 LA Times Article - Yogi Bhajan, 75, Sikh Leader Taught Kundalini Yoga
Los Angeles Times
October 10, 2004
Yogi Bhajan, 75, Sikh Leader Taught Kundalini Yoga
By Mary Rourke, Times Staff Writer
Yogi Bhajan, a Sikh spiritual leader who pioneered the teaching of Kundalini
yoga in the United States, starting in Los Angeles, has died. He was 75.
Bhajan, who also expanded the Sikh community's membership from Indians with
roots in Punjab to include Europeans and Americans, died Wednesday at his
home in Espanola, N.M. The cause of death was complications after heart
failure, according to Daya Singh Khalsa, a longtime friend.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson ordered that flags in the state be flown at
half-staff for two days after the death.
"Yogi Bhajan made a tremendous impact on the state of New Mexico as a
religious, business and political leader," Richardson said in a statement
Thursday.
A well-known community activist and an entrepreneur in the state, Bhajan met
Richardson in the 1980s, and they discovered a common interest in
government. As a young man in India, Bhajan had worked for the Internal
Revenue Service and later was named head of the customs office at what is
now Indira Gandhi Airport in New Delhi.
He was a lifetime practitioner of yoga and considered a master of Kundalini,
which combines vigorous physical poses with meditation and mantras.
In 1968, Bhajan moved from India to Toronto and soon afterward to Los
Angeles, where he taught Kundalini yoga at a furniture store in West
Hollywood after business hours and at the YMCA in Alhambra. As his
reputation grew, he was invited to teach at local colleges.
He established the 3HO Foundation - the happy, healthy, holy organization -
in 1969. The program emphasizes yoga, meditation and community service and
is taught in the U.S. as well as India.
In Los Angeles, Bhajan also attended interfaith forums and conferences to
help establish a Sikh presence. Over time, he became known as an authority
for the Sikh religion in the Western Hemisphere. He had an inclusive view of
the world's major religions and considered all of them valid. His business
card read, "If you can't see God in all, you can't see God at all."
After moving to Espanola from Los Angeles in the early 1970s, Bhajan founded
the Sikh Dharma community, which has grown to about 500 families, most of
them American converts.
He was also instrumental in creating several successful businesses owned by
Sikh Dharma members. One of them, Akal Security, is among the country's
largest suppliers of security officers to government sites, including
federal court buildings, Army bases and airports.
Such work is in keeping with the Sikh tradition of the warrior saint, said
Khalsa, a founder of Akal. A number of early Sikh leaders were military
generals who preached self-defense and opposed military aggression, he said.
Sikhism began in northern India in the 15th century and claims 18 million
members worldwide. About 250,000 reside in the United States, with an
estimated 100,000 on the West Coast, according to Gurinder Singh Mann,
professor of Sikh studies at UC Santa Barbara.
"Yogi Bhajan has a special place in Sikh history," Mann said Friday. "For
the first time in the religion's five centuries, we have non-Punjabi
members. He also took an interest in proselytizing. That is quite a
departure. Sikhs are of a non-proselytizing tradition."
Born Harbhajan Singh Puri in a part of India now in Pakistan, the yogi was
the son of a medical doctor. Bhajan's family moved to New Delhi when India
was partitioned to create Pakistan in 1947, and he graduated from Punjab
University with a degree in economics.
In 1952, he married Inderjit Kaur, who survives him, as do two sons, a
daughter and five grandchildren.
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