Modern yoga gurus

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(Redirected from
List of Indian asana yoga gurus
)

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi introduced The Beatles, and the West, to gurus, mantras, and meditation in the late 1960s.[1][2]

Modern yoga gurus are people widely acknowledged to be

guru-shishya tradition, the modern guru-follower relationship is not secretive, not exclusive, and does not necessarily involve a tradition. Many such gurus, but not all, teach a form of yoga as exercise; others teach forms which are more devotional or meditational; many teach a combination. Some have been affected by scandals
of various kinds.

Guru-shishya tradition

Watercolour
, Punjab Hills, India, 1740

Before the creation of

Vivekananda stated that "The guru must be worshipped as God. He is God, he is nothing less than that".[8]

Transformed role

The role of the guru in the modern world is radically transformed. Globalisation has extended the guru's reach into environments where they may be a stranger, and where the religion, purpose, and status of the guru is poorly understood. Modern yoga practices are often open to everyone, without any sort of initiation into any organisation or doctrine. The modern guru

parampara).[3] For example, Gurumayi's Siddha Yoga pays careful attention to her predecessors, Muktananda and Bhagawan Nityananda.[9] Another major change was introduced by Vivekananda; his Ramakrishna Mission set the example of public service in education and medicine, something now practised by many other Indian religious movements. These religions thus shifted from a focus on personal salvation to public altruism.[8]

Yogendra, an acknowledged pioneer of modern yoga,[10] rejected the traditional guru role in favour of something more modern.[11]

A further radical shift was from spiritual to physical in

Krishnamacharya.[12] The transformed role of the guru can be seen in the case of one of these pioneers,[10] Yogendra, who explicitly rejected the role of traditional guru for a single pupil or shishya.[11] The physical context, too, is transformed along with the nature of the teacher's authority; yoga as exercise is often taught in an urban yoga studio, where the instructor's yoga teacher training stands in for the old guru-shishya relationship.[3] The trend away from authority is continued in post-lineage yoga, which is practised outside any major school or guru's lineage.[13][14]

The concept of the guru, along with mantra and meditation, reached the West in the 1960s with The Beatles' trip to India, for a Transcendental Meditation training course at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh.[1][2] Modern gurus since then have used the divine status of the traditional guru to claim that they were gods or goddesses. Some asserted they were avatars, earthly incarnations of a god, fulfilling the prophecy in the Bhagavad Gita that Vishnu would take on earthly form when the world was threatened by evil.[8]

Abuse

The potential for abuse in the transformed guru-follower relationship is large, and there have been multiple instances of apparent or proven sexual, mental, and emotional abuse by gurus.

Gurumayi's Siddha Yoga organisation, that even if a guru is seen to be lying, devotees will ignore the matter and "keep on believing".[24]

Acknowledged gurus

Well-known gurus of modern yoga
Guru Dates Gender Country Lineage (guru) School
or order
Postures
(Asana)
Meditation
(Dhyana)
Devotion
(Bhakti)
Other
practices
Scandal
(alleged abuses)
Anandamayi Ma[25][26][27] 1896–1982 Female India Self-realization No Yes
Sri Aurobindo[28][29] 1872–1950 Male India Sri Aurobindo Ashram No Yes
Beryl Bender Birch[30] 1942– Female US K. Pattabhi Jois Power Yoga Yes No No
Yogi Bhajan[31][32] 1929–2004 Male India
Kundalini Yoga
Yes Yes Guru Nanak Sexual[33][34]
Bikram Choudhury[35][25][36][18] 1944– Male India Bikram Yoga Yes No No Fixed sequence of postures, in heated room Sexual, assault, racism, homophobia[37][38]
Amrit Desai[39][40][41][42] 1932– Male India Kripalvananda
Kripalu Yoga[43]
Yes Kundalini yoga, Hatha yoga[39] Sexual[44][45][40]
John Friend[36][18][46] 1959– Male US
Anusara Yoga
Yes Yes No Sexual[47][48]
Gurmukh[49][50] 1943– Female US Yogi Bhajan
Kundalini Yoga
No Yes
Yoga in pregnancy
Gurumayi Chidvilasananda[51][52] 1955– Female India Muktananda Siddha Yoga No Yes Yes
Shaktipat, japa
B. K. S. Iyengar[35][36][53][54][55][56] 1918–2014 Male India
Krishnamacharya
Iyengar Yoga Yes No No Yoga props
Jaggi Vasudev[35][54][57]
1957– Male India Malladihalli Raghavendra Isha Foundation Yes Yes "Inner Engineering", japa, pranayama
K. Pattabhi Jois[35][53][54][58][1][59] 1915–2009 Male India
Krishnamacharya
Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga
Yes No No
Vinyasas
Sexual[60]
Krishnamacharya[35][53][54][61]
1888–1989 Male India
Vinyasa Krama Yoga
Yes No No
Vinyasas
Kriyananda[62][63] 1926–2013 Male US
Yogananda
Ananda yoga
No Yes Yes Copyright disputes[64] Sexual[65][66]
Kuvalayananda[54]
1883–1966 Male India Paramahamsa Madhavdas Kaivalyadhama Yes Ayurveda
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi[35][53][54][59] 1918–2008 Male India Brahmananda Saraswati Transcendental Meditation No Yes
Meher Baba[25] 1894–1969 Male India Avatar Meher Baba Trust No Sufism
Dharma Mittra[67] 1939– Male Brazil Kailashananda Dharma Yoga Center Yes
Muktananda[68][69][70] 1908–1982 Male India Bhagawan Nityananda Siddha Yoga No Yes
Shaktipat
Sexual[71][72]
Nirmala Srivastava
(Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi)[73]
1923–2011 Female India Sahaja Yoga No Yes Kundalini awakening
Swami Rama[54] 1925–1996 Male India Himalayan Institute No Yes Sexual[74]
Ram Dass[75][76] 1931–2019 Male US Neem Karoli Baba No Yes Pranayama
Baba Ramdev[35][67][53][77] 1965– Male India Patanjali Yogpeeth Yes Yes Ayurveda, pranayama
1887–1963 Male India Divine Life Society No Yes
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar[35][57]
1956– Male India Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Art of Living Foundation Yes Yes
Sudarshan Kriya, pranayama
Satchidananda Saraswati[79][80]
1914–2002 Male India
Sivananda
Integral Yoga Yes Yes Yes
Jnana Yoga, Japa
Sexual[79][81]
Sathya Sai Baba[82][83] 1926–2011 Male India
Sathya Sai Organization
No
Shankarananda[84][85] 1942– Male US Shiva Yoga No Yes Sexual[84][85]
Vishnudevananda Saraswati[86][56] 1927–1993 Male India
Sivananda
Sivananda Yoga
Yes Yes Pranayama, Sattvic diet Sexual[86]
Vivekananda[87][88]
1863–1902 Male India Ramakrishna Vedanta No Yes
Paramahansa Yogananda[35][25][53][54] 1893–1952 Male India
Sri Yukteswar Giri
Self-Realization Fellowship Yes Yes Yes Kriya Yoga
Yogendra[10][59] 1897–1989 Male India The Yoga Institute Yes Yes

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Sources