Our Teachers

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

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 for moments that call for something sacred.

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She first encountered her Hindu teacher Shree Maa at the age of eight. Shree Maa is highly regarded as a Bengali saint from India who has led a devotional community in the U.S. and in India for over 40 years. 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. Over the years she had the opportunity to study puja and homa at Shree Maa's temple in California and in India, closely following in her lineage of Ramakrishna. 

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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.

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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 not elsewhere. It is here within.

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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 told 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 and looks forward to opportunities to teach others how to do puja.

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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.

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Chandana’s ceremonial practice extends beyond the Hindu tradition. Her own family lineage is rooted in Northern European pagan culture, and she is actively training in pagan ritual with local high priestesses in the Fynnon community. This depth in two living traditions allows her to hold ceremony authentically across a wide range of spiritual paths — from Vedic fire ritual to earth-based seasonal rite — and to meet each person where they actually are.

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Chandana is also a student of Kirtan music under an accomplished local vocalist, deepening her understanding of the classical Indian musical tradition that underlies much of devotional practice. She performs as a response singer with vocalist Kavita Kat McMillan’s music group, and with other ensembles by request.

 

A Note on Approach

​These practices come from a living tradition with deep roots and real teachers. Sandalwood Sacred Arts does not present them as generic spirituality or wellness content. They are offered as what they are — devotional, sacred, and alive.

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Sandalwood Sacred Arts  ·  sandalwoodsacredarts.com  ·  sandalwoodsacredarts@gmail.com