The Sarasvati Institute’s teaching is rooted in the classical Ayurvedic lineage of Acharya Charaka, Acharya Sushruta, and Acharya Vagbhata, anchored by Susan’s eleven years of study with Dr. Vasant Lad at The Ayurvedic Institute from 2004-2015.
The teacher
Dr. Vasant Lad founded the Ayurvedic Institute in 1984. He is widely recognized as one of the foremost teachers who brought classical Ayurveda to the West and is the author of the textbooks that ground Ayurvedic study in English. His school’s ongoing work is at ayurveda.com.
The eleven years
Susan began her formal study at The Ayurvedic Institute in 2004 and continued for eleven consecutive years, completing the full classical curriculum and the senior clinical work that Dr. Lad guided in person. The depth of that period shapes what the Sarasvati Institute teaches today: classical pulse, tongue, and eye assessment; tridoshic theory through the lens of dhatus, srotas, and Agni; Pancha Karma; and the integration of Ayurveda with Yoga Therapy that the Advanced Yoga Therapy track formalizes.
Why is lineage important?
When practitioners do not have the foundations of tradition, lineage and history, when they do not know how they came to stand on this spot in this day at this time they are cutting themselves off from 80% of the power of the practice. Without the tradition and the lineage, the practice becomes shallow, superficial and potentially dangerous.
Ayurveda is an ancient, sacred art that teaches us how to master the potential that humans carry. Ayurveda describes in perfect detail how to nourish your body, mind and spirit through connection to nature for the purpose of enlivening the consciousness in the heart of every cell. This allows one to make the most of every potential. But the integration of Yoga is critical because Yoga is a way to open the body to receive the wisdom of the Vedas for the purpose of awakening the Veda, the natural law, within us.
What the lineage carries forward
Susan teaches Ayurveda through a four-season Western pedagogical frame that she developed deliberately for American students. The four-season frame is not a simplification of the classical six-ritu calendar; it is an adaptation that meets American students where they already live in their year. The classical source material remains the Charaka Samhita, Susruta Samhita and Ashtānga Hridayam. The frame is the way in.
Adjacent credentials
- Master of Science in Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine from Maharishi International University.
- Ayurvedic Doctor Level Certified (ADLC) through the National Ayurvedic Medical Association.
- C-IAYT through the International Association of Yoga Therapists.
- Adjunct Faculty at the National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM).
- Clinic-practitioner and Research Investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Northwest and UCSF on an Ayurvedic intervention trial for breast cancer survivors during recovery.
- BA in Mathematics and Psychology from the University of Mississippi.
- Senior study at the Kripalu School of Ayurveda.
- Author of Ayurveda: The Genes of God, endorsed by Dr. Vasant Lad.
The faculty Susan teaches alongside
Advanced module work at Sarasvati draws on a senior faculty whose lineages compound Susan’s own: Arun Deva, founder of NAMA’s Ayurvedic Yoga Therapy category; David Crow, who teaches in the plant-medicine traditions of Tibetan and Ayurvedic lineages; Vaidya Anita Misra (BAMS, MS); and ten other named teachers across pharmacology, philosophy, anatomy, and clinical practice. The faculty page lists each in full.