Meditation Gurus & Teachers

Paramahansa Yogananda - born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, into a devout and well-to-do Bengali family. At the age of 17, he met and became a disciple of the revered Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. He spent some 10 years under the Swami’s guidance.  In 1915 he graduated from Calcutta University and then took formal vows as a monk of India's monastic Swami Order. In 1917, he founded a "how-to-live" school for boys, where modern educational methods were combined with yoga training and instruction in spiritual ideals.

Yogananda lectured and taught throughout the USA and in 1925 established an international headquarters for the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles. In 1935, he began an 18-month tour of Europe and India; it was during this year that his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, bestowed on him India's highest spiritual title, Paramahansa, meaning ‘supreme swan’ (a symbol of spiritual discrimination), the title signifies one who manifests the supreme state of unbroken communion with God.

To read more about Paramahansa Yogananda’s visit the Self Realization site.

Gautama Buddha (563 BC - 483 BC approximately) - born Siddhartha Gautama. He was a spiritual teacher in the north eastern region of the Indian sub-continent and is the key figure in Buddhism. Gautama is regarded, by most Buddhist traditions, as the Supreme Buddha of our age.

Deepak Chopra, M.D. and Co-founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing (Source: www.chopra.com)

Deepak Chopra is a world-renowned authority in the field of mind-body healing, a best-selling author, and the founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing. Heralded by Time Magazine as the "poet-prophet of alternative medicine," he is also the host of the popular weekly Wellness Radio program on Sirius/XM Stars.   

A global force in the field of human empowerment, Dr. Chopra is the prolific author of more than fifty-five books, including fourteen bestsellers on mind-body health, quantum mechanics, spirituality, and peace. Dr. Chopra's books have been published in more than eighty-five languages. His New York Times bestseller Peace Is the Way won a prestigious Quill Award, and The Book of Secrets was awarded the grand prize at the 2005 Nautilus Book Awards; his bestselling novel, Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment, was released in 2008. He is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post On Faith and contributes regularly to Intent.com and the Huffington Post. Other notable books include: BUDDHA, A Story of Enlightenment, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success; Quantum Healing; Ageless Body, Timeless Mind; The Path to Love and Life After Death: The Burden of Proof 

Dr. Chopra is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, an adjunct professor at Kellogg School of Management, and a senior scientist with the Gallup Organization. 

Before establishing the Chopra Center, he served as chief of staff at Boston Regional Medical Center. He received his medical degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and did his internship at Muhlenberg Hospital in Plainfield, New Jersey. He then completed various residencies and fellowships at university-affiliated medical centers in Boston. 

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1918 - 2008) introduced Transcendental Meditation (also known as TM) to the western world in 1958. He also founded schools and universities with campuses in several countries including India, the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom and China.  Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's became widely known in the west due to his association with celebrities, and in particular, The Beatles. His first world tour started in 1958, from which time his techniques and programs have been taught worldwide.  

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944- ) is Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University Of Massachusetts Medical School. He teaches mindfulness meditation as a technique to help people cope with stress, anxiety, pain and illness. 

Kabat-Zinn is the author or co-author of scientific papers on mindfulness and its clinical applications. He has written two bestselling books: Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, and Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. He co-authored with Myla Kabat-Zinn ‘Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting’. Other books include Coming to Our Senses (Hyperion, 2005) and ‘The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness’, co-authored with J. Mark G. Williams, John D. Teasdale and Zindel V. Segal. 

He is a board member of the ‘Mind and Life Institute,’ a group that organizes dialogues between the Dalai Lama and Western scientists to promote deeper understanding of different ways of knowing and probing the nature of mind, emotions, and reality. 

(Sources: Wikipedia and UMass Medical School -  Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society) 

Yogi Bhajan (From http://www.yogibhajan.com/)Yogi Bhajan, was a Master of Kundalini Yoga by the age of 16 and gave his first lecture at a Los Angeles high school gym on January 5, 1969. It was empty but he continued with his talk knowing that the future would be different.

Born Harbhajan Singh, in what is now Pakistan, to a family of healers and community leaders, Yogi Bhajan studied comparative religion and Vedic philosophy in his undergraduate years, going onto receive his Masters in Economics with honors from Punjab University. Years later, he earned his Ph.D. in communications psychology from the University of Humanistic Studies in San Francisco.

He emerged as a religious, community and business leader with a distinguished reputation as a man of peace, world-vision, wisdom, and compassion. He has authored and published more than 30 books on topics ranging from spirituality and consciousness to communication and psychology. He has founded several foods companies that manufacture and distribute natural products based on these teachings.

He has fostered economic development in every community in which he participates, annually conducts business seminars, and has authored several books that provide guidance to both the aspiring entrepreneur and seasoned business executive alike. As the Siri Singh Sahib, or the Sikh leader in the Western Hemisphere, he has met with Pope John Paul II to discuss inter-religious dialogue and worked side-by-side with the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop of Canterbury to foster world peace.