The Vipassana International Academy is located at Dhammagiri, Igatpuri in Nasik district of Maharastra. The town of Igatpuri is a town of central railway. So the main link is through the railroad.
Vipassana is a technique of meditation that frees our mind from sufferings and deeply seated stress and strain and enables our mind to experience peace and harmony. The process of meditation helps a person to attain highest spiritual goal.
The Vipassana International Academy is an international organization that is founded by Sayagyi U Ba Khin, who is a prominent Vipassana teacher and had deep desire to have a famous Vipassana Center in India. Shortly before he died he expressed his wish to an Indian meditator, who was the first student of S.N.Goenka and came to Sayagyi U Ba Khin` s meditation center at Rangoon. The student returned to India after he learned Dhamma enthusiasm and realized Sayagyi`s last wish. Other meditators soon joined him in order to establish a center and they could understand the great benefit of the center it could bring in the life of common people.
The Vipassana International Academy offers accommodation for more than six hundred students. Besides the center has living quarters for Dhamma workers or the volunteers, kitchen staff etc. There is separate accommodation for the monks who come to join the course. The land was previously a barren land. But continuous gardening, tree planting and landscaping has changed the place to a beautiful abode full of lush green. Thousands of plants and shrubs have been planted which added scenic value to this serene environment.
The Vipassana International Academy offers a regular course of ten days that occurs throughout the year and other special programs for regular students that also take place frequently. Among them Dhamma Tapovana is a long course center that is adjacent to dhammagiri that hosts many longer courses that is held for 20,30,45 and 60 days. The course allows more experienced meditators to practice more extensively.
