About Our Founder
My Story | Jacky Rae | Co-Founder, Yoga Veda Institute
It began in the mountians.
More than fifteen years ago, I found myself living in a small village in northern India, tucked into the foothills of the Himalayas.
Life there was simple.
Morning light spilled across terraced fields. Prayer song echoed from distant temples. The mountains held a kind of silence I had never experienced before.
I had traveled to India searching for something — though at the time I couldn’t have clearly explained what that was.
Like many people in their twenties, I felt a quiet pull to understand life more deeply — beyond the structures and assumptions I had grown up with.
I was curious about spirituality, about health, and about the deeper relationship between the human body and the natural world.
What I didn’t know was that this search was about to change the direction of my life.
One day, in that small Himalayan village, I became very sick.
There was only one doctor in town.
Though at the time I didn’t know it, he was an Ayurvedic doctor.
I had never experienced Ayurveda before. I knew almost nothing about it — only that it was an ancient medical system practiced in India.
When I arrived at his small clinic, I expected the kind of medical care I had always known.
Tests.
Prescriptions.
A diagnosis. Pills.
Instead, the experience was completely different.
He observed me quietly for a while.
He asked a few simple questions.
Then he gave me a treatment that felt almost impossibly simple.
A therapeutic massage.
A small preparation of herbal powder.
A few instructions about what to eat and how to rest.
That was it.
And within a short time, I was completely better.
The experience left me stunned.
I had grown up believing that healing required technology, prescriptions, and specialists.
Yet here, in a small Himalayan village, a system of medicine thousands of years old had restored my health through something that felt both simple and deeply intelligent.
In that moment I knew:
I needed to understand what this was and how this worked.
So I stayed.
I began studying everything I could while I was still in India. I enrolled in courses, asked questions constantly, and spent time learning from practitioners whenever I could.
The deeper I went, the more I realized that Ayurveda was not simply a system of medicine.
It was a way of understanding life.
It taught that the human body is not separate from nature — that our health is shaped by the rhythms of the seasons, the food we eat, the way we live each day, and the subtle balance of forces within the body and mind.
Health, in this system, is not something we fight to regain.
It is something we cultivate by living in alignment with nature.
When I eventually returned home, I knew this path would remain part of my life.
Soon after, my husband and I opened a small yoga studio.
It wasn’t glamorous. It was simply a place where people could gather to practice, learn, and explore a different way of living.
But that little studio became the place where my real education began.
It was there that I met many of the teachers who would shape my path.
It was there that I deepened my studies in Ayurveda and yoga philosophy.
And it was there that I began to understand how these traditions had historically been shared — through mentorship, community, and lived experience.
Years later, life took us back to Asia.
There we had the beautiful opportunity to run a mountaintop Ayurvedic Panchakarma center.
Living and working inside that healing environment for many years became one of the greatest teachers of my life.
People arrived from all over the world seeking healing.
Many were exhausted, inflamed, and confused about their health. Many had tried everything.
Day after day we watched people slowly return to balance through ridiculously simple Ayurvedic care — food, herbs, daily rhythm, therapeutic treatments, and rest.
Working in that environment taught me something no classroom ever could.
It showed me what students and practitioners actually need to support real healing.
Not just theory.
Not just protocols.
But discernment.
Observation.
Relationship.
And the humility to listen to the body and to nature.
As my studies continued and I became yoga certified, I began looking for formal educational programs where I could deepen my training.
But what I found surprised me.
Many Ayurveda schools had begun reshaping the teachings to fit Western educational models.
Some removed philosophy and spirituality entirely in order to appear more secular or academically acceptable.
Others compressed the teachings into rigid frameworks that no longer reflected the living, relational nature of how Ayurveda had traditionally been transmitted.
At the time, I struggled to understand this.
Ayurveda and yoga arise from the same philosophical roots.
They are sister sciences.
To separate them felt like removing the roots of a tree and expecting it to continue growing.
Years later, as I stepped into leadership roles within the field, I began to understand the pressures institutions face — accreditation requirements, regulatory structures, and the challenge of translating ancient knowledge into modern systems.
But that realization also clarified something important for me.
My role is not to reshape Ayurveda to fit my worldview.
My role is to help protect the integrity of the tradition while allowing it to live in the modern world.
That realization became the seed of Yoga Veda Institute.
Along the way, life brought me another role that has shaped this journey just as deeply.
I became a mother.
Today I am the mother of five children, and raising them has been one of the greatest teachers of my life.
Motherhood has a way of bringing wisdom down from theory into reality.
Children live in rhythm with nature in a way adults often forget. They show you immediately what works, what doesn’t, and what truly supports balance.
Through the years of raising a family, Ayurveda stopped being something I studied and became something I lived — in the kitchen, in daily routines, in moments of illness, in seasons of growth and exhaustion.
It shows me that these teachings are not meant only for clinics or retreats.
They are meant for real life.
For busy households.
For changing seasons of life.
For the everyday work of caring for one another.
Being a mother gave me a window into how this wisdom can truly live in the world.
And it continually reminds me that the most powerful medicine is often the simplest — when it is practiced with consistency, attention, and care.
Even today, I do not see myself as the teacher.
I see my role differently.
I am a curator.
A gardener.
A steward of the learning environment.
My work is to gather remarkable teachers, cultivate the conditions where authentic learning can take root, and support the community that forms when people come together around this medicine.
Because in truth, Ayurveda itself is the teacher.
Nature teaches us.
The body teaches us.
Life teaches us.
What continues to move me most is watching what happens when students begin walking this path.
Most arrive with curiosity.
But somewhere along the way, something shifts.
They begin to see patterns differently.
They begin to listen more deeply.
They begin to understand that healing is not simply about fixing symptoms — it is about restoring relationship between the human being and the rhythms of nature.
And with that understanding often comes a quiet sense of responsibility.
The realization that this wisdom is not only something to study.
It is something to carry forward.
This school exists for those people.
For those who feel that quiet pull toward deeper understanding.
For those who want to care for others with wisdom and compassion.
For those who believe that ancient systems of knowledge still have something essential to offer our modern world.
Together, we are helping this medicine continue its journey.
One student.
One teacher.
One circle at a time.
If my story resonates with you, you may already feel the same curiosity that once led me to the Himalayas.
For many students, the first step begins with the Ayurvedic Health Counselor Program — where personal curiosity becomes a path of service.
If you feel called to explore this path, we invite you to begin.
If you are ready, I would be honored to walk with you.
— Jacky Rae
Director & Co-Founder | Yoga Veda Institute of Ayurvedic Medicine