Bikram Choudhury is an Indian-American yoga guru, and the founder of Bikram Yoga, a form of hot yoga consisting of a fixed series of 26 postures practised in a hot environment of 40 °C (104 °F). The business became a success in the United States and then across the Western world, with a variety of celebrity pupils. His former wife Rajashree Choudhury assisted him in the yoga business.
At a book signing in New York in 2007
Choudhury assisting a pupil in Paschimottanasana in his own style
Modern yoga gurus are people widely acknowledged to be gurus of modern yoga in any of its forms, whether religious or not. The role implies being well-known and having a large following; in contrast to the old guru-shishya tradition, the modern guru-follower relationship is not secretive, not exclusive, and does not necessarily involve a tradition. Many such gurus, but not all, teach a form of yoga as exercise; others teach forms which are more devotional or meditational; many teach a combination. Some have been affected by scandals of various kinds.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi introduced The Beatles, and the West, to gurus, mantras, and meditation in the late 1960s.
The guru–shishya tradition involved a long-term, one-to-one relationship between master and pupil. Watercolour, Punjab Hills, India, 1740
Yogendra, an acknowledged pioneer of modern yoga, rejected the traditional guru role in favour of something more modern.
