Heart Intelligence, Renewable Energy, Speaking & Books
Hello, Sadhu here — my life and "life's work" is a living integration of timeless universal wisdom, modern neuroscience, and the real human journey of falling apart, rising again, and discovering what actually makes life thrive instead of struggle. I serve as an International Heart Intelligence Consultant & Smart Energy Executive, helping people and organizations shift into a new paradigm of interconnected -individual, collective and environmental empowerment & creative potential.
For over 25 years, I’ve practiced, studied, and taught -meditation, healthy movement, conscious breathing, and heart-centered resilience across India, the U.S., and around the world. I’ve guided parents, creatives, executives, athletes, and entire communities. I’m the creator of the Heart Intelligence Collective, Heart of Focus, and Listening to Our Elders.
My perspective isn’t theoretical. It was forged through early trauma, global travel, decades of deep spiritual discipline, fatherhood, and a near-death crucible that stripped my life down to its essence of what truly works from the inside out.
What remained was simple: my commitment to help real people feel better, think clearer, live intentionally, love deeper, and create a life of greater fulfillment & success for themselves, the people they love the most and the world.
Origins — Where It All Began
I grew up in a 70's & 80's American South household where love and emotional & physical volatility lived side by side. Generations of unresolved trauma shaped the nervous system I inherited. I didn’t know those words as a child — I only felt the instability, the confusion, and the deep longing for something real, honest, and steady.
That longing became the compass of my life.
Awakening — The Night That Changed Everything
At 20 years old, my life opened into the world of international modeling. From 1990 to 1998 I lived across Italy, Greece, France, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Japan, New Zealand, Tasmania, and Australia.
I walked runways and did personal fittings for Armani, Versace, and Valentino.
I partied with actor Charlie Sheen and his entourage in Euro-Chic hotspots.
I danced in Greek open air seaside clubs with supermodel Claudia Schiffer and Axl Rose of Guns N Roses -fun!
I filmed an Aerosmith video cast beside Steven Tyler.
I lived on Mediterranean rooftops, in Milan lofts, and Athens terraces overlooking the Parthenon.
It looked glamorous. A lot of it was!
It was also a lot of chronic low self esteem, escape & numbing — external validation, alcohol and drugs masking unspoken childhood pain.
Then in 1997, on a random quiet street in Milan, everything stopped.
I experienced a moment of inner clarity so strong it ended one life and began another. I walked away — from the drugs, the alcohol, the external identity — and stepped into the path of optimal health, discipline, and service — from the inside out.
That moment was the first turning of the wheel.
Inner discipline — Where Devotion Took Root
In Los Angeles, I immersed myself in “getting as healthy as I could” — yoga, meditation, cleaner living, and the "inner work" I didn't even know existed until I felt it happening in real time. I practiced with many world-renowned spiritual teachers and directly with Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, serving as one of her personal assistants and house sitters during her peak "LA Golden Bridge" years. That immersion initiated me into a lineage of physical & spiritual discipline and service that shaped the next two decades of my life.
LA was also where the universe kept throwing me into unlikely conversations — the kind you don’t plan. Through Gurmukh, I ended up walking Rick Rubin’s poodle puppy, Blue, a humble side gig in the Hollywood Hills ended up funding my first pilgrimage to the 2001 Maha Kumbh Mela. I’d pass Flea at the gate, overhear Sean Lennon strumming acoustic in Rick’s living room, and trade thoughts about consciousness with Mike D, of The Beastie Boys, and Zack de la Rocha, front man of Rage Against The Machine, in Silverlake health food stores and random Starbucks. I even taught yoga to Cameron Diaz — a moment that made the 20-something in me short-circuit in the most innocent, hilarious way.
These experiences weren’t glamorous to me then — they were proof that my heart was guiding me, weaving threads I would only understand years later.
In 2000, I traveled to India for the first time, chose to live into the name “Sadhu” directly suggested from the controversial figure Yogi Bhajan at his personal residence, and met Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati at Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh. Sadhvi and I's bond of 25 years now is a pillar of my heart, my life and global service. I attended the Maha Kumbh Melas of 2001, 2012, and 2025 — experiences that deepened my understanding of humanity, devotion, and collective intention.
In 2002, I began studying Nyingma Tibetan Buddhism under Khentrul Lodro Thaye Rinpoche, Moksha Rinpoche, and through a live teaching in Miami with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. These teachings transformed my understanding of compassion, subtle energy, and the profound power of intentional "heart focus" — and continue to shape my life today.
