Paramahansa Yogananda
"The spine is the highway to the infinite.
Your own body is the temple of God.
It is within your own self that God must be realized."
Paramahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi, was the older brother of Bikram’s beloved guru, Bishnu Ghosh. In 1920, Yogananda came to the U.S to serve as India’s delegate to an international congress of religious leaders convening in Boston where he delivered his well-received address on the “Science of Religion.” In 1924, Yogananda established the international headquarters for the Self Realization Fellowship in order to disseminate worldwide his teachings on India’s ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and meditation. Yogananda emphasized the underlying unity of world’s great religions and taught universally applicable methods for attaining direct personal experience of God. When Yogananda returned to India, he instructed his younger brother, Bishnu Ghosh, to go to America and teach Americans how to practice hatha yoga. Though American’s were enthusiastic about the new science of yoga, they could not begin to learn the techniques for proper meditation until they got their bodies into shape. Yogananda said that the body is a temple but the Americans had not yet realized this. Their temple was empty. Bishnu Ghosh had to show them how to build up the body, the temple and fill it up before Yogananda’s teachings could be utilized.
Sri Yukteswar, Yogananda’s teacher, established several ashrams in India to teach kriya yoga, and authored The Holy Science. He was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya, the first non-sadhu to learn kriya yoga. Lahiri Mahasaya was initiated into Kriya yoga (raja-yoga) by Babaji Nagaraj in 1861. Babaji was a “sanyasing” or “sadhu”, but Lahiri lived the normal life of a householder and worked for the Indian government. He inspired hundreds of people to practice kriya yoga during his lifetime by demonstrating that it was possible to keep self-realization without giving up city life.
Bishnu Gosh
"Yoga maintains youth long. It keeps the body full of vitality, immune to diseases, even at old, old age.
The yogi never becomes old."
Bishnu Ghosh, Bikram’s beloved Guru, was trained at the Ranchi School for Boys (founded in 1917) by his older brother, Paramhansa Yogananda (who later founded the Self-Realization Fellowship and authored Autobiography of a Yogi). Bishnu became a physical culturalist and was the first to scientifically document Yoga’s ability to cure chronic physical ailments and heal the body. He worked with Swami Sivananda Saraswati to develop a system of hatha yoga asanas for health and fitness, based on the original classic 84 postures. Ghosh's Yoga regimen provides a unique blend of spiritual inspiration and highly disciplined physical exercise. His view of the human body as the temple of a living God has been a major force in the renaissance of Hatha Yoga in the West.
In 1923, at the young age of 20, Gosh founded the first Ghosh College of Physical Education in Calcutta and his fame quickly spread throughout India. Other schools were opened, first in India, and then in locations around the world. In 1939, Ghosh came to the United States to educate people on the subject of yoga by giving demonstrations of amazing yoga feats. He lectured at Columbia University in New York, generating a great deal of interest in the field, and was widely acknowledged and respected in the academic community. Bishnu Ghosh mentored a number of outstanding students such as Buddha Bose, Gouri Shankar Mukerji, and Bikram Choudhury. In the 1960’s, Ghosh’s College of Physical Education is still in operation in Calcutta. It is operated by the Granddaughter of Bishnu Ghosh, Muktamala.
Bikram Choudury
"I hereby dedicate my life's work to the cherished memory of my beloved guru, Bishnu Charan Ghosh. May the eternal light of his spirit, made brighter by the love of his brother and guru, Paramashana Yogananda, and those who have carried his sacred lineage through the halls of the ages, be reflected in the hearts of all the students and teachers of whom it has been my privilege and honor to serve".
Born in Calcutta in 1946, Bikram began yoga at the age of four with India’s most-renowned physical culturist at that time, Bishnu Ghosh (the younger brother of Paramahansa Yogananda). He was trained at Ghosh’s College of Physical Education, (est. 1924) in Calcutta, India.
Bikram practiced yoga at least four to six hours every day at Ghosh’s College of Physical Education in Calcutta. At the age of thirteen, he won the National India Yoga Championship. He was undefeated for the following three years and retired as the undisputed All-India National Yoga Champion. At seventeen, an injury to his knee during a weight-lifting accident brought the prediction from leading European doctors that he would never walk again. Not accepting their pronouncement, he had himself carried back to Bishnu Ghosh’s school, for he knew that if anyone could help to heal his knee, it was his teacher. Six months later, his knee had totally recovered.
