Word: bhajan
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Undeniably, Bhajan has struck some kind of chord. There are now 110 ashrams of various sizes in the U.S., Canada, and overseas. The yogi claims to have won some 250,000 followers, but a more realistic estimate would place the number of zealots at several thousand, although many more flock to his meetings. Bhajan's base is a well-groomed 40-acre ranch near Espanola, N. Mex., where his quarters are said to feature a domed bedroom and a sunken bath. Neighbors are nervous about 3HO's expensive land purchases in the area...
...clanging Hare Krishnas, the 3HO disciples rival them in devotion. Men and women alike follow the Sikh traditions of not cutting their hair and bearing symbolic daggers, combs and bracelets. Ashram members rise at 3:30 a.m. to practice yoga and meditate, sometimes while staring at a picture of Bhajan. They often work twelve hours a day on low salaries and skimpy diets at 3HO small businesses, such as landscaping companies, shoe stores, and quality vegetarian restaurants. Full-fledged initiates follow Bhajan's every dictum on diet, medical nostrums, child rearing, even orders to marry total strangers. Guru Terath...
...Bhajan has important backers in India. High Priest Guruchuran Singh Tohra, president of the management committee for northern India's Sikh temples, confirms that his council has given "full approval" to 3HO and recognizes the yogi as a preacher. Tohra, however, says that this does not mean Bhajan is the Sikh leader of the Western Hemisphere, as he claims. The Sikhs do not create such offices. Nor, Tohra adds, has the committee given Bhajan the rarely bestowed title, Siri Singh Sahib (the equivalent of saying "Sir" three times), which he uses...
...Bhajan has his critics-and they are severe. Many traditional Sikhs insist that yoga has no place in their religion. Sikh Historian Trilochan Singh says Bhajan's synthesis of Sikhism and Tantrism is "a sacrilegious hodgepodge." Far more important, High Priest Jaswant Singh, a leader of the Sikhs in eastern India and comparable in status to Bhajan Backer Tohra, last week denounced Bhajan's claims. He and his council professed to be "shocked" at Bhajan's "fantastic theories." Yoga, Tantrism and the "sexual practices" taught by Bhajan, the council declared, are "forbidden and immoral...
There are more delicate matters at issue, many raised by people who knew Bhajan when. Judith Tyberg, respected founder of Los Angeles' East-West Center, where Bhajan briefly gave courses, questions his knowledge of Kundalini yoga. She fired him from her faculty after three months for another reason -which she refuses to divulge...