Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati lives at Parmarth Niketan Ashram, in Rishikesh, India. She is President of the Divine Shakti Foundation, a charitable organization bringing education, vocational training, and empowerment programs to women and children. She is Secretary-General of Global Interfaith WASH Alliance, an alliance of interfaith religious leaders working for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH). She is also Director of the annual International Yoga Festival, and Managing Editor of the recently completed historic 11-volume Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Sadhviji grew up in a traditional, American family in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from Stanford University and was in the midst of her PhD in psychology when she traveled to India and had a life-changing transformative experience on the banks of the Ganges. She has lived in Rishikesh for nearly 20 years, where she gives spiritual discourses, question-answer sessions, counseling and coaching programs and oversees a myriad of charitable and humanitarian programs. She was officially ordained into the order of Sanyas by Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswati in the year 2000.