Other prominent guests included renowned Jyotish acharya Chamunda Swami from New York, Vastu Acharya Pandit Ram Gopal Sharma from India, and Dr. Kumar Batra who is the former President of the National Association of Ayurvedic medicine (NAMA). Other guests included representatives from leading Ayurveda and Yoga organizations, Yoga studios, and healing centers around the Bay Area. Ayurvedic doctors, teachers, and friends and family of students were present.
The evening was opened by a presentation from Vedika Global's President Hema Patankar who spoke about the year's activities, what the students learned, and traditions of a gurukula. Students of the class presented ways in which their education has changed their lives and health for the better. And, Vedika Global's Director and Legal Counsel Janet Dobrovolny presented shawls to the chief guests. Finally, Acharya Pratichi Mathur applied tilak to the foreheads of students, spoke of her experiences, and presented students with diplomas. Specially prepared Ayurvedic cuisine using fresh, organic produce was served to mark this celebratory occasion honoring the accomplished students as they continue along in their one to five year study of Ayurveda.
Vedika students spent the year learning to live and contemplate this timeless knowledge in the immersion-style Gurukula model of education. They emerged after their first year with a powerful and well-informed experience of self healing. The founding batch of students have internalized the benefits of a year-long experiential and lived education in Ayurveda. They have contemplated and documented their knowledge and their transformation in body, mind, and soul. And now this beeja or seed group is ready to light the lamps of the next group of students who have come to the threshold of study in Vedika Gurukula.
Vedika students spent the year learning to live and contemplate this timeless knowledge in the immersion-style Gurukula model of education. They emerged after their first year with a powerful and well-informed experience of self healing. The founding batch of students have internalized the benefits of a year-long experiential and lived education in Ayurveda. They have contemplated and documented their knowledge and their transformation in body, mind, and soul. And now this beeja or seed group is ready to light the lamps of the next group of students who have come to the threshold of study in Vedika Gurukula.
These impassioned students are on a five-year journey to be molded into gifted healers, teachers, researchers, practitioners, and ambassadors of the spiritual art and science of Ayurveda and to advance Vedika's mission of humanitarian service and community enrichment.
"We go forward with confidence and, yet, with a profound sense of service and reverence towards every soul we have the honor of interacting with. We are in awe of the consciousness that is lending itself to total transformation through our encounter with the altar of wisdom that is Vedika Global," said Mathur of this first year and the many people who have made Vedika Global a reality.
Vedika Global's Founder and Acharya Pratichi Mathur is a highly acclaimed Ayurvedic healer and teacher and who herself is a product of the Gurukula tradition. Having been immersed in the tradition of Ayurveda since childhood, she teaches the knowledge she imbibed and practiced under the guidance of her grandfather, a famous Vaidya (Ayurvedic healer) and teacher in North India. She expresses her grandfather's wisdom and her own wisdom with rich and engaging contemporary relevance.
About Vedika Global:
Vedika Global is a 501(c) 3 non-profit dedicated to teaching, living, and sharing the spiritually energized art and science of Ayurveda: a transformative tradition of health, wellness, and knowledge. Vedika Global's mission extends to encompass public introductory classes and future Ayurvedic clinics for low-income communities.
Vedika Gurukula is the first endeavor of its kind in the west to teach the science and spirituality of Ayurveda for successful modern living in the time-tested traditional manner of the oral Gurukula system of education which was prevalent in ancient India, but has fallen from use in favor of more contemporary methods of articulating the knowledge.
Vedika faculty and advisors include leading scholars and Ayurvedic doctors, such as: Dr. P. H. Kulkarni, the teacher of many of America's best known Ayurvedic practitioners; Dr. Subhash Ranade, former Dean of Ayurveda at Pune University; Dr. Mahesh Sabade, doctor to the Governor of Maharashtra; and international teacher Dr. Ram Karan Sharma, a well-known Sanskrit scholar.
Ayurveda, the spiritual art and science of wellness and conscious living is blazing a trail worldwide, becoming a leading choice in alternative medicine and leading to a growing interest in studying this ancient science in-depth. Instead of travelling the length and breadth of India in search of rare knowledge and hard to find teachers, the students can now conveniently enroll into the traditionally anchored Vedika Gurukula located in Berkeley, CA for programs from one year to a full five-year course.
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