Editing 3HO (section)

==Criticism==
Despite 3HO claiming to practice Sikh teachings and values, the organization is largely condemned by the wider [[Sikh community]], with some going as far as to refer to it as a [[cult]].<ref>{{Cite news |title=Before the sudden death of its leader, Ra Ma Yoga Institute was accused by some former members of being a cult. What happens now? |work=Insider |url=https://www.insider.com/followers-said-ra-ma-yoga-was-cult-what-happens-now-2021-10 |quote=Kundalini yoga was brought to the US in the 1960s by Yogi Bhajan, who died in 2004. It offered codes to live by, and Bhajan's followers — largely white ex-hippies — were thirsty for enlightenment. They called themselves  "American Sikhs," though the practice had nothing to do with actual Sikhism.}}</ref><ref name="time" /><ref>{{Cite magazine |title=The Second Coming of Guru Jagat |magazine=Vanity Fair |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/11/the-second-coming-of-guru-jagat}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Yogi Bhajan Turned an L.A. Yoga Studio into a Juggernaut, and Left Two Generations of Followers Reeling from Alleged Abuse |work=Los Angeles Magazine |url=https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/yogi-bhajan/ |quote=Bhajan was a controversial figure among South Asian Sikhs, who noted that he picked up some aspects of their faith while abandoning others. For one, Sikhs aren’t vegetarian, their religion does not include yoga, they do not revere living gurus. And they don’t wear white.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=How a Cult-turned-Corporation Hijacked American Sikhism |work=The Juggernaut |url=https://www.thejuggernaut.com/kundalini-yoga}}</ref>

===Condemnation by SGPC and Akal Takht===
In 1977, Gurucharan Singh Tohra, former President of the [[Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee]] (SGPC), stated that Harbhajan Singh was not the leader of Sikhism in the Western World as he claimed and denied Singh's claim that the SGPC had given him the title of Siri Singh Sahib.<ref name="time">
{{cite magazine
 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915413,00.html
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071117091436/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915413,00.html
 |url-status=dead
 |archive-date=November 17, 2007
 |title=Religion: Yogi Bhajan's Synthetic Sikhism
 |first=James|last=Wilde
 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]
 |date=5 September 1997
 |access-date=2011-01-02
}}</ref>

Sikh High Priest Jaswant Singh stated that he and his council professed to be "shocked" at Bhajan's "fantastic theories." Yoga, Tantrism, and the "sexual practices" taught by Bhajan, the council declared, are "forbidden and immoral."<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Religion: Yogi Bhajan's Synthetic Sikhism |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,915413-2,00.html |website=Time Magazine |date=5 September 1977 |quote=High Priest Jaswant Singh, a leader of the Sikhs in eastern India and comparable in status to Bhajan Backer Tohra, last week denounced Bhajan's claims. He and his council professed to be "shocked" at Bhajan's "fantastic theories." Yoga, Tantrism and the "sexual practices" taught by Bhajan, the council declared, are "forbidden and immoral."}}</ref>

===Sexual abuse allegations===
After the release of a memoir in early 2020, several victims filed a civil lawsuit in Los Angeles against 3HO. They claimed that Bhajan not only abused them but that members of 3HO were also aware of the abuse. As a result, An Olive Branch, a consultancy specializing in addressing misconduct in spiritual communities, conducted an investigation. Their conclusive report confirmed the likelihood of the allegations being true.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Inside The Dubious World Of A Cult That Turned 550-year-old Religion Into A Commodity |work=India Times |url=https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/yogi-bhajan-sexual-abuse-573603.html |quote=In light of the memoir that came out in early 2020, and after many of the victims filed a civil lawsuit in Los Angeles against 3HO, claiming that not only did Bhajan abuse them but also that members of 3HO were well aware of the abuse. Following the allegations, an investigation was opened by An Olive Branch, a consultancy that is strangely established to deal with misconduct in the spiritual community. Their final report revealed that the allegations are indeed (most likely) true.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=OIive Branch Report |url=https://epsweb.org/an-olive-branch-report/ |website=The SSSC Office of Ethics and Professional Standards}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Olive Branch Report |url=https://kundaliniresearchinstitute.org/en/timeline/report-by-an-olive-branch-issued/ |website=Kundalini Research Institute}}</ref>

