Instructors at IAM

The Founders of The Institute for Applied Meditation, Inc.

Susanna is the President of IAM and also the most active teacher at the Institute. Susanna teaches several classes per week, and also has a private practice in counseling, using Heart Rhythm Practice. Susanna is an experienced teacher to business groups and individual professionals. Before starting IAM, she was the Director of Training for a large real estate firm in New York and New Jersey. Susanna has studied Sufism with a teacher and taught meditation for 15 years.

Susanna has an accomplished theater background. She was an actress in four TV films in Vienna and was the Director of the Kleinen Buehne (Women's Experimental Theater) of The State Theater, Basel, Switzerland. In New York City, she studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actor's Studio, and Stella Adler at the Stella Adler Conservatory.

Susanna received her education in psychology in the PhD program of the University of Vienna, and at Antioch University where she earned the M.A. in Counseling Psychology. She worked at the Children's Psychiatric Clinic of the General Hospital of Vienna, and later at Health and Education Services in the Boston Area. Her earlier education was in Catholic schools in Austria. She has one child.

Puran is an American Sufi Master who has taught meditation to tens of thousands of people in the United States and Europe over 20 years. Puran's book, "Living From the Heart," published by Random House, has been hailed as a classic, "one of the most important texts ever written on meditation."

He has taught his method, Heart Rhythm Practice, to CEO's, teams and individuals from a broad spectrum of businesses, and has worked with leading researchers to document the physiological changes that occur during the different stages of meditation, including metabolism, heart rhythm, brain waves, light emission and electromagnetism.

Puran represents a long line of meditation teachers. His methods are typical of the Sufi teachers in his line, especially Hazrat Inayat Khan. Puran studied intensively for 25 years with the Christian mystic, Vilayat Khan, who charged him with training other students.

Puran's background is in technology and business, and his teaching often refers to applications of the heart in business leadership. Until 2003, he was the president of BAR Systems, Inc., the developer and vendor of a portfolio analysis tool for the financial services industry. For several years he was a vice-president of a mutual funds company in Boston. Previously, he worked for IBM, Burroughs, and EG&G and was a consultant to AT&T and several financial institutions. His attention to his heart has lead him to develop several environmentally sound inventions. He holds one patent in wind-energy power, with a second patent pending in high-speed composting. Puran holds an MS degree in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He has five children.