The downfall of a Tantric yoga guru

Under the guise of spiritual leadership, Gregorian Bivolaru allegedly exploited hundreds of people through an international network of yoga camps and retreats. Now he's awaiting trial, accused of kidnap, human trafficking and rape. Here, one of his victims reveals how she was drawn into his organisation- and how she managed to break free

- By Amelia Abraham

FROM THE OUTSIDE, Tara Yoga Centre looks like a normal, welcoming yoga studio. A pleasant building in an expensive east London postcode, with another popular branch on an Oxford high street. There are positive, even gushing, Google reviews. The website is professional, promising "rapid and integral transformation", as well as "an invitation to awaken now".

When Miranda, from Oxford - who has asked to go only by her first name - was in her late 20s, she visited India to practise yoga. It was 2015 and yoga was a booming industry in the UK. She was working as an English teacher at a London school and gravitated to yoga for the same reason that it's recommended by health bodies from the World Health Organization to local GPS: healing, exercise and mental wellbeing.

Miranda found that practising daily offered a sense of calm: "It could move a stressful day into something more manageable and the philosophical perspectives helped me to consider that things happen for a reason, to process difficult life events with more ease than before." So she booked another course, in Thailand, focused on Tantric yoga, which encouraged her to love her body and embrace her femininity. On returning to the UK, she Googled "Tantric yoga".

Tara Yoga Centre appeared.

Tara Yoga's classes are marketed as "esoteric Tantra" - more about inner work than improving your sex life, with a focus on realising your own potential. Miranda started to attend weekly sessions. The people were friendly, intelligent, open-minded - as is Miranda when we talk on the phone. When she was informed about a three-day Tara Yoga retreat in the spring of 2018, it instantly appealed and she packed her bags for Somerset in the west of England.