All language subtitles for True.Believers.S01E01.Empire.of.Yoga.720p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-WELP

This is the handgun that I used

when I was on guard duty
with Yogi Bhajan.

That was back in the '80s.

I also had a gallery.

I probably have the biggest
collection of Yogi Bhajans

"so-called" art, if you want to
call it that.

As you can see, there are
drawings of phalluses.

There's a woman here
in the center,

and then he's put
the word power here.

I think it's really indicative
of how abusive he was.

He's got God written here.

Kundalini yoga is notorious

for being a highly intense form
of yoga.

And for more than four decades,

it has been dominated by
the name of one man --

Yogi Bhajan.

His movement, 3HO,

the Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization,

currently has 30,000 devoted
followers worldwide.

They continue to promote
their leader's teachings.

We have to be healthy, happy,
and holy.

His healthy lifestyle,
no drugs message

made him popular amongst presidents

and people of influence.

He spoke with the pope.

This was the power of
Yogi Bhajan everywhere he went.

Not one president didn't bow
to him.

They looked like children
in front of him.

But new allegations are emerging,

revealing a dark secret inside
the organization

and pitting one generation
against the next.

I was sexually abused
by Yogi Bhajan.

He gave me a wedding ring,
said I was his youngest wife,

I was his most innocent wife,
called me the Virgin Queen.

Yogi Bhajan, I've never seen
him as an abusive person.

I don't believe the people
who make the allegations.

I wanted to speak today

because I can finally come out
of the closet, as it were.

This story's been
a long time hidden.

There are so many people
who don't believe in us

and that he did anything wrong.

I am 100% a believer
that 3HO is a cult.

I haven't been over here
in years.

There are a lot of these 3HO
people that live here,

these Yogi Bhajan followers,
in this neighborhood here.

That's Yogi Bhajan's ranch entrance

or one of the entrances.

That dome is part of
that ranch.

And Yogi Bhajan
used to lecture in there.

What is the purpose of
communication?

What is the purpose of talking?

Behind these gates hides
the 20-acre compound

where 3HO founder Yogi Bhajan

built his headquarters back
in the 1970s.

Although he died in 2004,

he is survived by 3HO

and a community that continues
to revere him.

A memorial in his honor,

erected by the governor
of New Mexico,

still stands today.

I was around Yogi Bhajan
for about 30 years.

But in recent years,

members of his inner circle
have broken ranks

to describe
the troubling events

they witnessed behind
closed doors.

I did the guard duty,

and I would take him in
the middle of the night

up to different residences,

and he would be dressed
just in his underwear

and then a shawl
he would put over him.

I started to look deeper into
what was really going on,

and I was really angry
about it.

My idea is that
I want to remove

that Yogi Bhajan Memorial
Highway sign.

Okay.

He had women around him all
the time, giving him massages,

you know, sleeping in the same
room with him.

There was no criticism of
Yogi Bhajan.

However, in the eyes of
the first wave of believers,

Yogi Bhajan can do no wrong.

I think Yogi Bhajan was
a person with great purpose.

He came to set up
a yoga program.

The kind of yoga that
Yogi Bhajan taught

is basically get high yoga.

His was doing a very stimulates
your nervous system,

like, raise your arms up
for three minutes

and do long, heavy, deep breathing.

Well, if you do that, you're
going to kind of get stoned.

Yogi Bhajan's
physical yoga practice

is rooted in spiritual teachings
taken from Sikhism.

He made tremendous contributions

to the Sikh culture,
which nobody ever heard of,

practically, outside of India
before he came here,

and to the yogi culture.

Those who came to follow
the physical and spiritual sides

of 3HO often stayed
for Yogi Bhajan himself,

who seemed equally devoted
to them.

Yogi Bhajan called me Premka.

The names had spiritual meanings.

He said it meant
"beloved of God."

I grew up in Seattle

with a lot of religion
in my family.

When I was 21,
I arrived in Los Angeles,

happy to leave my entire past
behind and start over again.

I was sort of alone in a very
big new environment.

I had learned that Yogi Bhajan
was teaching yoga classes.

I was looking for Eastern
philosophy, Eastern thought,

and I was looking for a teacher
that could tell me

what I was supposed to do.

When I came into class with
Yogi Bhajan,

it was full of this whole
entire hippie commune

that had come from New Mexico.

When Yogi Bhajan comes to
Southern California

in the late 1960s,
revolution is in the air.

Yeah, we were the free love generation.

We were looking for something

that was different than the kind
of repressed living in the '50s.

It was kind of a free love movement.

I was caught up, like everybody
else of my generation,

in the Vietnam War protest.

There was a lot of turmoil at
the time with the Vietnam War.

