Tribute To Vitae Bergman
Vitae Bergman • Photo by: Tom de Groot
By: Margot Bergman
I am hesitant to write about my husband so soon after his death, March 16, 2010. This will have to be the personal viewpoint.
In May he would have been 78 years old, but the 40 years we spent togther are not as vivid to my mind as our last few days in the hospital. Fatally weakened by a series of heart attacks, he bravely decided to use the energy he had left to make a conscious transition into Spirit. With a minimum of morphine and oxygen, he sat on the bed alone with me, meditating, perfectly still, for several hours until breathing ceased. This achievement of a peaceful, conscious death is, of course, the ideal of all of us amateur yogis, and has been a positive inspiration to me, our spiritual group, and circle of friends.
Vitae wrote beautiful books and articles. Open the River was a memoir telling about how he took up sailing after the death of our son Sorrel in 1990. My favorite novel is the last one, Miguel the Barber. But if you want to know the philosophy behind his happy approach to each moment of life and interested acceptance of each person he met, his book Joyful Numerology for Soul Awakening shows how every number, every moment, can be taken as an opportunity for growth. Many lucky people got to experience his approach to life first hand through counseling and the spiritual workshops he guided called the ALL Discovery Game, still continuing through the younger guides that have been trained.
Vitae’s working life was as a chef, restaurant owner, and food manager, finishing that career as manager of all the restaurants on the Senate side of Capitol Hill, in the late 80′s. Practical matters and personnel issues seemed to sort themselves out under his cheerful and creative approach. He had a great interest in alternative models for business, energy, and society. His appreciation for our personal back-to-the-land lifestyle increased over the years, as the fallacy of consumerism became ever more apparent.
We all knew Vitae as friendly, kind, funny, optimistic, curious, compassionate, generous, and on and on. If you can believe it, for the first half of his life he was a difficult, somewhat troubled, if brilliant, young man. For the last 40 years, through meditation (Kriya Yoga) and the ALL Discovery Game workshops, he gradually dropped all his many non-spiritual traits, without seeming to struggle and strive over it. An amazing process to watch.
I think the secret of our famous togetherness was our mutual devotion to spiritual realization – whatever that might turn out to be. And we never for a moment considered separating from each other.
