Scott Johnson: Hello.

Monica Gauci: Hello Scott.

What's your name?

My name is Monica Gauci.

Hello Monica Gauci. And where did you grow up and where do you live now?

I grew up in a small town in South Australia and I now live close to Byron Bay in northern rivers part of New South Wales in Australia.

Nice. And what's been the main spiritual or contemplative practice of your life?

As a contemplative practice the main thing has been a consistent meditation practice and I feel that my asana practice which has been only probably for about two years longer than that so I started doing an asana practice in seriously in 1979 and I started meditating in 1980 and so my asana practice I feel very much helps me with that meditation practice in developing my focus.

So would you say that your practice is contemplative like yoga and meditation are kind of something that's you do for that focus?

My meditation practice is very much a spiritual path for me.

My asana practice really gives me the tools to be able to do that spiritual path much better.

I do see the two as being quite distinctly separate even though yeah I feel like the asana gives me everything the pratyahara, the dharana but I find that the dhyana for me I need to sit still and consciously go inward to connect for that and also for that those samadhi experiences.

So what was the reason for a spiritual practice in the first place?

Interestingly so I was only 20 and I actually had everything that I'd thought I ever wanted in life so I had a beautiful relationship I lived in the country I had almost one of every animal that you could keep including cows and goats and so on and I suddenly was really really unhappy to the point of being totally depressed and luckily my partner at the time realized that what I was actually lacking was a spiritual connection and so he introduced me to a great spiritual teacher who I still have contact with and I learned how to go inside myself and make that connection with my deep self.

What was it that the teacher showed you?

He showed me a series of meditation techniques which were called knowledge are still called knowledge and it's really that knowledge of yourself so yeah you know there are various I realize now that there are various yoga techniques but they were very much put together in a particular practice.

I'm really interested in this kind of like before and after. What was the… do you think the change was? Did you… once you did it did you go oh now this is how I'm gonna live this is how I'm gonna be.

Initially I had expectations that meditation was like bright flashing lights and this wow experience so initially I was like I'm not experiencing anything and then one day I was sitting and I was just totally overcome with my first experience I realized then of peace and I realized that I had never experienced peace and I realized that I was then on the right path I realized that that was a really important step and actually that particular teacher Prem Rawat says peace is the perfume of God and it was so true because I was getting close that I could smell it.

Peace is the perfume of God, did he say that to you?

He said that in a particular talk that I was listening to yeah and that resonated yeah well it resonated as the truth because that was my first experience of my first really spiritual experience where I was just sitting alone you know I had had other experiences of oneness with nature and so on but just me and nothing else and so what was the what was the after you doing this thing called the knowledge right this is the meditation technique what was the was it a gateway or did you do it for a long period of time?

Yeah I don't exclusively do that meditation practice now I do other ones but yeah it's something that I still sometimes do yeah

And what was that what was the introduction into other techniques? what was the introduction into asana for you?

Well I did my first hatha yoga class when I was 18 but then when I was 19 I did a yoga retreat and met all of these young people who were yoga teachers and I realised that you could be young and be a yoga teacher so I left the town where I was living and I moved to Adelaide the capital of South Australia to do a yoga teacher training but then I met the teacher because there was only IYTA International Yoga Teachers Association then that did formal trainings and I met the teacher who was doing it and I just knew that she couldn't be my teacher so then it was a little lost but then I discovered a wonderful at the time a younger teacher which was Shandor Remete and he was amazing he took me under his wing as his apprentice because I was going to every class and he realised I guess that I was really keen and told me if I was interested I should be there tomorrow the next morning at four o'clock which was quite a challenge because I normally went to bed at one o'clock but yeah and then I started doing I would did yoga with him all day every day.

What was Shandor teaching?

At that time he was teaching Iyengar.

What year was this?

This was 19… 1979.

Wow.

Yeah.

So he was teaching Iyengar in Adelaide. How many people were practicing?

It was quite a few people but he was pretty well I think besides the IYTA he was the only yoga teacher in town that I knew of.

Yeah so I would do yoga all day with him and then I would go and waitress in the only vegetarian restaurant in town.

That's quite a boon isn't it? Like happening across a teacher like Shandor Remete.

So fortunate and he was he never ever charged me a cent and he fed me. He fed me his glorious Hungarian food in the breaks his homemade bread and his goats milkshakes.

What did you learn from him?

Discipline because I think that I was a very scattered person and he I was going to say he gently let me unfold because I was actually really stiff even though I've always been a bit hyper-mobile and but I was actually very stiff because you can be hyper-mobile in your joints and stiff in your soft tissues. But we used all sorts of torturous props so in what but he was gentle in his approach in his approach in that he just allowed me to be where I was and to slowly release a lot of my samskaras. I did a lot of crying back then in those days.

Yeah and then what was the evolution from Shandor?

So then I actually I lived in the Adelaide Hills for a long time and then I started teaching myself.

That was where I lived on the property with all the animals and started my spiritual path and then I ended up moving overseas to Switzerland and I was quite daunted because Shandor had given me the name of a yoga teacher but he was an old an older man with a big long white beard and I think he taught Shivananda yoga but we did about six gentle postures in a two-hour class but most of the time with him lecturing in German and I hadn't learned German yet and so I fairly well gave up but then and nobody did yoga in Switzerland it was just considered way weird and so I started teaching what I called stretch classes and some of my students would say why do we do a headstand in a stretch class and I would say because it's really good for you so yeah and so I was there for almost five years and then I remember seeing a Jungian psychologist because I was having a very hard time and I would cry to her and say I just want to go back to Australia and teach yoga which was then what I did and that was when I discovered a Ashtanga vinyasa yoga.