Draft resisters and deserters,
we were saying,

We've got to find an alternative
to the current status quo.

The '60s was an expansion of awareness.

People were hungry to find out
what makes us kinder.

There was the music,

there was the aliveness of
sexual experimentation,

there was drugs.

There was a sense of,
"What's life about?

What are we doing together?"

This thirst for change
creates a spiritual gold rush,

as gurus flood into America
from abroad

to minister the biggest
influencers of the day.

So Yogi Bhajan comes along,
along with, you know,

there were probably 20 or 30
major teachers from the East,

and they bring this kind of
cultural wisdom.

Again, this is early '70s.

We didn't have websites that
give this information

and these teachers.

We weren't inoculated against
this kind of...

someone who knew something about
life that we didn't.

I saw Yogi Bhajan standing in
the back of the room,

this tall, incredibly
good-looking man

in a bright pink turban.

All of a sudden, I saw this
purple aura around his head,

and I'd keep blinking my eyes,
and it didn't go away.

It majorly impacted me

in terms of is this
my spiritual teacher?

He just kept pulling me into
activities with him.

What was most enticing

was his interest and his
curiosity about me.

As I kept taking more and more
administrative responsibility,

he created a title of
secretary-general for me.

With Pamela's help,

3HO becomes an official
religious organization.

And as more yogis join,

Bhajan starts to issue them with
holy names and positions.

My role was Yogi Bhajan's
driver and confidant.

One day,
I went to a yoga class,

and we chant, "Ong Namo Guru Dev
Namo," to start the class.

The moment I chanted,
"Ong Namo,"

I saw the universe.

And I saw so many things
when I chanted,

and I heard, "I'm home.
I'm home. I'm home."

And I saw him, and it was like,
"Wow."

He gave me a job to write
his biography,

so he gave me a title.

He said, "Messenger From
the Guru's House,"

and the rest was on me.

He wanted people to go out
with it.

He said, "I'm not creating students.

I'm creating teachers."

Come on, come on.

People would go through these
couple of week trainings,

and then he would send them out

elsewhere in the country
and say,

"Go. Go teach Kundalini yoga
and open an ashram."

I was the head of the ashram
in Canada for 15 years.

It started with simply putting
some posters up

to teach Kundalini yoga.

People would show up for
a class, 10 or 15 people.

And then there was this urge

that we wanted to live in
the same either neighborhood

or in the same house.

And that led to,
"Let's buy a house."

So it became an ashram.

He actually had a letter go out

suggesting to people that they
put their ashrams, their houses,

in the name of
the organization.

And this would help them with
being tax exempt

on their property taxes
and stuff

because it would be
a non-profit.

And it would be held for
the future generations.

3HO was growing, growing,
growing the whole time.

It went from tens of thousands
to 50,000 to 100,000.

This explosive growth
transforms 3HO

from a small tribe
into a national movement.

The momentum brings a constant
stream of believers

into the fold.

Slowly bring your hands overhead.

Yogi Bhajan was empowering
our imaginations and saying,

"Imagine. Work towards a new tomorrow.

Work towards a healthy, happy,
holy culture."

Yogi Bhajan taught us to get up
at 4:00 in the morning,

to be vegetarian,
no alcohol, no drugs,

keep ourselves chaste.

He had a thousand things to do
about everything

how to sleep, what direction,

what clothes to wear,

if you wear your hair up
in a rishi knot,

it's good for your
electromagnetic field

in order to become better.

80% of the marriages
were arranged.

There would be a course,

and he would line up all
the unmarried men on one wall

and all the unmarried women
on the other,

and they just matched them up,
and said, "You marry you."

From the marriages arranged by
Yogi Bhajan,

children started being born
into 3HO.

The first generation chose to
become part of 3HO

and told the second generation,
"This is what you have to do."

And the second generation
had no choice...

unless we were going to
run away.

Right? But we had no choice.

I have no complaints

because he made us hippies
into something different.

We lived a pretty clean lifestyle.

We lived together.
We raised our kids together.

It was exactly what it said --
healthy, happy, and holy.

And that's why it was very
difficult to leave.

I remember that there was
a point when he said to me,

"Premka,
your faith must be so perfect

that if I ask you to kill
someone, you will just do it."

Now, here is the entrance,
Guru Ram Das Estates.

This is where he lived for five
years of his life.

He lived...

in that room at the end.

He slept in here.

He had one attendant every night
to attend him.

He got animals and put them on
the property

to make it for children,

just to be like a place
that's natural,

not just a cold American house
in a suburban division.

This was all for us,
for the future.

By 1984, summer solstice celebrations

at Ram Das Puri ranch
in New Mexico are in full swing.

