The Anugraha Institute offers a rigorous, three-year doctoral program in Yoga and Interspiritual Studies. Students may elect to focus on Yoga or Interspiritual Studies, or integrate the two disciplines into one as it may well be that Yoga was the first spiritual system expansive enough to include all religions, or none.

 

Founded in 2016 by Rev. Dr. Sw. Shraddhananda Saraswati, the Anugraha Institute has its administrative and retreat offices at Anugraha House in Somerset, Kentucky. Built in 1903, Anugraha House is located across West Columbia Street from St. Patrick's Episcopal Church. Like all the structures on its block, including the ones which served as hospitals during the War Between the States, Anugraha is on the National Historic Register. It is home to a formal library, beautiful antiques inherited from Sw. Shraddhananda's family, signed artwork ranging from Dali to Icart, and an interesting Art Deco bathroom, itself a work of art.

 

The first two years of doctoral study in the Anugraha Institute are conducted largely online (please see the Curriculum Page). In the third year, students must pass a language proficiency examination, sit for comprehensive exams, participate in a month long retreat, and complete a dissertation of publishable quality.

 

The Anugraha Institute was funded initially by a generous grant from The Jones Educational Foundation, Inc. The Institute is in the process of being accredited by the Accrediting Council for Interfaith, Interspiritual, and Trans-theological Schools and Programs (ACIT).

 

Anugraha translates from the Sanskrit to mean "Grace," and the naming of the Institute pays tribute to a central building at Sw. Shraddhananda's Guru's ashram in upstate New York.  At the Anugraha Institute, Grace flows like a golden river into the intellectual and spiritual lives of students who undertake doctoral studies here.