Discovering the Wholeness of Yoga: An Interview with Gloria Goldberg and Gitte Bechsgaard Heather Haxo Phillips

Discovering the Wholeness of Yoga

ANCIENT WISDOM TEACHINGS FOR MODERN YOGA PRACTITIONERS

Gloria Goldberg and Gitte Bechsgaard have created an inspiring course of study and practice that is grounded in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. The course offers insight on a wide range of contemporary questions such as the search for meaning, the role of yoga and spiritual practice (sadhana) in daily life, and the potential of human consciousness. Here, they talk with one of their students, Heather Haxo Phillips, about this two-year course.

Heather Haxo Phillips: Gitte, could you tell us about yourself and how this unique program became into existence?

Gitte Bechsgaard: I was in the last stages of writing the Gift of Consciousness and [Guruji’s book] The Core of the Yoga Sutras had just been published. I wrote B.K.S. Iyengar and asked if he would want me to teach on the Gift of Consciousness: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras together with his teachings and writings on philosophy, and he did. [Guruji] was supportive of the course having a two-year structure and four parts that would provide philosophical teachings in the Yoga Sutras as a main focus combined with our Iyengar Yoga practice and methodology. He advised that this be taught “both to the raw beginner as well as the seasoned practitioner.”

Gloria Goldberg: The asana and pranayama practices go hand in hand with the theory. The philosophy is not only integrated but is what inspired, I believe, Guruji's approach to teaching us all.

HHP: We are used to chanting the invocation but not so used to chanting other things. What is so important about chanting?

GB: Chanting the full Invocation to Patanjali and the yoga sutras is an integral part of what the Iyengars have emphasized. It is important to learn it slowly and steadily, and to do so together in communities.

HHP: One thing that makes this course unique is that it covers meditation and using all the eight limbs as gateways toward meditation.

Gloria Goldberg and Gitte Bechsgaard. Photos: Kerry Reinking

We have to strengthen all the eight limbs of yoga to walk on this path with integrity.

practice (dharana) and go progressively deeper it becomes meditation (dhyana). B.K.S. Iyengar said, “I can teach you concentration, but I bring you into meditation.” This is the approach we are taking in this course—looking at the traditional yoga sutras together with Iyengar’s approach to dhyana and the essential inner limbs of yoga.

GG: That’s true in asanas and, of course, pranayama practice as well. The deeper understanding you have of the asanas and pranayama from the gross to the subtle, the more your focus leads to that meditative state. Guruji’s approach is meditation in action.

HHP: The first course started in the U.S. the very same week that Guruji passed away. Now, with Geetaji’s passing, so many Iyengar Yoga teachers [and practitioners] are asking themselves, “what now” and “what next?”

GB: When a guru passes, and now also with Geetaji’s passing, it becomes more important for us to stay really connected with the method of practice and uphold the teachings within our own hearts and to integrate all that was shared with us so generously. Now is the time for understanding our method better, understanding the teachings better—in practice, in life, and in theory. It’s a very important time right now and has been since Iyengar’s passing. We all have to step up and be anchored within.

GG: I think the course helps people understand the foundation of Guruji’s teachings and that he designed a method that incorporated everything that was already there in yogic scripture. He did this in a way that we, especially westerners, can grasp over time through abhyasa and svadhyaya (practice and self study).

When we have a guru, we have someone who is capable of bringing us from darkness and inner ignorance to light and awakening, who helps us go through that process. The philosophical teachings help us with that because they are ancient and perennial wisdom teachings. We have to strengthen all the eight limbs to walk on the path with integrity and compassion.

GB: When a guru passes, responsibility gets thrown back on us to study the teachings to make sure that we are really practicing that way, that we are following a spiritual path that is complete and whole. And that starts with yama and niyama; it’s something that we do need to study. We cannot leave it out. It has to be an integrated part of our learning right from the beginning. All the eight limbs rest on this ethical foundation. Otherwise we will be led astray.

HHP: Those of us who have gone through the program have found it profoundly

Gitte Bechsgaard teaches The Gift of Consciousness to students from around the world.

transformative in many ways, particularly through the deeper study of abhyasa (practice) and vairagya (detachment) and the entire eightfold path. Your studies with your mentor Sri Krishan Mantriji in the areas of yoga philosophy, Sanskrit, Jyotish, and contemplative practice—combined with your Iyengar Yoga practice—have guided this transmission. Can you talk a little bit about that?

GB: There were 12 years where I was practicing and teaching Iyengar Yoga. My whole life was so transformed by it. Then I had an accident where I could not walk yet wanted to maintain intense yoga practice in a form [other than asana]. That’s when the opportunity came to me to learn the Sanskrit and to study Vyasa’s Bhashya and the ancient Vedic scriptures. This became a doorway into deepening for me personally.

