Shobana Pillai (Brahmacharini Shobha), PhD, is Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of Yoga, School of Spiritual & Cultural Studies, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri, and Director of Amrita Yoga® at Mata Amritanandamayi Math. An interdisciplinary yoga scholar, educator, researcher, curriculum architect, and institutional leader, she has three decades of experience in yoga and meditation education. Her work brings traditional yogic knowledge into dialogue with contemporary research in contemplative science, meditation, mind–body interventions, yogic psychology, cognition, mental health, psychological well-being, and yoga education.
Her doctoral research examined Bhāvanā as a multidimensional process of contemplative cultivation within Integrated Amrita Meditation®–35. She is lead and corresponding author of the 2025 article “Defining Bhāvanā through the PAL framework: grounded theory insights from long-term IAM®-35 practitioners,” published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications by Springer Nature. The study developed a practitioner-grounded model of Bhāvanā and positioned the construct within contemporary contemplative science. She has also contributed to peer-reviewed EEG research examining neural dynamics associated with an integrated mind–body relaxation technique.
Alongside her academic work, she has been centrally involved in the development and teaching of Amrita Yoga® curricula since 2004 and has served as Director of Amrita Yoga® since 2012. Her work includes teacher education, curriculum development, yoga therapy, international retreats and workshops, and programs for children and young adults, rural communities, women, prisoners, police personnel, and diverse international practitioners. Her academic, professional, and policy service has included the Indian Yoga Association, Civil 20 India 2023, the Inter-University Centre for Yogic Sciences, and national initiatives in yoga education. Her international teaching and invited engagements span Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand.
Her current research seeks to advance rigorous, culturally grounded and interdisciplinary approaches to yoga, meditation, contemplative experience, mental health and human flourishing, while building collaborations across psychology, neuroscience, public health, education and consciousness studies.
Research & Collaboration
Open to interdisciplinary and international collaborations in yoga, meditation, mind–body health and contemplative science, including:
- Bhāvanā, contemplative experience, embodiment and multisensory processes
- Yoga, meditation and mental-health outcomes
- Yoga therapy and mind–body interventions
- Mindfulness, stress regulation, psychological well-being and human flourishing
- Culturally grounded contemplative constructs, qualitative inquiry and instrument development
- Systematic reviews, scoping reviews, evidence synthesis and bibliometric research
- Implementation, feasibility, adherence, fidelity, safety, acceptability and reporting in yoga interventions
- Multi-site and cross-cultural studies linking yoga with psychology, neuroscience, public health, education and consciousness studies
Open to collaborative publications, multi-site studies, evidence syntheses, instrument development, cross-cultural research and interdisciplinary research partnerships.
