Editing Yogi Bhajan (section)

== Reception ==

=== Media coverage ===

In 1977, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' published a critical article, titled "Yogi Bhajan's Synthetic Sikhism".<ref name="Wilde 1997"/> The article alleged that Gurucharan Singh Tohra, former President of the [[Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee]] (SGPC), had stated that Harbhajan Singh is not the leader of Sikhism in the Western World as he claimed, and that Tohra had denied the SGPC had ever given Singh the title of Siri Singh Sahib.<ref name="Wilde 1997">{{cite magazine |last=Wilde |first=James |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,915413,00.html |title=Religion: Yogi Bhajan's Synthetic Sikhism |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=September 5, 1997 |access-date=January 2, 2011}}</ref>

Harbhajan Singh is featured in books discussing the successes of Sikhs who migrated from India to the West, including Surjit Kaur's ''Among the Sikhs: Reaching for the Stars''.<ref>{{cite book |first=Surjit |last=Kaur |title=Among the Sikhs: Reaching for the Stars |location=New Delhi |publisher=Lotus Collection |year=2003}}</ref> and Gurmukh Singh's ''The Global Indian: The Sikhs''.<ref>{{cite book |first=Gurmukh |last=Singh |title=The Global Indian: The Sikhs |location=New Delhi |publisher=Rupi and Co. |year=2003}}</ref>

=== Scholars' views ===

Scholars including Verne A. Dusenbery and [[Pashaura Singh (Sikh scholar)|Pashaura Singh]] have concurred that Harbhajan Singh's introduction of Sikh teachings into the West helped identify Sikhism as a world religion while at the same time creating a compelling counter-narrative to that which identified Sikhs solely as a race with a shared history in India.<ref>{{cite book |last=Dusenbery |first=Verne A. |year=1999 |chapter='Nation' or 'World Religion'?: Master Narratives of Sikh Identity |title=Sikh Identity: Continuity and Change |editor1=Pashaura Singh |editor2=N. Gerald Barrier |location=New Delhi |publisher=Manohar Publishers |pages=127-139}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Singh |first=Pashaura |year=2013 |chapter=Re-imagining Sikhi ('Sikhness') in the Twenty-first Century: Toward a Paradigm Shift in Sikh Studies |title=Re-imagining South Asian Religions |editor1=Pashaura Singh |editor2=Michael Hawley |location=Leiden, Netherlands |publisher=[[Brill Publishers|Brill]] |page=43}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Takhar |first=Opinderjit Kaur |year=2005 |title=Sikh Identity: An Exploration of Groups Among Sikhs |location=Aldershot, England |publisher=[[Ashgate Publishing]] |pages=172-177}}</ref>

Philip Deslippe, a historian of American religion, wrote a 2012 article "From Maharaj to Mahan Tantric: The Construction of Yogi Bhajan's Kundalini Yoga", using 3HO source archive material and news articles to reveal how Harbhajan Singh recreated his own story after his first trip back to India:<ref name="Deslippe-2012"/>

{{blockquote|I set out to answer the question "where did Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan (KYATBYB) come from?" and not much else. I tried to support my findings with as much evidence as possible, and for that evidence to be as clear, specific, verifiable, and close to the source, such as interviews with first hand witnesses (Pamela being one of them), quotes from Yogi Bhajan, contemporary newspaper accounts, and exercises taken from manuals. I concluded that in the early years of 3HO, Yogi Bhajan was using the physical yoga of Swami [[Dhirendra Brahmachari]] and the persona and mantra of Baba Virsa Singh, and that the figure of Sant Hazara Singh only became prominent after the first trip to India in 1970-1971 when Yogi Bhajan had a falling out with Virsa Singh.|source=Philip Deslippe<ref name="Deslippe-2012"/>}}

=== Television ===

In 2024, [[HBO]] ran the series [[Breath of Fire (TV series)|''Breath of Fire'']], which talks about the mental and sexual abuse of Yogi Bhajan.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/television/breath-of-fire-review-guru-jagat-katie-griggs-yoga-documentary-hbo-ddeaa94a|title='Breath of Fire' Review: A Sham Spiritual Leader on HBO |website=[[The Wall Street Journal]]|first=John |last=Anderson |date=October 22, 2024 |access-date=October 23, 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://decider.com/2024/10/23/breath-of-fire-hbo-review/ |title=Stream It Or Skip It: 'Breath Of Fire' On HBO, About The Kundalini Yoga Industry And Its Controversial Young Leader|website=Decider |first=Joel |last=Keller |date=October 23, 2024 |access-date=October 23, 2024}}</ref>