Bikram was asked by Ghosh to start several yoga schools in India to pass on the tradition. The schools were so successful that, at Ghosh’s request, Bikram travelled to Japan to open two more yoga schools. Bikram worked with doctors at the Tokyo University Hospital to prove the medical benefits of his yoga system, including tissue regeneration and healing of chronic ailments. These findings were presented in 1972 at the International Medical Conference in Kyoto.
Bikram arrived in the United States in 1973 at the invitation of President Nixon and with the support of actress Shirley MacLaine. Bikram quickly became the most prominent yoga teacher in the West as celebrities like Madonna and Lady Gaga and athletes like David Beckham and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar began to flock to him. Bikram later on devised the 26 postures sequence, which has a profound healing power on both body and mind. The Bikram Yoga College of India was established in Los Angeles where thousands of classes were conducted and the first official school of Bikram Yoga was established. Since that time, Bikram has traveled the world extensively, bringing the benefits of Bikram Yoga to millions of yoga students in over 1600 studios worldwide.
Esak Garcia
“To empower ourselves to carry the hot yoga tradition of 84 asanas
To explore and expand our yoga practice
To establish a community of competent, loving, hot yoga leaders
To experience our own mastery
To express the higher Self”
~e84 Mission Statement
Esak was born and reared in Boulder, Colorado and as a teenager he learned the physical practice of modern yoga from his mother. She studied yoga with Islamic sufis in her early twenties, and then got into hot yoga in her forties. His primary hot yoga teachers were Bikram Choudhury and Mary Jarvis. However, his most profound yoga education comes from Dr. Carolyn “Ezeese” Fuqua, who does not practice physical yoga, rather she teaches a non-dualistic philosophy of identification with the Higher Power, which Esak consider to be the essence of true yoga. Esak began his studies with Dr. Fuqua in 2004 and remains her close student still.
Although yoga was something his mom did since before he was born, Esak became interested in yoga as a high school athlete. He used yoga to condition himself to play baseball and American football. Then, while attending University, he used yoga as a diversion from all the intellectual stimulation.
After University Esak lived in Brazil for several years and it helped him to stay injury-free as he explored martial arts. For many years yoga served to support other pursuits. Esak didn’t expect to stick with yoga as he has, but the fact is he has never been able to put it down for long. He keeps practicing because he like the way it feels.
In 2001, Esak attended Bikram’s Yoga College of India teacher training in Los Angeles, and his priorities flipped. Yoga was placed in the foreground and he became very excited about exploring the depths of the physical yoga practice. In 2005 Esak became the 1st male champion of the International Yoga Sports Federation annual competition. For those who think the idea of a yoga competition is strange, it’s similar to a gymnastics competition where each athlete does a routine and a panel of judges gives a score. Winning this event opened many doors for him. Since then he's been conducting yoga workshops, retreats, and trainings all around the world.
When he was a young child, Esak's mother collected income-based government welfare support, and then as a young adult he received an academic scholarship to attend Yale University where he studied political philosophy. Esak has lived the lifestyle of the world super-elite and he’s also blended into Brazilian favelas and lived hand-to-mouth for much of his early adulthood. Today, although he doesn’t possess wealth, Esak feels that he has access to everything.
As a teenager Esak took an interest in Buddhism, and for part of his university years he traded the college dorms for a Korean-Zen boarding house. In 2006 Esak began to study A Course In Miracles and Egyptian Mysticism. These studies have helped his to understand the Spiritual and philosophical parts of yoga. The most important undertaking of his life today is to self-apply these teachings.
Among his accomplishments, Esak was a founding board-member of USA Yoga, the creator of Jedi Fight Club, and creator of the e84 Teacher Training Diploma Program. His family has owned and operated a hot yoga studio in Boulder, Colorado since 1994. One of his favorite things in Esak's life is being the father of Osiris Garcia, who was born in 2009.
An innate calling, followed by his yoga studies and explorations, have made it clear to him that the purpose of life is to develop spiritual awareness, and not to better oneself materially. Esak doesn’t have any material goals for his life. He is on a journey of Self-revelation and discovery through yoga, relationships, reflection and inquiry. He considers it an honor and privilege to share these things in all the work he does (www.esakgarcia.com).