YOGI Bhajan, a former customs inspector at the Delhi airport who became both the spiritual leader to Americans following his version of the ancient Sikh religion and a highly successful entrepreneur, died earlier this month at his home in Española, N.M.
He was 75. The cause was complications from heart failure, Sikh Dharma, his spiritual community, announced.Yogi Bhajan, whose full name was Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji, introduced an ancient and arduous form of Indian yoga, Kundalini yoga, to Americans.It is more active than the more common Hatha yoga and is practised by thousands of people across America.He also introduced Sikhism to America, but with twists that startled Indian Sikhs.For one thing, yoga is a Hindu practice, not a Sikh one.For another, he insisted that his followers be vegetarians, though Sikhs are renowned as meat eaters.But he more than retained the Sikh tradition of being superb warriors:he mobilised his followers into a security company that guards federal courthouses and Army bases and takes in more than US$1 billion a year.Others of the 17 businesses he helped create included yoga centres and real estate concerns, as well as his Golden Temple natural foods company, Yogi herbal teas operation, Soothing Touch health and beauty products and Peace natural cereals.One of his nicknames was “the boss,” The Miami Herald reported in 1998.Harbhajan Singh Puri was born on August 26 1929, in the town of Gujrawala in what is now Pakistan.(He legally changed his name when he became a United States citizen in 1976.) The son of a medical doctor, he graduated from Punjab University with an economics degree in 1954, then worked for 15 years as a customs official.Yogi Bhajan believed he could match couples by sensing the energy surrounding them as well as foreseeing their future.New West magazine in 1980 reported that sometimes in the middle of a lecture, he interrupted himself and declared to a pair of audience members, “Oh, you two people are engaged.”- Nampa-APThe cause was complications from heart failure, Sikh Dharma, his spiritual community, announced.Yogi Bhajan, whose full name was Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji, introduced an ancient and arduous form of Indian yoga, Kundalini yoga, to Americans.It is more active than the more common Hatha yoga and is practised by thousands of people across America.He also introduced Sikhism to America, but with twists that startled Indian Sikhs.For one thing, yoga is a Hindu practice, not a Sikh one.For another, he insisted that his followers be vegetarians, though Sikhs are renowned as meat eaters.But he more than retained the Sikh tradition of being superb warriors:he mobilised his followers into a security company that guards federal courthouses and Army bases and takes in more than US$1 billion a year.Others of the 17 businesses he helped create included yoga centres and real estate concerns, as well as his Golden Temple natural foods company, Yogi herbal teas operation, Soothing Touch health and beauty products and Peace natural cereals.One of his nicknames was “the boss,” The Miami Herald reported in 1998.Harbhajan Singh Puri was born on August 26 1929, in the town of Gujrawala in what is now Pakistan.(He legally changed his name when he became a United States citizen in 1976.) The son of a medical doctor, he graduated from Punjab University with an economics degree in 1954, then worked for 15 years as a customs official.Yogi Bhajan believed he could match couples by sensing the energy surrounding them as well as foreseeing their future.New West magazine in 1980 reported that sometimes in the middle of a lecture, he interrupted himself and declared to a pair of audience members, “Oh, you two people are engaged.”- Nampa-AP
