Yoga Studies MA program at Naropa University

Naropa University was originally a summer institute founded in 1974 by a Tibetan Tulku at the nexus of the counterculture and the reception and shifting landscape of Hinduism and Buddhism in America. While never forthright on how to manifest the initial vision, the founder, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, was inspired by the magisterial example of the medieval Buddhist university, Nalanda, and an approach to psychology, the arts, and religious studies that integrated the best of what the humanities and sciences had to offer. While the inaugural summer session of 1974 included a class taught by Ram Dass on the Yogas of the Bhagavadgītā to over 1,000 students, it was not until 2007 that Naropa launched a Bachelor of Arts in Yoga Studies, and subsequently an MA in Yoga Studies in the fall of 2020. Both of these programs have grown and adapted within the distinctive educational culture and history of Naropa University, including its strong grounding in Buddhist Studies, a sustained focus on Sanskrit and Tibetan language training and translation, and the university's 50-year experimentations with contemplative education. This distinctive pedagogical environment has also been meaningfully enriched by the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of Yoga Studies.