In 2019, Yogi Bhajan's former secretary Pamela Saharah Dyson published the book ''Premka: White Bird in a Golden Cage: My Life with Yogi Bhajan'', reporting that she and other women had sexual relationships with Harbhajan Singh.<ref name="Dyson 2019">{{cite book | last=Dyson | first=Pamela | title=Premka: White Bird in a golden cage: my life with Yogi Bhajan | publisher=Eyes Wide Publishing | publication-place=Maui, Hawaii | year=2019 | isbn=978-0-578-62188-3 | oclc=1142816131 }}</ref>

=== Scholars' views on 3HO and Yogi Bhajan ===
Scholars including Verne A. Dusenbery and [[Pashaura Singh]] have concurred that Harbhajan Singh's introduction of Sikh teachings into the West helped identify Sikhism as a world religion while at the same time creating a compelling counter-narrative to that which identified Sikhs solely as a race with a shared history in India.<ref>Verne A. Dusenbery (1999). "'Nation' or 'World Religion'?: Master Narratives of Sikh Identity" in Sikh Identity: Continuity and Change. Pashaura Singh and N. Gerald Barrier, editors. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers. pp. 127-139; Pashaura Singh (2013). "Re-imagining Sikhi ('Sikhness') in the Twenty-first Century: Toward a Paradigm Shift in Sikh Studies" in Re-imagining South Asian Religions. Pashaura Singh and Michael Hawley, editors. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill NV. p. 43; Opinderjit Kaur Takhar (2005). Sikh Identity: An Exploration of Groups Among Sikhs. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 172-77.</ref>

Sikh historian Trilochan Singh offered a contrasting perspective in his critical work entitled "Sikhism and Tantric Yoga." "I am extremely worried about the manner in which Yogi Bhajan teaches Sikhism to American young men and women whose sincerity, nobility of purpose, and rare passion for oriental wisdom and genuine mystical experiences is unquestionably unique. I do not care what fantastic interpretations of Kundalini Yoga he gives, the like of which I have never read in any Tantra text, nor known from any living Tantric scholar. I am not prepared to take seriously his newly invented Guru Yoga in which his pious and uncritical followers must concentrate on a particular picture of Yogi Bhajan, which practice is called mental beaming."<ref>{{cite web |title=Sikhism and Tantric Yoga |url=http://www.gurmukhyoga.com/forum/index.php?mode=page&id=1 |access-date=May 26, 2020 |publisher=The Gurumukh Yoga Forum}}</ref>

Philip Deslippe, a historian of American religion, wrote a 2012 article, "From Maharaj to Mahan Tantric: The Construction of Yogi Bhajan's Kundalini Yoga", using 3HO source archive material and news articles to reveal how Harbhajan Singh recreated his own story after his first trip back to India:<ref name="Deslippe 2021">{{cite journal |last=Deslippe |first=Philip |title=From Maharaj to Mahan Tantric: The Construction of Yogi Bhajan's Kundalini Yoga |date=2012 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271568190 |journal=Sikh Formations |access-date=March 2, 2021 |doi=10.1080/17448727.2012.745303|s2cid=144988035 }}</ref>
{{blockquote|I set out to answer the question "where did Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan (KYATBYB) come from?" and not much else. I tried to support my findings with as much evidence as possible, and for that evidence to be as clear, specific, verifiable, and close to the source, such as interviews with first hand witnesses (Pamela being one of them), quotes from Yogi Bhajan, contemporary newspaper accounts, and exercises taken from manuals. I concluded that in the early years of 3HO, Yogi Bhajan was using the physical yoga of Swami [[Dhirendra Brahmachari]] and the persona and mantra of Baba Virsa Singh, and that the figure of Sant Hazara Singh only became prominent after the first trip to India in 1970-1971 when Yogi Bhajan had a falling out with Virsa Singh.|source=Philip Deslippe.<ref name="Deslippe 2021"/>}}