Johan Svanborg is the only founder of Borntorpet still standing by its steering wheel.
Sincethe big inaugural mid-summer party in June 2006, he has seen Borntorpet grow
through a number of unnamed developmental phases whilst always staying tuned to
the original vision. And in that vision it was clear that this would be a place where
everybody coming would be seen as contributing, and everybody going would carry
the spirit of the place with them for the benefit of themselves, and the world at large.
Let’s acknowledge that all souls are intrinsically whole and capable of creative
expression. Yes, let’s make Borntorpet a place where we live as if everything we ever
dreamt of is already happening! That is what Johan, and his three co-founders Otto,
Mirja, and Thomas, were saying to each other. And in this spirit, Johan feels,
the activities at Borntorpet are still unfolding.
In the early days Johan, Otto, Mirja, and Thomas were living as a summer time forest
community by the little lake with its damselflies, tadpoles and water-lilies. In the
colder part of the year, from October to April, they would travel – to India, Bali or
South America. A seminomadic lifestyle that is still embraced by the people of
Borntorpet – or, as it is now called, Shambala Gatherings.
At the start, there was also a fifth person sharing the community life, Marcus. He, a friend of the founders, was the one who
tipped them about Borntorpet being for rent. He was at the time running the Kolarbyn ecolodge, nearby in the deep forests
of Bergslagen, organising moose- and wolf safaris. The Borntorpet founders all shared his warm feelings for a life close
to nature, and so the community life originally came to be characterised by activities deeply rooted in the natural
surroundings. And from those roots it has been growing.
This deep nature connection was exactly what Johan had been missing being part of running a yoga studio in Stockholm,
a place called Naturkällan founded by one of Johan´s best frend Julian. Whereas he could see the yoga studio as an oasis in
the hectic big city life, he was longing to live the heart vision inherent in the yoga in a place that could fully embrace it
on a day to day basis. Nature was surely the key to that, he felt.
And one day he bumped into Otto and Thomas. It happened in the juice bar sharing roof at the yoga studio on. It soon
became evident that Otto and Thomas, who had taken over the management of the juice bar, carried dreams that
coincided very well with Johan’s. A synchronistic meeting, it seemed...
The three of them were to meet again, in India. And there they were to resume their talks about how to live a life meeting
their needs and norishing their deepest visions. Newly arrived back in Sweden, they were to spend some time together in
a summer house by the sea, and still imbued by an energy of “lightness and grace” from their travels, one day they would
come to receive a phone call from Marcus telling them about a place in the forest for rent...
But let’s now travel back in time to the winter of 1993. Johan is waiting at a bus stop in Paris together with a woman
from New York City. The bus, however, never comes. So they start to walk. And talk. Johan has an unusual feeling.
He feels as if this woman can see right through him – straight into his soul. He feels as if she is a “woman of Truth”.
That winter Johan was working as a ski guide in the French Alps. Over the last couple of years he had gradually become
aware of a sense that he was carrying a secret, secret even to himself. It wasn’t heavy to carry, not at all. It rather had
the sense of adventure about it, like a present to be opened. He sensed that the woman at the bus stop could see it,
but she couldn’t tell him what it was. He knew that he had to find out for himself.
The following summer Johan met an old man in Sweden. In his library he found a book about meditation, including
descriptions of different meditation centres. He was captivated. And three months later, he sat on a flight to India –
on a quest for the opening of that secret present; a quest for the key to the spiritual dimensions of life...
From then on Johan returned to India every year, for about a decade. And he travelled elsewhere too. His life had turned
into a big spiritual adventure. He never knew beforehand where he would end up. He simply bought his flight ticket,
got onboard the plane, and landed somewhere in the land of spiritual adventure – to Johan, and many others, also known
as India. Being in India, any- and everything seemed possible...
A large number of teachers, gurus, ashrams, yoga centres, and other spiritual and holy places became the beacons for Johan
over the years. And it was a path to some extent shared with all the men and women from all the corners of the world who
were hanging out in those same places. Johan meditated and practised yoga, and he trained to become a yoga teacher. He
made some money from working at different yoga centres around the world, and studied yoga meanwhile.
