The Goddess Pose

The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West

By: Michelle Goldberg

Narrated by: Tanya Eby

When the woman who would become Indra Devi was born in Russia in 1899, yoga was virtually unknown outside of India. By the time of her death in 2002, it was being practiced everywhere, from Brooklyn to Berlin to Ulaanbaatar.

Born into the minor aristocracy (as Eugenia Peterson), Devi grew up in the midst of one of the most turbulent times in human history. Forced to flee the Russian Revolution as a teenager, she joined a famous Berlin cabaret troupe, dove into the vibrant prewar spiritualist movement, and, at a time when it was nearly unthinkable for a young European woman to travel alone, followed the charismatic theosophical leader Jiddu Krishnamurti to India. Once on the subcontinent, she performed in Indian silent cinema and hobnobbed with the leaders of the independence movement. But her greatest coup was convincing a recalcitrant master yogi to train her in the secrets of his art.

Written with vivid clarity, The Goddess Pose brings Devi's remarkable story - as an actress, yogi, and globe-trotting adventuress - to life.

©2015 Michelle Goldberg (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"This fascinating and groundbreaking book should be enthusiastically received by a wide audience." ( Library Journal)

Overall great and...

This is a great story about an amazing woman. The book had two faults. 1). the reader's pronunciations were incorrect and at first off putting and later became humorous they were so bad.
2). The summing up of events concerning The Theosophical movement and Blavatsky were not accurate and the writer seemed to have a negative view and thus a bias. Otherwise it was a fascinating book.

The Auntie Mame of yoga!

I absolutely loved this book but I wish I had read it instead of listening to it. As intrigued as I was by its subject, the narrator butchered so many names and places that my enjoyment was somewhat diminished. This book talks about a woman whose life cycled through theosophy and yoga in India and around the world. Part of why I love it so much is that I’ve done some of that same exploring, living at the Theosophical Society’s American headquarters in my youth and traveling to India to Sai Baba’s, ashram, also detailed in this fascinating biography. I am perplexed as to why someone charged with reading a book on this subject matter for Audible would not do her homework and find out how to pronounce the names and places she would be saying time and again throughout the process. For me to hear repeated mispronunciations of words such as chela and ashram and anthroposophist, places such as Tamil Nadu, and names such as Vivikananda and Sivananda and countless others was like fingernails on a blackboard in a book that I otherwise loved to pieces. My irritation was such that I made it sort of character exercise to just keep listening. Despite its being rife with mispronunciations, however, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in yoga or simply in living a dazzling life. And frankly, unless you are familiar with yogic terms and 20th century spirituality, the mispronunciations probably will not bother you at all.

Ingenious!

Very thorough! Loved it! Thanks to Mataji Indra Devi & the amazing author! Much love
<3

Review of The Goddess Pose

What an amazingly well researched and sweeping account of a very influential woman to modern,western yoga practice. The performer / reader of this book needed to be an excellent and versatile speaker, indeed, to carry a journey through so many different parts of the world with so many different names and languages. My only criticism is that her Sanskrit pronunciation was often far off the mark. It does seem to improve as the recording continues and sounds as though she learned as she went along.

Great book, poor pronunciation

I don’t know if this was read by a computer program, but if it was a human then no way should such atrocious pronunciation of all Indian terms passed muster. It was grating and detracted from the story throughout.

Couldn't finish

I tried but I just couldn't get through it. Not the best narration, not the best of a lot of things.