Bill earned academic degrees from Williams College, Yale University, and the University of Chicago and is a professor emeritus of Religious Studies at Davidson College, one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the United States.

As a professor, Bill has taught many thousand students over his forty-year career in courses on contemplative and devotional sensibilities of religions originating particularly in India, with an emphasis on the philosophies of yoga.

The recipient of a number of prestigious teaching awards and academic research fellowships, Bill has traveled to and throughout India frequently since 1971 and has lived in contemplative settings for extended periods of time.

For several years now, Bill has expanded his teaching beyond academic walls into various settings across the continents, including yoga studios, teacher-training programs, retreat centers, spiritual communities, and other contexts in which he can delight in the company of people new, depend, expanded, or refined ways of understanding yoga and related forms of contemplative spiritual philosophy and practice.

Over the years, Bill’s teaching style has repeatedly been described as personable and respectful of students and participants at whatever level of familiarity they bring to the material.

His work with in-person and remote groups is oriented toward his own explications of what the original texts are saying and, importantly, includes sustained group discussion and short periods of meditation. When possible, he enjoys integrating his discussions of philosophy with asana practice led by skilled local yoga teachers.

Bill bases his teaching on important Sanskrit texts in his translation that can inspire contemporary yogis in their larger lives. With his guidance, participants reflect together on teachings from various spiritual and philosophical traditions from India, primarily the Vedānta, Classical Yoga, Nondual Tantra, and Bhakti traditions.

In some of his teaching settings Bill also includes source material from perennial wisdom texts from Buddhist, Christian, Daoist, Judaic, and Sufi contemplative traditions, among others.

Students who are new to these texts and the ideas and perspectives they hold will find that Bill introduces them clearly. Those who have studied them previously will find that Bill helps them deepen and refine their understanding of them.

Bill also delights in responding to what participant themselves would like to study. Accordingly, seminar workshop and retreat hosts can suggest topics for him to consider, which he does enthusiastically. To ask more about this, write to this address.