Having already before his spiritual quest started acquired some experience as a tour leader and guide, Johan’s private
journeys were soon expanded into organised tours. Johan guided groups of people in India, as well as in Peru –
and so he does to this day, in addition to his involvement with Shambala Gatherings. Or, perhaps, it can be seen as part
of it. For no exact definition of what Shambala is and encompasses exists...
Ten years is quite a long time to pursue just about any particular activity. And naturally there came a point in time when
Johan felt “pregnant with inspiration and knowledge”, and slightly weary of travelling. He wanted to share what he had
acquired. He wanted to give to others; settle down, and serve the larger community. He had just returned from a trip to
New York, when one day he sat in a café in the Stockholm district of Söder with a female friend. He said to her that he felt
that time was ripe for him to start offering yoga classes, and that he would like it to be in the neighbourhood of where
they were sitting.
“Look”, said his friend, “doesn’t that sign over there say something about yoga?” Johan looked, and, yes indeed, there it
was: The newly put up sign for Naturkällan, advertising the yoga studio and the juice bar. It was less than a stone’s throw
away from where they were sitting, and on the same day Johan went there to say hello. Assuming that he came for the
announced free position as a yoga teacher, Julian, who was to become Johan’s friend and colleague for the following
two years, greeted him heartily. And needless to say, Johan got the job.
Johan had to impose a one year “curfew” on himself not to fall for any tempting invitation from the many warm and
exotic countries of the world. Over the last decade he had put in motion a self-enhancing movement in his life that
practically speaking meant that offers of jobs and studies turned up regularly even without active efforts from his side.
Just a couple of months into his new settled life in Stockholm, an invitation came from Costa Rica. Only the self-imposed
“curfew” kept him from saying yes to the chance of teaching yoga at a most beautiful centre in the jungle near the ocean.
Johan managed to resist the temptation of escaping the Swedish winter. The year of “curfew” passed. And then another year.
And then... Well, we already know the continuation of this story. We know about Johan’s growing longing for a richer
context to his yoga centred lifestyle, away from city life. And we know that he had acquired a taste for spending the
winters in more gentle climates than the Swedish. We know too that he met with Otto and Thomas in the juice bar,
and we know that after yet another trip to India, Johan landed in Sweden less than a month before the day when
he received that crucial phone call from his friend Marcus...
Now, 2010, in its fifth summer season, Borntorpet has metamorphosed into Shambala Gatherings, welcoming some
new and semi new crew members onboard. The newcomers have brought, among other things, plenty of organisational
skills, and fresh thinking of how to structure the activities, including a brand new web page. Its for Johan a pure delight to
now be weaving the webs of inspiration at Shambala together with his beloved girlfried Melissa and sister Lena.
Looking back on the past four years of beauty, Johan can easily get the feeling that the vision has already been
accomplished. And so he has indeed been feeling after each completed year. Yet, what was once set in motion has always
kept moving on; expanding... Shambala, one might suggest, can be viewed as a being in its own right. Or, as Johan
would say: “A magical gathering place for the extended love family.”
In these times, urgently calling for new sustainable ways of life to be realized, Johan wishes for Shambala to be
“one of the new dreams that we together weave into the weave”. And perhaps that weaving can take place more and
more independently of the particular geographical place of Borntorpet. Johan, from the beginning, had the vision of a second
community being formed in a warm country, coexisting for a period with Borntorpet, and then taking over as the only
centre (thus drastically reducing the environmental impact of air travel). The name change does open the door for such a
new developmental phase to unfold...
Johan likes to take the straight way from inspiration to action. He is not fond of using too many words when it comes to
describing the vision of Shambala. He would rather let it talk for itself – as it certainly does through the people coming
and going in this place of gatherings, yoga, celebration, singing, giving, receiving, and weaving of our future...
And underneath it all, silence prevails – the silence of nature, and of love. How can the poetry of this presence of silence,
or silent presence, be allowed to penetrate into the world of words? This is a question Johan phrases when I interview
him in the end of July 2010. And in a couple of months, when everything gets cooler and darker in Sweden, he will most
likely be off to Bali once again. For new adventures to be lived with Melissa, in the continual unpacking of the secret
present.