Over those years, life also kept placing me — gently, improbably — at the crossroads of eras.
I found myself in conversation or in unplanned intimate gatherings with consciousness pioneers who shaped the 1960s counterculture: Timothy Leary, Ram Dass (Richard Alpert), and Bhagavan Das.
These weren’t celebrity run-ins.
They were windows — reminders that awakening moves through generations, and that service is the natural endpoint of expanded awareness.
None of this felt glamorous.
It felt like the universe nudging me toward my real path —
a bridge between worlds, traditions, ways of seeing — and ways of listening to my heart.
Integration — Building Community and Bridging Worlds
In 2004, I was invited to Miami to open The Standard Spa as its first Yoga & Meditation Director, building their original "dream team" of yoga and wellness instructors and designing programs still practiced today.
I was finding myself in circles that bridged creativity, spirituality, and cultural influence in unexpected ways. Through the same invisible coherence that carried me from Milan to India and back, I ended up in meditation dialogue with Donna Karan and Lou Reed because I was invited to participate in one of Donna’s Urban Zen initiatives exploring how compassion, presence, and integrative practices could complement Western medicine.
In 2008, I traveled to eastern Tibet through China with Khentrul Rinpoche to receive what Tibetan Buddhists call "mind to mind" transmissions (or "heart to heart" transmissions as many cultures view the mind and heart to be interchangeable or one in the same) from my teacher's teachers (who never left Tibet) in their remote monastery for 2 weeks. Probably one of the most obscure experiences of my life I'll never forget and sometimes feels like a dream. But ...I was there ...it happened. And so far, I'm still alive to tell about it!
In 2009, I opened Canyon Ranch, Carillon Hotel Miami Beach as their resident Kundalini Yoga, Breathing & Meditation Specialist, working directly with top professionals and medical director Dr. Karen Koffler, MD integrating ancient practices with functional medicine.
In 2013, I returned to India for my second Maha Kumbh Mela. PBS featured the group I led, and me, during the their Sacred Journeys documentary series exploring human spiritual pilgrimage around the world.
During that same era, another unexpected moment etched itself into my memory.
While in Rishikesh — a place that had become a spiritual home — I found myself seated at the Ganges during an evening program when the man who is now the King of England attended as a special guest. I sat only a few feet away as he spoke about environmental stewardship and his profound respect for Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati and Swami Chidanand Saraswati.
It wasn’t pomp or spectacle.
It was a simple confirmation that reverence for nature and the intelligence of the human heart transcend culture, title, and nation.
The same river ghat — just a short walk upstream from where The Beatles once sat with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi — that has carried the prayers of villagers, sages, and seekers for thousands of years… had also, in that moment, humbled the heart of a king.”
It felt like another quiet coherence-moment —
a reminder that the threads of service, nature, and devotion are universal and transcend status, economics and religion.
Also in 2013, after returning from the historic Maha Kumbh Mela with Cecilia, mother of our boys, we opened Kundalini Yoga Miami, a thriving community known for:
• Daily 4am sadhana (intense group yoga & meditation, everyday for about 3 years!)
• Teacher trainings
• India & Eco retreats
• A deeply devoted, diversity & family friendly community
• Nearly 100 every day people (moms, dads, professionals, creatives, students, athletes, etc from all cultures) completing 40 consecutive days or more of 2 1/2 hour pre-dawn group practice
This was one of the most profound service periods of my life. Or so I thought.
Fatherhood — The Second Great Teacher
When my first son, Avtar, was born, I discovered the HeartMath Institute, whose research on heart-brain coherence became the scientific grounding for everything leading me all this time and that I now teach.
After moving from Miami to Ashland, Oregon for five years, raising Avtar, now 10, and Sage, my second son, now 7, became the number one focus of my life and my deepest spiritual practice. Cecilia and I simply chose to remove ourselves and our baby from Miami's ZIKA ground zero neurotoxic response campaign. We lived one mile from where the city was literally "crop dusting" entire counties with neurotoxins many other countries have banned. This was an obvious impulse of a new parent or caretaker of an infant. Protect and love. Non negotiable.
I whispered a heart promise to each of these precious little people when they were infants in carriers on my chest "I will do everything I can to connect you with the most beautiful nature on Earth AND protect & preserve nature's organic balance however I can ...so you can inherit the best we can do."
