Marianne is learning and teaching Veda mantras to offer people spiritual healing when their bodies can’t sustain physical healing modalities.
By Sophia Ann French
What happens to our spiritual progress if our body can no longer sustain what we have exercised as spirituality? When Belgium-based Yoga Teacher and Yoga Therapist Marianne Couderé found that her body was “not at ease,” and āsana was not possible, she turned to the śastras for healing and recovery. “The first time I fell ill, I was diagnosed with autoimmune disease, and I was told that I would be paralysed and never walk again. I went home that day, realising my nervous system was complaining. I was lucky to have teachers like A. G. Mohan and Indra Mohan, and under their guidance, I studied the Yoga Sūtras and completed eight years of learning yoga therapy. I started walking again — I walked for an hour this morning. A second opportunity for investigating my health was when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. This made me realise that yoga is not an hour or two you spend on the mat, and I explored its subtle aspects like chanting. I was in too much pain to practise āsanas, but I turned to Āyurveda to heal my diet, I did prāṇayamā…,” shares Marianne.
These experiences made her appreciate the healing capacity of spiritual practises and understand their effect on the “mind-body connection. Based on my experience in healing, I developed a teacher training for yoga teachers on working with cancer patients. When you are diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, you don’t have the physical strength to practise āsana. This is where I really support people by offering them easy, achievable ways to cope. For example, spend time with the Yoga Sūtras and try a simple translation or just try one easy prāṇyamā to calm your body and mind. I also work a lot with food, and I like to cook. I cook a lot of Āyuevedic food,” says Marianne.
She has a similar vision for Veda mantras, and she is attending the current Indica Veda Studies Teacher training Programme. She wants to introduce Veda recitation to cancer patients as a way of healing. “When I was in the middle of chemotherapy, I remember I was lying on my mat, in the middle of my living room, and I said to myself, ‘What can you do?’ I realised I needed to protect my mind because that is what will get me through the healing phase. Chanting is a sāttvik practice that supports my mind and calms my nervous system. I learned the annapūrṇā stōtram and chant it when I harvest vegetables. I wanted to harmonise the energy of the food with the chanting, and all of this helped. My wild dream is to bring that to cancer patients. I really would like to offer Veda chanting to cancer patients because it has been so beneficial for me.”
From Worldly Success to Inner Abundance
Marianne joked that if she ever wrote a book, she would call it ‘The Grace of Disease’, and in the course of this interview, I developed a deep admiration for the grace and positivity with which Marianne talks about every challenge she has faced. She was born in Brugge, Belgium, and studied Hotel Management in Brussels. After getting married and having two children, she studied comparative philosophy and completed two master’s degrees in business. She then built companies that developed geospatial technology and volunteered for the Red Cross, where she offered one-on-one yoga therapy for war refugees. After all that, she’s now enjoying the challenge of Veda’s phonetics. “I’ve done around 46 courses with Shantala, and sometimes, I still feel like a beginner student (laughs). Veda is so vast. How can you know it all? It is a huge learning path, but it brings me deep, eternal joy. Shantala’s methodology and pedagogy require precision, and I discovered that only with this paramparā. This is what sustains my commitment to the practice. Shantala doesn’t deviate from that precision. I’m also learning how interrelated all the systems are. Like the Upa Vedas and all the texts, it is like a beautiful blanket of knowledge,” says Marianne. She is committed to the study of Veda because of the palpable results of the practice. “When I was learning the Agni Sūktam, without knowing Sanskrit and without knowing 100% of the translation, I still felt a shift inside me that strengthened my will. It made me recite over and over. I felt a movement of willpower, a movement of energy — it’s not just your physical existence. For me, learning a mantra is not about learning pages of copy. It is about diving into the vibration of the text,” says Marianne.
The Way Forward
The Teacher Training Programme has been instrumental in shaping Marianne’s goal to offer Veda chanting as a tool to cope with disease and enable healing. “It is humbling when you discover how deep this knowledge is, and I have tremendous respect for this tradition. After the TTC, I want to share this knowledge with people.” Marianne believes the Veda recitation is “a deeply personal and intimate practice that helps us to connect with something more than just our body-mind complex.” She encourages students to find a good teacher and, “Trust that this is the highest knowledge you will receive. Be patient, be committed, but above all, have faith. It all starts with śraddha.”
To get in touch with Marianne, email her at [email protected]