Our Teachers

Led by a trained Hindu priestess, sacred musician, and facilitator with over two decades of experience guiding people through threshold moments.

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Sandhi

There is a Sanskrit word — sandhi — that means the junction point. The place where one thing ends and another begins. The pause between the exhale and the inhale. Sandalwood Sacred Arts was born from a lifelong practice of standing at those junctions — and learning, slowly, how to help others cross them.

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Chandana Saraswati

Chandana is a trained Hindu priestess, sacred musician, and facilitator whose work draws on over two decades of practice, study, and service. She leads kirtan, performs puja and homa, and creates ritual containers that enable others to invoke the divine within.

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She first encountered Shree Maa at the age of eight, and began offering puja to Shiva at nine. What began in childhood as a natural gravitational pull toward the sacred has deepened over decades into a full devotional life — rooted in lineage, shaped by practice, and expressed through ceremony, music, and service.

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She holds a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies with a minor in Anthropology, and has spent her career at the intersection of human experience, embodied practice, and meaning-making — from working with Syrian refugee communities in Turkey, to facilitated programs in Portland, and work with vulnerable communities in many forms.

She came to Hindu practice not as an outside observer but as a sincere seeker who found, in its music, ceremony, and cosmology, a language for what she had always known to be true: that the divine is within, and that the worship of external forms is practice for going deeper inside. One needs the form to discover the formless.

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On Puja

The goal of puja is to connect to the divine. As your pujārī, Chandana's role is to bring the mantras beyond the book and into the room — facilitating a resonance that invites you to go deeper in your own practice. She brings sincerity and devotion to every ceremony she leads.

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For a long time, she did not share this work outside the temple. Several teachers, astrologers, and spiritual guides eventually encouraged her to pursue this path — and she had to face the fears that had kept her quiet: fear of judgment, of imperfection, of not being ready, of not being from India. She has since come to understand that when we hide our inner light, we wither. When we share what is in our heart, we take a leap toward our highest potential.

Chandana takes a cosmic approach to puja — drawing on the full pantheon of Hindu deities, planets, ancestors, protective texts, and 108-name recitations to design ceremony that is specific to the person, the moment, and the intention. No two ceremonies are the same.

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One of the deepest teachings she received from her teachers was this: the goal is not to make you dependent on a priest, but to inspire you to build your own altar and become your own pujārī. Sandalwood Sacred Arts holds that vision — offering ceremony as a doorway, not a destination.

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Training & Lineage

Chandana is trained in the Bengali Hindu tradition of Ramakrishna, under the direct guidance of Shree Maa and Swami Satyananda Saraswati — orthodox Hindu sanyassi teachers of the Devi Mandir lineage.

• Trained Hindu priestess — puja, homa, and Vedic ritual

• Sacred musician and kirtan leader

• PhD, Middle Eastern Studies — University of Arizona

• 20+ years facilitating groups across educational, community, and ceremonial contexts

• Practitioner of mantra, Sanskrit, and devotional song

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A Note on Approach

These practices come from a living tradition with deep roots and real spiritual teachers. Sandalwood Sacred Arts does not present them as generic spirituality or wellness content. These practices are deeply respected and rooted in very old cultural traditions. For this reason, certain cultural traditions are observed when attending Hindu ceremonies such as puja and homa. Chandana will inform you of these when your event is confirmed.

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