It's been 14 years since
Yogi Bhajan

first arrived in the US,

and 3HO is now running more than
100 ashrams worldwide.

But as his influence grows,

so does the need for money
to sustain the ashrams

and their recruitment drive.

We were organized
in a certain way

where we could create businesses
very quickly,

and the other ashrams
around the world,

because they had that kind of --
you could call it worker bee,

but it's a happy worker bee.

But it wasn't mindless.

We started a lot of
yoga centers,

Toronto's first real
health food store.

Some of the products are
nationally known, Yogi Tea.

You've probably seen it. Have
you seen it before, Yogi Tea?

- Yeah, I think I have, yeah.
- That's good. They call it Yogi.

That's their main income
producer now.

Yogi Tea was small.

All of a sudden, these big
health food stores came,

and Yogi Tea became
the number one herbal tea

in the United States
in three years,

so all of a sudden, we're doing
a billion dollars,

$1.2 billion of business
a year.

That was us.
That was the people.

That was the entrepreneurial
spirit of all of us.

Of all the businesses
that came out of it,

the big one was Akal Security.

The security firm that 3HO
starts is very lucrative.

The US government pays them to
defend federal courthouses,

embassies, and immigration
detention centers.

This was all Akal Security.

They had a billion dollars in
contracts all over the world.

He had so many cars.

These are limousines,
cars that he bought.

When he would meet the president
of the United States,

dignitaries,
he went in a limousine.

Yogi Bhajan was fascinated
with wealth.

He traveled, and there was
always personal luxury around.

Most of us were hippies.

We loved simplicity.

We worked long hours and made
very little money.

He called it a spiritual mafia.

We were always donating money
to him,

so he was receiving a tremendous
amount of funds

for the yoga that he taught,
personal donations.

This property, he had people
who were devoted

and took a piece of land that
had nothing on it

and did this with people who
made minimum wage for 40 years.

All of his subjects essentially
were poor.

I'd say about 90%.

And then there was this 10%,

and then there was that upper
echelon of the 3%.

I mean, it's just the rich
and the poor, for sure.

I was really little, 1 or 2.
My parents were very poor.

There was never enough food.

Literally, my shoes were
flip-flops.

My mom held several jobs

just to make ends meet.

While 3HO parents
are working around the clock

to barely scrape by,

Yogi Bhajan has plans
for their children.

Do me a favor.

Tell everybody,

life comes once

and chance to get educated
comes once,

but dying to just learn to
become educated

is not enough.

But to become learned

and to live learned

is one chance in whole life.

Yogi Bhajan wanted to establish
a school in India

where people could send
their children.

He thought it d be better for
the children to be there.

There was the idea that this
would make them strong,

it would serve them.

Here I am, I'm this kid,
right?

I'm living in these squalor situations.

So when India came up to me,
I'm thinking in my mind,

like, it's "Aladdin"
from Disney.

I'm going to go to India.
This is going to be great.

India was this mystical land,

and it was the land of
the gurus,

it was the land of the Sikhs.

It was somewhere that
I dreamed of being.

We were told that we were
these old souls,

we were in charge of
our own destiny,

and that our generation
was the ones that were going to

be these leaders.

And Yogi Bhajan was going to be
the physical person on Earth

that would guide me
in my spiritual life.

And I was 8 years old.

When I got to the school,

that's when the reality hit
that I am not safe.

People had so much trust.

Looking back on it,
what were we thinking?

This is like the neighborhood
that I grew up in.

Everybody in the neighborhood
were from the 3HO community,

and there's a lot of dark stuff
in the story of the community.

But as far as, like,
an upbringing,

I really do value a lot of
what I grew up with.

Just -- it's really awful

that it was...

it was all being run by
this total sociopath.

Everything in that community

absolutely went through
the lens of,

"Well, you know what Yogi Bhajan
said about that."

It was really inescapable.

True believers of Yogi Bhajan

really believed that sending

your kids to the schools
in India

was the absolute best thing
that you could do for them,

and why would you go
against that?

In the 1980s and '90s,
at the peak of its powers,

3HO is running four boarding
schools across India,

aiming to indoctrinate
a new generation.

Children as young as 2 are
separated from their parents

and flown to India.

Some remain there for a decade,

immersed in a curriculum that
prioritizes Bhajan's teachings

over math and reading.

Every day, you re going to be
doing Kundalini yoga

and meditation and be learning
Yogi Bhajan's teachings.

True believers of Yogi Bhajan

were sent to the school to
administer the school.

When I was there,

it was very military-style,
extremely rigid.

There was an extreme devotion to
Yogi Bhajan

as a sort of superman
of some kind.

