting Gloria Arieira. Since then, she has been exclusively been dedicated to both.
In Brazil, she has also studied Sanskrit under Arthur Perez.
With several travels to India, she had the opportunity of enriching her knowledge of Vedanta and Sanskrit, under the guidance of Swami Dayananda Saraswati and Swami Paramarthananda Saraswati (guru and colleague of Gloria Arieira, respectively), as well as with academics of Sanskrit, such as Dr. V. Abhiramasudaram of the Vivekanandan College in Chennai.
She has a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from PUC-Rio, but left the academic career in Physics after starting her PhD upon her first trip to India.
In 2010, Paula completed her Mater’s in Sanskrit and Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge (UK) under the orientation of Dr. Vincenzo Vergiani.
Since 2004, she teaches Sanskrit at Vidya Mandir and in several yoga training courses.
Contact: paula.ornelas@globo.com
Henrique Castro
A disciple of Gloria Arieira, Swami Dayananda Saraswati e Swami Sadatmananda Saraswati, Henrique began his study of Vedanta in 2009 at Centro de Estudos Vidya-Mandir with Gloria Arieira.
Besides studying at Vidya-Mandir, he has practiced meditation, puja, hatha yoga and kirtan in the Centro Sivananda de Yoga Vedanta, having participated in the 2010 teachers training course in Garopaba, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
At Vidya-Mandir, he also studied Sanskrit with Adélia de Faria, Vedic chanting with Leandro Castello Branco, besides Puja and Vedanta with Patrick van Lammeren.
In 2013, Henrique went to Rishikesh, India to study with Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati for a month, an experience that inspired him to dedicate himself full-time to the knowledge of Vedanta. In 2015, on the advice of Pujya Swamiji, he concluded his studies in philosophy at UFF, then immediately returning to deepen his studies of Vedanta, where he remained until 2017 at Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Anaikkati, and completed the long residential course in Vedanta and Sanskrit under the guidance of Swami Sadatmananda Saraswati. Henrique completed various pilgrimages to traditional temples across South India, as well as to study with other renowned gurus, such as Swami Paramarthananda Saraswati, Swami Viditatmananda Saraswati, Swami Sakshatkrtananda Saraswati and Swami Shankarananda Saraswati. After returning to Brazil, he has dedicated himself to teaching Vedanta, as well as translating traditional texts to Portuguese as one a full member of the staff of teachers at Vidya-Mandir
Contact: filosofia.henriquecastro@gmail.com
Free Content Link, Lectures Obstacles to Meditation (Vidya Mandir, 15/06/2019).
Link to open class from Vedanta, Bhaja Govindam (Vidya Mandir, 26/06/2018).
Link to open lesson on Vedanta, The Essence of the Gita (Vidya Mandir, 12/18/2018).