Experiences that can change your life. Open to everyone who's ready for it.

01How it all began

From Indonesia, through India, to Berlin.

Hi :) I'm Florian. It didn't start with an idea, but with a retreat in Indonesia: I walked in like someone who thought he knew himself fairly well. A few days later something broke open in the middle of the day, with no warning at all. Feelings I hadn't even known I was carrying. And the strange part was this: the moment I discovered them, everything else got louder too. Joy, and grief too, yes, all of it a little more awake, a little closer.

In a retreat in India I wanted to explore that further: seventy-two hours, one room, eleven other people. It wasn't my first time with something like this. I'm from Berlin, and I have a lot of friends who guide exactly these kinds of retreats and workshops. But this time it went deeper, and then deeper still, until at some point I was sitting in Rishikesh and realised: something had started, a strong process, the kind that doesn't stop again any time soon.

Since then I know what experiences like these can do to a person: they loosen something you haven't been able to reach for years, and afterwards you stand differently in your own life. And since then one simple thing has driven me: that it isn't only the few who happen to know the right people who get to feel this, but far more people. That's the motivation behind everything that came after.

In Rishikesh I noticed something else. Flyers everywhere, by the stack, and most of them ended up doing real harm to the environment. And behind them the same problem I knew from Berlin and from Koh Phangan, where I used to spend a lot of time: the offerings are all there. It's finding them, and making any sense of them for yourself, that's strangely hard.

So I started asking. I listened my way through the community in Rishikesh, what the people searching need, what the people offering feel is missing. And in March 2025 I built the very first version right there, rough and small, straight out of those conversations.

It landed well, and that gave me the courage to bring it home, to Berlin. There I kept listening: first to friends who host themselves, then to more and more people from the community. With every conversation the picture got clearer, from both sides, the ones looking and the ones offering something.

Today there are four of us, three friends and me, and we keep growing Arivela bit by bit, always close to what the community reflects back to us.

That more people get access to experiences like these, that's the motivation behind everything that came after.

02Why we keep at it

Arivela is where the conscious community finds each other and connects.

Every event, retreat and training you find on Arivela is put together independently by its hosts. Arivela just brings the people and offerings together in one place, so everything stays organised and easier to find.

• An invitation, not a promise

  We can't tell you whether a class is right for you. What we can do is make it findable and set it down next to the others, and then it's yours to choose. The rest is between you and whoever is holding the room.

• Met on equal footing

  We'd like Arivela to stay open to anyone who's curious, whatever their background, skin colour or gender identity, whoever they love, or whatever they believe.

• What matters are the people

  We don't host anything ourselves, and we don't rate anything. All of that we leave to the people who teach and guide, and to you, the ones stepping into the experience.

03The people

The Arivela Makers

• F

  Florian

  Builds Arivela

  Berlin, by way of Rishikesh

  For me it all started with a journey of my own, with a few retreats that moved more in me than I'd expected. The thought that something like this should be easier to find was one I couldn't shake afterwards. I can write code, so I built the rough first version myself, in Rishikesh, instead of writing a pitch deck nobody would read. Most free evenings I'd rather be quietly figuring out where Arivela should go next and building the next piece of it, than trying to explain what I actually do.

• A

  Annabella

  Holds the welcome

  Munich

  I travel a lot and love trying new things, so what I appreciate most about Arivela is how clearly everything is laid out. Wherever I happen to be, Arivela shows me at a glance where to find the local conscious community. I love sharing that enthusiasm for the platform with partners, facilitators, and everyone else. In short: I look after Arivela's communication and I'm the person to talk to about partnerships and collaborations.

• A

  Alex

  Holds a few threads together

  Tübingen

  My role is mostly unglamorous questions like: do we really need this? Are we actually moving forward, or does it just feel that way? I support Arivela's development more from behind the scenes than out front: with honest feedback and the more mundane tasks that come with a project like this too. I ended up at Arivela through my long friendship with Florian and my deep interest in yoga, meditation, and travel.

• R

  Rainer Sumitra

  Known by everyone in the room

  Stuttgart

  Of all of us, I'm the one who actually hosts events and runs retreats myself: yoga, sound healing, Osho meditations, and group dynamics, both across Germany and internationally. My social media communities show me what's resonating right now.