Yogi Bhajan broke the long-held tradition of silence. A master of Kundalini by the age of 16, he gave his first lecture at a Los Angeles high school gym on the 5th of January 1969. Then a 39-year-old recent immigrant from India, he had left behind a governmental career with the vision of bringing Kundalini Yoga to the West. It did not matter that not a single person was present that evening; he came to teach and he proceeded to speak to the empty hall.

In the drug culture of the 60s, Yogi Bhajan first reached out to the youth. He recognized their experimentation with drugs and “altered states of consciousness” expressed a deeper desire to experience a holistic and liberating sense of awareness. Soon realizing that pharmaceuticals provided, at best, a cheap imitation to the peaceful, inner euphoria they could get naturally from Kundalini, and at worst, had debilitating physical and mental side effects, young people began flocking to his classes. 3HO teaching centers began springing up across the United States and then throughout the world.

Through 3HO, Yogi Bhajan blazed a trail. Today, after almost 40 years of determined effort on the part of this organization and others, yoga and meditation have gained widespread acceptance in the West. Witness the frequent feature articles that grace the covers of such publications as Time, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. This popular attention speaks not only to the proven benefits of yoga and meditation, but to the increasing public interest in spirituality and a healthy living.

Born Harbhajan Singh in what is now Pakistan to a family of healers and community leaders, Bhajan studied comparative religion and Vedic philosophy, going onto receive his Masters in Economics with honors from Punjab University. Years later, he earned his Ph.D. in communications psychology from the University of Humanistic Studies in San Francisco.

Yogi Bhajan has emerged as a religious, community and business leader with a distinguished reputation as a man of peace, world-vision, wisdom, and compassion. He has authored more than 30 books on topics ranging from spirituality and consciousness to communication and psychology. He has founded several companies that manufacture and distribute natural products. As the Siri Singh Sahib, or the Sikh leader in the Western Hemisphere, he has met with Pope John Paul II to discuss inter-religious dialogue and worked side-by-side with the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop of Canterbury to foster world peace. Yogi Bhajan died in 2004.