Has your life from 20, from that point where your your partner said you need to do this meet this meditation teacher; has your life then always been compelled by the spiritual direction?

It has absolutely and even when I met Gregor you know for both of us our relationship is so harmonious because we have those same values that our spiritual life is really important so we very much did come together as two individual pillars and we still exist in that way and yet you know and so our relationship is very harmonious.

Have you like, like... it's really interesting to meet someone who's like from 20 gone I just want to live a spiritual life without kind of going off in that direction. You know, have you ever kind of been swayed to kind of get a job like follow some kind of other path?

I mean I've had jobs along the way well mainly in Switzerland because when I was in South Australia I mainly was a yoga teacher and then in Switzerland I ended up managing this fitness centre where I taught the stretch classes and then when I came back to Australia I started teaching yoga again, Iyengar and then I discovered a Ashtanga and then I did stop from one day to the next teaching Iyengar and I practiced a Ashtanga very concentratedly for a year and went to Mysore and then began teaching.

So there's this really I mean I'm really fascinated by especially in them like in the 80s as well I like yeah you were weird if you did yoga.

This is it but like but I'm really compelled by this search within you for something.

Mmm yeah I I don't know where that comes from apart from perhaps it's a past life you know progression of evolution of this particular being.

What's been what was your what was your take on the Ashtanga vinyasa sequence in relationship to your spirituality?

I and it's it's probably because I had a strong spiritual path originally that the Ashtanga vinyasa for me has been has fulfilled mainly the hatha yoga aspect of health, breathing, concentration, turning my awareness inward so yeah focus of my mind and so my meditation practice has always been a very separate thing.

In fact I was saying in the class this morning here to people that it's so important that we have this intimate relationship with ourself because if if you live in the same I was actually saying how your body is a sacred sight because the divine dwells within it and if you live in the same house as somebody that does not predict that you will have a good intimate relationship with them and so I personally feel that we actually have to put effort into developing that relationship with our deep self.

I think the asana takes you so far but I don't think that it is as effective as you actually putting that concentrated focus and effort into developing that relationship.

When you talk about the divine in you, how did that kind of come about for with your, with you, with you recognising that divinity in yourself, and could you talk a little bit more about what divinity in us is?

I recognised often in my life that I lacked confidence in the world, but I've always been totally secure about who I am as an expression of the divine. In my meditation practices—and this is why I believe it's so important—when I have gone really deep, I have experienced that I don't end here. There is an aspect of me that is continuous, infinite, eternal, and part of that greater consciousness. This is one of the reasons I love people, animals, our Earth, and the elements—because I recognise that we are all one and the same. That realisation makes me feel very secure. My experience of that eternal, infinite energy within us is mainly one of love. It is a very loving presence, which is why, even in my most challenging and saddest times, I still have trust and faith. I have experienced this ultimate feeling of goodness.

I remember, as a little girl, I used to pray, and my main prayer was that I wanted to be good—mainly because I was often in trouble with my parents! But I realise that somewhere, all of us want that because it is our nature. Our nature is goodness; our nature is actually love. That's why we all want to feel love because it is who we are. It's the reason we all search for perfection, but that perfection is not on the outside—it's on the inside.

Thank you for sharing that. That's quite profound. Where are you now with that, looking back at yourself from when you were younger? Like, you’re almost 70—that’s a long time. How do you see yourself now compared to that young woman, who first met these teachings, but was confused?

She was very confused, very scattered, and very unable to focus. Something this same teacher, Prem Rawat, would say stuck with me because a lot of people who had been with him for a long time were proud and bragged about that. He would say, "You always put the wettest logs closest to the fire." I apply this to myself; I needed yoga—that's why I've been practicing for a long time. It doesn't make me any greater, but it does make me more experienced. However, I needed yoga badly, and I am so very, very grateful that I discovered it early in life. I don't know what I would have ended up doing, but I don’t think it would have been good for this person!

There's this beautiful wisdom that yoga gives us.

Definitely, definitely. Yoga gives us great awareness.

Yes, if you develop your awareness. One of the great gifts of asana practice is that it teaches awareness, but you can't just leave it on the mat. It doesn’t serve anybody else if you're only aware of your own body. You need to let that awareness translate into your whole life so that you are aware of how your actions affect everything and everyone. Everything you think, say, and do has a ripple effect. That means we all need to be responsible. I take my teaching very seriously, which is one of the reasons I continue to study myself. I always feel like I have to stay up to date because, you know, with my background as a chiropractor, I incorporate the latest medical research alongside the wisdom of Eastern practices.

Beautiful. Thank you, Monica. That’s amazing. If there’s one thing you've learned about yourself that you'd like to share with others, what would it be?

There are so many things, but the most important thing I encourage others to do is something I’ve already mentioned: developing a real, intimate relationship with yourself. It doesn't even require a lot of time, just intention. You need to sit and have that "date" with God, your Creator, or the Divine. It’s like being in a loving relationship—you need to embrace that other person and say "I love you," even if you’re running out the door. You have to do that with yourself because that’s where it starts.

This is your wisdom; it’s your divine guide in life. One thing I’ve done really well my whole life is to listen to my heart. That’s what has brought me to where I am today, and I consider my life incredibly fortunate. I live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, I have an incredible partner, and I am very fortunate. My life isn’t perfect—no one's is—but there’s a deep quality to it, and it’s rich on the inside. All of that has come from following my heart.

When I cried to that psychotherapist, "I just want to teach yoga," that was my heart speaking, not my head. I remember at the time, I had built a great job for myself, and everyone said, "You must be crazy to leave this job!" But for me, it was nothing because I knew I needed to be truly happy and content in my heart.

Thank you so much, Monica. That was beautiful.

You’re so welcome. Thank you for letting me share.