Dr. Katyayani Poole, Ph.D. - DETAILED BIOGRAPHY

As long as I can remember, I’ve been searching for truth, like a moth to flame. Since starting my practice of Yoga at the age of three, I’ve never quenched my thirst for spiritual experience nor satisfied my hunger for liberating knowledge.

My seeking first led me to pursue Carnatic Music (South Indian classical) at Amherst College. My studies of vina intiated me into the sacred arts and nada, the yoga of sacred.

The music ignited a fire in me that led me next to Nepal where I lived with a temple priest and his family. Each morning in Kathmandu I awoke to the luscious sounds of Sanskrit mantra being chanted and my appreciation for nada deepened.

Inspired by the living Veda I encountered in Nepal, I continued my education in Religious Studies and Sanskrit at the University of California, Santa Barbara where I earned an M.A. and Ph.D. with an emphasis on Vedic, Yoga, and Tantric traditions.

Yet while studying for my academic degrees, I became disenchanted with the distance Western education places between objective learning and subjective experience. To bridge this gap in myself, I apprenticed with a traditional guru for 12 years, refining my experiences of meditation and learning the value of seva (selfless service). At the same time, I traveled throughout India studying Sanskrit with Vedic pandits, absorbing the teachings of masters from diverse traditions, and living in villages and ashrams to adopt the ancient ways of leading a spiritual life.

Since completing my doctorate in 2001, I’ve taught Yoga Philosophy, World Religions, Sanskrit and other related topics at various universities including California State Polytechnical University, Simpson College, University of Colorado Boulder and Naropa University. Still, I felt that academic teaching didn’t permit me to share the intimate and enlightening knowledge I gained during the five years I spent in India.

To reach seekers who want the rigors of academic knowledge with the emphasis on experience, I created Shruti Institute for Vedic Arts together with my husband, Jeff, to establish a platform for a new way of teaching sacred knowledge that allows for a fruitful alchemy of intellect and heart.

As co-Director, I see my role in several ways – to share my gifts in Sanskrit and Jyotisha with students and clients, to partner with experts in the fields of Yoga, Ayurveda, Vastu and Tantra who share a collective vision, and to spread knowledge using the best distance-learning technologies of our time.

In 2006, I launched my first home-study course, Sanskrit for Yogis™: Introduction to Nada, the Yoga of Sacred Sound and started teaching teleclasses and live workshops for Yoga teachers and students. I continue to offer Jyotisha Consultations for individual clients and I am currently pursuing continuing education and practice in other areas of Vedic knowledge.

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