Bikram Yoga: How the yoga guru Bikram took the western world for a ride

Bikram Choudhury is an Indian-born Yoga guru and the founder of the Bikram Yoga. He is widely revered by his followers. He was born in Calcutta in British India, in 1944. Read more to know how Bikram took over the western world.

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How the yoga guru Bikram took the western world for a ride 

Yoga guru Bikram Choudhury built an empire of hundreds of studios all over the world. He taught the western world a new form of yoga he perfected, known as Hot Yoga. It is performed in a series of 26 hasta yoga postures and is done in a hot setting of near 40 degrees Celsius. Bikram started learning hasta yoga in his 20s. According to a report, he had said that he learned this form of yoga at a very young age and had won the National Yoga Championship for three consecutive years, but there are facts that suggest otherwise, as these competitions were held much later when he had left India. He began making copyright claims for his yoga postures which were indeed taken from the existing yoga gestures, a report said. But these claims were denied by the US Copyright Office.

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Choudhury had a great start and had influenced many people to blindly follow him. But shortly after that, he got entangled with multiple lawsuits of sexual harassment, assault, and racism. His lawyer, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, claimed that after working with him for two years she had seen Bikram’s immoral behaviour towards women and minorities. She was also a victim of his misconduct.

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Netflix created a documentary titled Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator which tells the story of his misuse of his position and the crimes he committed like rape, assault, and harassment of multiple women. Eva Orner directed the documentary which narrated how Bikram and his followers created a system that would hide him from the world. It was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival 2019.

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