About the Director

CYNTHIA COPPLE

Cynthia Copple is an Ayurvedic Doctor (NAMA Board Certified) in Santa Cruz, California and author of Know Your Blueprint: The Ayurvedic Secret to Restoring Your Vitality in 30 Days. She has been Director of Lotus Holistic Health Institute and President of Lotus Herbs since 1982, over 40 years. She is Co-Founder and Past President of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association and Co-Founder and Past Dean of Mount Madonna Institute College of Ayurveda. She is the longest continually practicing American-trained Ayurvedic Practitioner and Doctor in the U.S.  Some call her the “Mother of Ayurveda in America.”

She has been trained in Ayurvedic pulse diagnosis and the use of Ayurvedic healing herbs by Ayurvedic master Dr. R. P. Trivedi of Hathras, India, who has encouraged and inspired her to teach and transmit the knowledge of this 5,000 year old system of wellness and rejuvenation from India. Her esteemed teachers include Ayurvedic Physicians and Doctors Vasant Lad, Pankaj and Smita Naram,and Sunil and Shalmali Joshi.

History

She has practiced and studied yoga and meditation for the past 45 years. Her ancient history includes receiving a B.A. in English Literature from UC Berkeley, 1966; a War Correspondent in Vietnam in 1969; a free lance writer & photographer 1970-80; rock music/entertainment/circus publicist 1973-76; owner of Lotus & Co. natural fiber clothing store 1978-89.

What brought her to Ayurveda?

In 1982, after five years of intensive meditation and yoga, she underwent deep tissue bodywork and experienced specific positive changes in her mind and emotions. She had a burning curiosity to understand how simply manipulating the body has an effect on the mind. And vice versa, how the mind effects the body, as in hysterical diseases, or relaxation through meditation. There were no books or studies in western science which addressed this question in 1982, and then she discovered the answers she sought in the ancient texts of Ayurveda.

Ayurvedic Training

She began her studies in 1982 with Dr. Vasant Lad, at Mt. Madonna Center in Northern California. She studied intensively with Dr. R. P. Trivedi of Hathras, India from 1982-85 for over 2,000 hours including observing and taking pulses of over 300 patients. In 1990 she met Dr. Sunil Joshi in India and brought him to teach Pancha Karma in the US in 1990-93. Her teachers include Drs. Pankaj & Smita Naram of Bombay, India, who specialize in infertility and pulse reading, seeing 500 patients a day. She spent two weeks in clinic with them in 1990 and also sponsored them in the U.S. in 1990-92.

Dr. Trivedi insisted that she had a gift for Ayurveda and “must bring Ayurveda to the American people.” She began to see clients and import herbs part time while operating the store in Santa Cruz. Then in January of 1989 she closed the clothing store and has worked full time in Ayurveda ever since.

Current Responsibilities

She is President of Lotus Herbs, which she founded in 1983 to import herbs from India. Lotus Herbs has been manufacturing the digestive tonic Drachsha since 1982 and has a line of Ayurvedic classic solutions to common complaints. (She stopped making Drachsha a few years ago as it was too labor-intensive.)

She is Director of Lotus Holistic Health Institute in Santa Cruz which offers Ayurvedic Consultations, Pancha Karma Cleansing Programs, Thirty Day Wellness Programs, Ayurvedic Yoga, Ayurvedic Day Spa Treatments and classes and workshops in massage and other subjects. She is working on an online 30 Day Wellness course based on her book Know Your Blueprint and hopes to have it available online in 2023. She offered a very successful live 30 Day Ayurvedic Wellness Course in the past which is the basis for her book and for the upcoming online course.

In her spare time she is writing a memoir of her time as a Vietnam War Correspondent.