Pre-Orders Now Open | Hindu at Heart — Signed Trade Edition
Pre-Orders Now Open | Hindu at Heart — Signed Trade Edition
Indu Viswanathan, Ed.D.
Exploring knowledge, consciousness, and the human spirit in education and public life.
About Me
I am a scholar of education, fascinated by exploring how inner life, cultural wisdom, and learning shape the world we inhabit and the one we are creating. My work sits at the intersection of ethnography, contemplative practice, and pedagogical design and has always centered the lives and perspectives of learners, families, and educators.
My early scholarship focuses on the outer landscapes of identity, belonging, and public education in the Hindu American experience. That research continues in my community-facing work, through my writing, public talks, and workshops. Now, my scholarship and professional practice are turning intentionally inward, toward the interior landscapes of being, awareness, and connection, held in dialogue with the dynamic realities of American K-12 education.
My current inquiry grows from sustained listening to interior life, to wisdom, and to the systems that shape education, and asking how belonging and consciousness respond in a time of rapid technological change. I’m exploring what becomes possible when education is designed not only for intellect, but for the whole being and how this shift might reshape how we teach children to learn, flourish, and hope during uncertain times.
Learn more about my story below.
My Story
My journey as an educator began in New York City, against the backdrop of September 11, 2001, when I was a Master’s student at Teachers College, Columbia University. I felt called to advocate for compassion and intergroup dialogue amidst rising religious and ethnic discrimination in my beloved New York City. A few years later, I found my spiritual compass, in the form of my Guru, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a Hindu spiritual and humanitarian leader. I embarked on a path of self-discovery and community engagement, shaping my approach to education. For over two decades, I have taught in diverse settings, including New York public schools, educational NGOs and schools in India, and higher education.
Before pursuing my doctorate, I led national research and impact efforts for a school-based program focused on breathwork, meditation, and social-emotional learning, which I now refer to as the seeds of spiritual discipline. That experience of working with educators, researchers, and students led me to recognize the profound impact of contemplative practices and the limitations of current frameworks in fully grasping and communicating their significance and potential. This work in the space of interdisciplinary research led me to pursue a doctorate, where I began asking deeper questions about education, intuition, and human flourishing.
My doctoral research at Teachers College focused on the identity and belonging of second-generation Hindu American teachers in U.S. public schools. My forthcoming book, Hindu at Heart, is based on an ethnographic study with Hindu American parents and youth. I explore how Hindu Americans are shaping and shaped by the promises and contradictions of American public education, democracy, and citizenship. I also serve as the Director of Understanding Hinduphobia, a national initiative that I co-founded in 2021. UH supports K–12 and higher education institutions in addressing bias, improving representation, and advancing dignity for Hindu students and communities.
Today, my work is moving inward to the study of consciousness, intuition, and learning futures. After years of exploring identity, belonging, and contemplative practice in education, I find myself in a moment of profound emergence, where the threads of research and lived experience are pulling me to the source. I am turning toward the interior space of knowing to ask: What becomes possible when we design education from the ground of being itself? What are we missing when we marginalize intuition, awareness, and interior life as central to how we learn and become? Far from a departure, this continues the philosophical arc that has shaped my work and personal journey. I am developing a new research project called The Futures of Knowing, which includes an investigative podcast that brings together educators, scientists, contemplatives, and futurists to explore the radical possibilities of education grounded in awareness, relationality, and wisdom, rather than information. As I speak with educators, parents, and our youth, it is clear that there is a longing for this.
As a mother, educator, and seeker, I hold close the questions that shape our world and the ones we leave unasked. This site is a home for all of that work: grounded in tradition, open to emerging science and society-building, and listening for what comes next, with a steady commitment to protecting the hope, wonder, and possibility our children carry into the future.
Jai Guru Dev
Victory to the Greater Consciousness That Guides Us
Now Available for Pre-Order
Hindu at Heart: Education, Faith, and What It Means to Belong in America
A thoughtful examination of how Hinduism and Hindus have figured in the long project of American public education.
Now available for pre-order: signed author edition from the first premium trade print run. Ships late March.