“God chooses imperfect people to do his perfect work.”
It can’t be otherwise.
Though the Gen 2.0 teacher, Yogi Bhajan (born Harbhajan Singh Khalsa, 1929–2000), had a controversial career, the yoga style he created, Kundalini Yoga, has an undeniable transformative power.
He arrived in Toronto in November of ’68 and shortly thereafter relocated to LA.
It was the high point of the 1960s counter-culture movement.
The Summer of Love had happened the previous year.
Bhajan’s Kundalini Yoga would be popularized at Woodstock the following August.
He formed the 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) shortly after his North American landfall largely to serve drug-addled hippies who’d lost their sense of deeper meaning in life.
Though he would later reject both gurus, Bhajan had studied with the venerable Sant Virsa Singh (1937–2012) and the dubious Dhirendra Brahmachari (1924–1994).
Aside from modifications engineered by Bhajan himself, most of the exercises of his Kundalini form are motions of breath and limbs learned from Brahmachari.
The scholar Philip Deslippe has rightly called Bhajan a “bricoleur” — a French term for a syncretist — someone who weaves together a range of older, disparate forms to make something new and whole.
Bhajan was unique in the brashness of his bricolage.
He was a Punjabi customs inspector who taught a Western-influenced yoga he called Tantric, while claiming a Tibetan lineage (among others).
He added in chanting patterns harvested from his native Sikhism.
He was a spiritual leader who developed a multi-billion-dollar consortium of 17 businesses that were both muscular (Akal Security — holding vast contracts with the US Government) and holistic (Golden Temple Natural Foods and Yogi Tea — popular with the Whole Foods crowd).
His Sikh tradition ate meat, lived in worldly fashion, and abjured yoga, but he mandated that his American Sikh followers adopt vegetarianism, abide in ashrams, and practice postures.
He dictated who would marry whom in his commune’s circle (validating carnal exclusivity), even as he developed sophisticated sexual yogas.
Born a nobody, he died having befriended major business, political, and religious leaders. Settled in dry New Mexico after leaving his tropical India, state government flags flew at half-mast there when he passed away.
Bhajan brought many people to truth, even though he patently fabricated his past, faked mystical experiences, and cooked up teachings from gurus that never existed.
I love this picture (above; taken in 1969).
As some of his young followers goof around, Bhajan looks on bemused by his devotees, more contained and decidedly more powerful than they will probably ever be.
#YogaHistoryPicOfTheDay, #PrasanaYoga, #EricShawYoga, #YogaPicOfTheDay #24