Our History

Har Bhajan Singh was the first Kundalini Yoga teacher in South Africa. Dismayed by apartheid politics, he left in the early 80s with a ‘no return’ mindset. He sailed across to South America, worked a charter sailboat, hitchhiked, renovated and learned to bake croissants.

Drawn by spirit, he met Yogi Bhajan in LA who inspired him to return to South Africa to teach. Har Bhajan was joined by Pritam Hari Kaur who spent close on a decade in the Hamburg Guru Ram Das Ashram. Together, they built a natural foods store, Fruits & Roots, which quickly became a well-loved destination spot for health foods and vegetarian cooking, and the accompanying manufacturing brand “Earth Products”. They ran classes and Pritam started Teacher Training in 1999 which alternated between the Cape and Johannesburg.

Yoga is a love that affects one deeply, and all drawn to this art started teaching in many different settings: at retreats, in schools, hospitals, underserved areas, townships, youth homes, drug rehab centers and more. These outreaches blossomed in a multitude of ways. In 1999, the 3HO Foundation SA was established. White Tantric Yoga, a particular expertise of Yogi Bhajan with meditators sitting in rows facing each other, was hosted in South Africa four times, twice in Johannesburg and twice in Cape Town. We coordinated beautiful outdoor festivals in Magaliesberg, the SKYFEST (Spring Kundalini Yoga Festival) until 2019, eg before the lockdowns. Presently, we are putting effort into the SAKYTA, the South-African Kundalini Yoga Teachers Association, both to support teachers as well as helping teachers network.