During this time I developed:
• The Heart of Focus -an 8-week interactive group course immersion of harnessing Heart Intelligence into truly empowered living
• The seeds of Listening to Our Elders -a heartfelt vision in 2009 became an 8 year relationship with The Earth Elders -a global organization and initiative of the timely re-integration of Indigenous wisdom and ecological reverence which had been violently & dangerously obscured by colonial capitalism until now.
• The early architecture of Heart Intelligence Collective -global membership & entrainment education community.
These years brought humility, grounding, and a new clarity. This would come to save my life when I least expected it.
The Descent — The Final Cycle of Trauma
In 2024–2025, while conducting renewable energy & my global Heart Intelligence research staying temporarily with my parents in Montgomery, Alabama, life collapsed in a way I could never have predicted.
I contracted a near-lethal virus.
I was hospitalized for a week.
Old trauma resurfaced.
Abuse reappeared.
My nervous system overloaded.
And for nearly two weeks after release, negative family patterns and a broken system rupture pushed me to live on the street.
It was the darkest moment of my life — the completion of a trauma cycle 5 decades in the making. I realized that if I didn’t remove myself from the patterns & environment, I wouldn’t survive. Not just emotionally ...literally. It was that dark.
So I literally had to escape, nervous system at about 30%, in shock from assault, with nothing but breath, presence, and the heart focus practices that had carried me for 25 years.
This was my zero point.
A profound reset or purification.
The most overwhelming pain & revelation. Happening at the same time. In my life, so far.
The Return — Clarity, Coherence, and Purpose
What survived the fire was simple, grounded and absolute:
Heart Intelligence isn’t a belief.
It’s thriving vs survival.
It’s ultimate clarity.
Ultimate creative power.
It’s what saved my life. My whole life so far. And what makes my life, every day!
On the other side of collapse my mission to live authentically from my heart and help the world live in theirs is even more crystal clear than ever and stronger everyday. Heart Intelligence guides everything I do ...it IS everything I do and "serve" (hence the name, Sadhu Serves, get it?):
• The Heart Intelligence Collective — the global membership community & highly interactive educational ecosystem of embodied & applied Heart Intelligence
• Listening to Our Elders — now multiple projects & relationships with Earth Elders, streaming & documentary film media, 3D audio field recordings, and immersive global heart-coherence events
• Renewable & Smart Energy Solutions — Account Executive for specialized US & global renewable & regenerative energy systems team
• Speaking & Teaching — practical & immediate immersive Heart Intelligence education & experiences for groups, organizations and special events
• The Adventures of The Gnome Abides — a global "eye-spy" Find-The-Gnome game I started for Avtar & Sage since I've been separated from them
Epilogue — The Quiet Center
My life's work is not about performance, personality, or spiritual image.
It’s about being useful.
It’s about helping real people feel better, think clearer, live intentionally, love deeper, and reconnect to themselves, each other, and the Earth.
I’m a father, a husband, a bridge-builder, a perpetual student of life -a mission-driven man committed to clarity, emotional intelligence and compassion. If something in this story resonates, trust that. If it doesn’t, that’s okay too.
What matters is that you find the immense power & intelligence of your own heart — the one truth we all share and the greatest power on Earth.
Welcome. I’m glad you’re here.
Let’s move forward with clarity, purpose, and Heart Intelligence.
Sincerely In Service,
Sadhu
P.S. These days, since being more daddy than I was "the teacher guy" and after losing the beard, the long hair, turban and "spiritual uniform, I'm finding more heart than ever. I may be spotted riding my electric bike in the Ocean Dr. sun of Miami Beach, traveling the world with The Gnome listening to our Elders or just hanging out with everyday super heroes. Like you! Heart Intelligence really rocks. Get some, give more.
The world needs your heart, OUR heart ...more now than ever.
PBS Doc, Universal Yoga Talk I Gave, Short Films I Created
✪✪ Kumbh Mela Documentary | Sacred Journeys | Kumbh Mela - Allahabad (India) english subtitles ✪✪
✪✪ Kumbh Mela Documentary | Sacred Journeys | Kumbh Mela - Allahabad (India) english subtitles ✪✪
Core Concepts Lecture with guest Sadhu Serves (HD)
Short Film: "Sublime" submitted for Sangha by Sadhu
connect with me here
For speaking, renewable-energy collaboration, media inquiries, or creative partnerships, send me an email. Thx!