The Centre

The Founding of the Centre

On 27 July 2017, our great Lama AR suggested that Sherab Gyatso and friends should create a Dharma centre in Switzerland to disseminate and practise the nondual teachings of his ancient Atiyoga or Dzogchen tradition and lineage. On 23 April, 2018, he gave the centre the name ‘Dzogchen Nyingthig Vidyadhara’, which means ‘Awareness-Carrier of the Heart Essence of the Great Perfection’.

Lama Sherab Gyatso

Our humble Dzogchen Nyingthig Vidyadhara centre is committed to the practice of Atiyoga under the guidance of our Root-Guru AR, his transmission and practice lineages. Lama Sherab Gyatso, also known as Acharya, is a direct student of AR. He received the Vajracharya or teacher’s empowerment from AR in 2019. In 2025, AR officially asked him to use to traditional title of Lama.

Born in Switzerland in 1984, he is an Acharya with a long history of learning from great Indian scholars and masters of Advaita-Vedānta or nondual Vedānta as well as its tāntric tradition known as Śrīvidyā. He learnt the fundamentals of Vipassana under the guidance of the realised Theravada Buddhist teacher Ajahn Tong Sirimangalo. His initial studies took place at Sri Kailās Ashram in Rishikesh, India, where he underwent many years of traditional education as a novice monastic during his early teenage years. Among others, he studied Sanskrit grammar and Advaita under the renowned scholars Sri Swami Vidyānanda Giri. After completing traditional studies, he studied comparative religion at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, graduating with an M.A. He continued doctoral studies in Cultural Studies and Psychology. Today, he teaches Sanskrit and meditation in Switzerland. He has authored several books, including a fresh translation of the Yogasutras of Patanjali in a signature edition with beautiful illustrations by a South Indian artist, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Ramayana, and the Guru-Gita – published by Nightingale.

Before Lama Sherab Gyatso began his spiritual practice of Atiyoga under our Root-Guru AR, he could have never imagined the efficacy of this living, blazing tradition of nondual wisdom. His ever-evolving understanding of Atiyoga is that of a living transmission carrying forward pith instructions and exceptionally powerful ancient Indo-Tibetan yogic and tāntric practices to realise one’s own true nature as the primordially pure, clear light. His approach is experience-based and non-sectarian, seeing how all the Dharma traditions point the finger at the essential truth of nonduality. He has the highest regard for Dzogchen due to its focus on non-conceptual, effortless practice, unconditional compassion, unexcelled techniques and crystal-clear fruits. At the behest of AR, Lama Sherab Gyatso began to teach and spread the Dharma in Switzerland from the year 2017 on when he requested Sherab Gyatso to share the Lama’s story and teachings according to the disposition of students.

During a personal meeting in 2025, AR asked him to use the Lama title publicly. He revealed Lama Sherab Gyatso’s special connection to Manjushri as well as his karmic connection to AR’s own Dzogchen Manjushri terma cycle.

Chöying Drolma or Dharmadhātu Tārā

Chöying Drolma is a traditional Nātya and Lāsya expert and mother to the Dzogchen Nyingthig Vidyadhara Centre. With the blessings of AR, she teaches Dākinī Movement and Mudrās, as well as the traditional Dzogchen movement practices of the Adzom Drukpa tradition known as trul khor.

Chöying Drolma teaches that our bodies are energetic manifestations of the primordial unity of stillness and dynamic movement. Awareness through movement enables us to centre in our bodies and liberate our emotions, thus allowing them to express their original purity of purpose. With more than twenty years of experience, Chöying Drolma shares the ancient, classical Indian lāsya temple dance embodying worship through movement and mudrās, the special hand gestures of the sacred feminine, the dākinīs, and the bodhisattvas. She teaches powerful sequences such as the Birth of Tārā and the Lotus Dance.

In their work, Lama Sherab Gyatso and Chöying Drolma are aided among others by invaluable helpers Changchub Döndrub, Dechen Nyima, Namkha Drolma, Chimé Drolma, and Kelsang Lhamo, who help to organise retreats in the United Kingdom and Switzerland.