This came at a time when I was thinking, “How can I ever be a yogi again?” The practices [I had come to know as yoga] were stripped away from me, and I had to enter another kind of sadhana that was connected [to what I had already learned]. I had to undergo this huge transformation and discover the whole [of yoga]. Studying the scriptures, reciting sutras, and chanting added another dimension to what I’d been doing and shed a light on what I had already done. I made a vow that if I were to get better again, I would teach people to have a practice that included the study of yoga philosophy and the soul-psychology underlying the teachings, and to understand its importance in daily life and practice.

We really hope that, in our teaching, we bring forth the beauty and the profound wisdom in Iyengar’s method, as well as the life’s work of Guruji, Geetaji, [and Prashantji]. I really feel tremendously grateful, and [hope] we can convey what we have learned in a small way to others, because we did not grow up in India with the whole context of understanding. I found that in writing The Gift of Consciousness that a lot of it was

informed by my trying to teach Iyengar Yoga practitioners and teachers and finding out what they understood and what they didn’t understand and where they needed additional guidance. We want to share what was shared with us, in whatever way we can, and hopefully [we] have been doing so for the past five years.

HHP: And it is done with such joy and intention, and attention, and love. Thank you so much.

Gitte Bechsgaard, Ph.D., is the founder of the Vidya Institute in Toronto, Canada, and has taught in the fields of yoga, Eastern psychology/philosophy, and contemplative traditions for over 25 years. She is a Senior Iyengar Yoga teacher and a registered psychotherapist. Her book, The Gift of Consciousness: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, was published in 2013 and h er book The Sacred in Exile was published in 2017. www.vidyainstitute.com

Gloria Goldberg, MA, has been teaching Iyengar Yoga to students around the world for almost 40 years. She has devoted her life to sadhana and takes joy in sharing the transformational power of practice with those who seek to learn with her. www.iyengaryogalamesa.com

ACCESSING INDIA’S ANCIENT WISDOM

As we sit on the precipice of change within our Iyengar Yoga community, many of us are looking for ways to access and cultivate our inner wisdom. Most of us are very familiar with asana and pranayama as tools for personal transformation. But the ancients also included yamas, niyamas, mantra chanting, and contemplative prayer in their practices for empowerment.

I always felt that Guruji and Geetaji used the ancient wisdom in their own lives. They would talk about particular words and sutras in deeply personal ways. But I myself never had the tools to access the ancient wisdom when I needed it the most. Yes, I had studied the sutras and The Bhagavad Gita and other texts for many years. But I needed more context, more conversation, more understanding in order to get the learning out of my head and into my actions.

This started to change nearly five years ago when I began studying with Gitte Beschgaard and Gloria Goldberg.

I met Gitte the week that Guruji died. At that time, I was cloaked in grief and needed a way to direct my emotions so I could rise for our community. Gitte taught us how to chant the Guru Gita, and I knew it would be a potent tool. To cope with my own mental state, I committed myself to chanting the Guru Gita daily for one year. Over the year, I felt that the song allowed me to grieve on all levels—physical, emotional, mental, and energetic— conscious and unconscious. With the chanting, I grew stronger, more focused, more whole.

Gloria Goldberg teaches Supta Padangusthasana variations.

Heather Haxo Phillips is the owner and director of Adeline Yoga in Berkeley, CA, where she teaches Iyengar Yoga. She volunteers in the Iyengar Yoga community locally, nationally, and internationally. www.adelineyoga.com

Please visit www.iyengaryogalamesa.com for complete workshop details and schedule.

When Geeta passed, we knew what to do. Our community of sadhakas, trained by Gitte and Gloria, gathered at RIMYI. We sat and sang, using prayers to help us find ourselves and each other in the darkness.

Grief, fear, and frustration are all part of daily life. How do we handle these experiences without getting tangled up in them? How do we handle the complexity of our teachers and community, and the complexity of our own personal lives? A deep study and practice of the ancient teachings of India can provide context and inspiration.

Some of the benefits that I have personally experienced from my studies with Gitte and Gloria include an increased ability to get quiet and sit with stillness, an ability to work with the difficulties in my life rather than against them, more authentic connections, a deeper commitment to seeing the divine in others, a devotional practice that is a refuge for me, access to my own intuition, and clarity on my soul’s purpose.

India’s ancient wisdom can support more than our bodies. We have an opportunity to nourish our entire self, our communities, and the world. I hope that each of you will create an opportunity to do this deep work with Gitte and Gloria, or other local teachers and healers where you live, work, and play.