BIKRAM the MAN & OUR LINEAGE

Bikram the method was invented more than 30 years ago by "Bengali-born" Bikram Choudhury.

Bikram Choudhury accomplished student of Shree Bishnu Charan Ghosh, was born in 1924 and began his training at age 3 at Ghosh’s College of Physical Education in Calcutta. At 12, he was the youngest to ever win the Indian nation yoga competition. When he did it three years in a row, Swami Sivananda declared him “Yogi Raj” or king of the yogis and “the best yogi of the 20th century.” Under Ghosh’s tutelage Bikram also became a top cyclist, marathon runner and champion weightlifter. At age 20, a weightlifting accident crushed his knee. Bikram returned to a strict regimen of yoga and was healed. In the late 1960’s Gosh sent Bikram to Japan to establish a school to be called the Yoga College of India and teach their method of yoga (which had healed his knee). It was here that the concept of a heated room was introduced to stimulate conditions in Calcutta. In the early 70’s he established a school is San Francisco, before moving to Los Angeles to be near the headquarters of Yoganada, his brother’s teacher.

Beverly Hills in 1973 was quite a culture shock to the naďve 27 year old Bikram. However, it did not take long from him to adapt and even embrace the Beverly Hills lifestyle. He quickly became one of the foremost yoga teachers in the West and known as guru to the stars. Bikram has helped thousands of students from his school in LA and also travels extensively, bringing the benefits of Bikram’s Yoga to millions of students worldwide. To further his guru’s request of spreading their brand of yoga to throughout the world, Bikram began teaching others to teach his brand of yoga in 1994. There are now Yoga College’s of India in all over of the globe.

Shree Bishnu Charan Ghosh (1902-1970), Bikram’s teacher, was trained at the Ranchi School for Boys founded in 1917 by his older brother Paramhansa Yogananda, who later also founded the Self-Realization Fellowship. Bishnu became a physical culturist and worked with Swami Sivananda Saraswati to develop a system of hatha yoga asanas for health and fitness, based on the original classic 84 postures. He established Ghosh’s College of Physical Education in 1924.

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) founded the first “yogoda” (a hatha-raja yoga school) in Ranchi, Bihar India in 1917. Today, there are many schools of yogoda throughout India that provide training in physical, moral, mental, and spiritual ideals for youth. Yogananda was a pioneer, sent to America to 1920 by his teacher, to introduce kryia yoga. He is the founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship and his book, Autobiography of a Yogi, continues to inspire millions of people around the world.