Ayurveda Practitioners
Awakened Self Foundation
Acharya Shunya is a wisdom teacher and a catalyst for empowering health and elevating consciousness worldwide. She is an award-winning and internationally renowned author, speaker and scholar of nondual wisdom (Advaita) and a classically-trained master of Yoga and Ayurveda.
The first female head of her 2,000-year-old Indian Vedic spiritual lineage, Acharya Shunya provides a rare opportunity to receive authentic teachings from a genuine Vedic master—one with a distinctly down-to-earth, feminine flavor who never lets us forget that our humanity is to be embodied and enjoyed. Throughout all her teachings and writings Shunya adeptly guides modern seekers through the core concepts and practices, demystifying and contextualizing ancient wisdom for modern suffering. She helps awaken and recognize latent human potential to be healthy, joyful, resourceful, abundant, limitlessly expansive, and ultimately sovereign.
Acharya Shunya is the President of The Awakened Self Foundation with its international headquarters in California and founder of the spiritual and philanthropic non-profit Vedika Global. Her top rated Shadow to Self podcast, award-winning Alchemy with Ayurveda program, and her signature offerings currently unfolding on the theme of Sovereign Life are creating shifts in consciousness and improving health. Acharya Shunya is the author of best-selling book Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom: A Complete Prescription to Optimize Your Health, Prevent Disease, Live with Vitality and Joy (Sounds True, 2017); which was acclaimed amongst top ten books in Alternative Medicine in its year of publication. Her second book, Sovereign Self: Claim your Inner Joy and Freedom with the Empowering Wisdom of the Vedas, Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita (Sounds True, 2020), is a comprehensive guide to yoga’s most influential texts, making their profound teachings both accessible and immediately practical for modern seekers. Her third book, slated for release in January 2022, Roar Like a Goddess: Every Woman’s Guide to Unapologetic Power, Propensity and Purpose is a revolutionary revisioning of the feminine divine, and carries the potential to change the face of modern feminist spirituality.
A sought-after speaker, Acharya Shunya leads workshops and global retreat and delivers keynote addresses at universities and conferences including UCSF, UCLA, Berkeley University, Stanford University, Kripalu, 1440.org, Sivananda Ashrams, World Ayurveda Congress and the National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA).
She is an advisor to many noteworthy, national and international organizations including the Government of India. She has served as President of the California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine for two consecutive terms and is a Founding Director of Yoga Unify, a new non-profit preserving the tradition and stewarding the forward evolution of yoga. In 2015, she was recognized as one of the top trailblazers of Ayurveda and Yoga in America, by Spirituality and Health Magazine and in 2016, the California Institute of Integral Studies honored Acharya Shunya with the Distinguished Service Award. She received the Nalanda Award of Excellence in Ayurvedic Education by the Association of Ayurveda Professionals of North America in 2010; Global Women’s Power Award (2015); Ambassador of Classical Ayurveda by Indian Institute of Ayurveda (2011).
Acharya Shunya lives in Northern California with her husband Chef Sanjai and son Dhruv, enjoys sunrises, walks in nature, and planting and nurturing her bountiful garden. She delights in decoding scriptures, continuing to write books and nurturing her globally expansive community of students.
