An outstanding pioneer in many fields with a deep and compassionate insight into the human condition, the Siri Singh Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji established permanent institutions, created spectacular events, and produced a prolific body of teachings.

The first to publicly teach Kundalini Yoga, when he arrived in the West in 1968, he announced he had come to the West "to create teachers, not to gain students."

Born Harbhajan Singh Puri, August 26, 1929, in the part of India that became Pakistan in 1948, he was the son of a medical doctor. He spent his youth in privileged environments in private schools and his summers in the exclusive Dalhousie mountain region of Himachal Pradesh. As a young boy he attended a Catholic convent school

When he became a United States Citizen in 1976, Yogi Bhajan changed his name legally to Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogiji

When he was just eight years old he began his yogic training with an enlightened teacher, Sant Hazara Singh, who proclaimed him to be a Master of Kundalini Yoga when he was sixteen and a half.

During the turmoil of partition in 1947, at the age of 18, he led his village of 7000 people, near what is Lahore Pakistan today, 325 miles on foot to safety in New Delhi, India. He arrived in New Delhi with only the clothes on his back. Displaced Indians were given houses in India. Soon he was able to continue his education at Punjab University where he excelled in debate and was a star athlete, playing both hockey and soccer and earning the name "China wall" from his opponents.

After graduating with a degree in Economics, he began Indian government service with India's Internal Revenue Department, and supervised the creation of the IRS building in New Delhi. Shortly thereafter he moved to the Customs Service and become head of Customs at Palam International Airport (now known as New Delhi's Indira Gandhi Airport).

He married Inderjit Kaur, known as Bibiji, in 1952. They had two sons, Ranbir Singh and Kulbir Singh, and a daughter, Kamaljit Kaur. Dr. Bibiji Inderjit Kaur now serves as the Bhai Sahiba of Sikh Dharma International.

Throughout his academic career and government service he continued to teach yoga to people from all walks of life.

In September of 1968, he left India for Canada to teach yoga at Toronto University, carrying a letter of recommendation from Sir James George, Canadian High Commissioner in New Delhi, who had been his student. After two months in Canada, he flew to Los Angeles for a weekend visit. Arriving in Los Angeles virtually unknown, Yogi Bhajan met a number of young hippies, the spiritual seekers of that era. He recognized that the experience of higher consciousness they were attempting to find through drugs could be achieved by practicing Kundalini Yoga, which would also help heal their bodies from the damage that the drugs were doing.