It wasn't even human.

He was basically God.

I was 6, 7, and 8
at the time.

We always had to work hard,

we always had to go clean,

and we were always put in very
tough physical situations,

I felt.

And if we complained,
we were weak,

we were the "problem" child,

so you just learned to keep
your mouth shut all the time.

It was a battle of survival.

We were in a constant risk of

corporal punishment from
the teachers,

and it was a brutal,
brutal place.

I was beaten by teachers,
and there was a time where

the girls in our dorm were caned
every single morning.

My parents couldn't afford to
bring me home.

So, I went over at 8.

I didn't see my parents
until I was 11.

One of the things that was
really hard for me to admit to

was how I tried to commit
suicide twice...

because I felt alone,

and I didn't have parents to
mediate or hug me

or make sure I was okay.

And so I felt like, you know,

I have to get their attention by
ending my life.

He had thousands and thousands
of people trusting him.

Oh, yeah, you all start sending
your kids to India.

These kids will be enlightened.
It will be wonderful.

All bullshit.

It was power.

I sent my son away
when he was 2

at the bequest of Yogi Bhajan.

We went to pick him up.

Because of that time period,
he didn't recognize us.

Pure, pure child abuse.

Sending my kids to India...

that's a rough one.

And I'm working on it.

I'm working on it.

There was tremendous
social pressure.

People were sort of
looked down upon

who didn't send their kids to
the boarding schools

as lacking a certain amount of
faith in the program.

I do think that
the schools were created

to make willing servants

out of the children of
the people of this community.

The parents could work harder
for the businesses,

work harder
for the non-profits,

just be more in the hands of
the guru.

He was the final say
on everything,

and he wanted it to stay
that way.

We all bought into a philosophy

that really sort of diminished
the importance of familial bonds

and made it kind of more easy
and acceptable

to send your kid all the way
around the world

to a crappy institution.

And it's something
I've been dealing with

for my whole life, I think,
because of that.

Yogi Bhajan separated children
from their parents,

really so that we'd be reliant
on the religion.

But what I think his ultimate
goal was that

we were reliant on him
telling us what to do.

We were being groomed to obey
everything he said.

So off we went to

whichever place
he told us to go to.

When some of these kids
came back,

there wasn't the encouragement
to go to college,

particularly some of
the young women.

They were encouraged
to join his staff.

In March of 1991,
when I was 16,

I got back from India,

and then one of the staff
members called my parents

and said that he wanted me to
come out to New Mexico

and be with him.

Right around my 18th birthday,
I was applying to colleges.

I was told, "Yogi Bhajan wants
you to put off college

for a year
and work at the Secretariat."

And of course, this was
considered an honor.

I absolutely did not
want to do it.

I wanted to go to college,

but I did it because my parents
thought this was a great idea,

and if you decided you didn't
want to be with him,

Yogi Bhajan, or part of
whatever he told you to do,

you were excommunicated, essentially,

even if you kept
your turban on.

I was around a lot of
the secretaries.

There was just this gaggle of
women around Yogi Bhajan

all the time.

They seemed like
so happy to be around him

and do whatever he wanted.

He created his whole circle of
staff members

that could go on different trips
with him.

We had to just serve him,
be with him,

practice perfect surrender,

and give up any autonomy.

I began to take care of him
at night

physically, you know,
massaging him.

If you were being his attendant
for nighttime duty,

you did not get much sleep.

I was being taught how to take
care of him at night.

I was absolutely being groomed
to be one of his concubines,

100%.

He did.

Every summer, women from
the 3HO community

gather in New Mexico for
Yogi Bhajan's summer camp.

The intention of the camp,
he says,

is to provide them with purity
of thought.

Charming, sexy.
Look at them. Seduce them.

We were sent to a camp every
summer for about six weeks,

where he would try to give us

lectures on how to be a good
wife or a good woman.

Our only worth was either
a happy husband or a happy yogi,

but essentially it was six weeks
of berating

and making sure those women
were subservient.

Yogi Bhajan's abuse towards me

started as soon as I was around
him and his entourage.

It turns out the secretaries
are really...

just a harem of women
at his disposal

to either groom girls for him

or be part of his bed.

Really, night duty
and cleaning his house,

those were all things to get you
ready to be in his bedroom.

For a number of years,
he was claiming celibacy.

He didn't initiate
sexual contact with me

for a few months.

And by the time he did,

I had hunkered down
into the programming,

and it was okay because
he was the teacher

and he was the one
determining my life.

But I learned that
he had named me publicly

in a way I did not
ever know about.

Premka, it's a name that
actually any Punjabi would know

meant like a mistress.

He claimed to have an exclusive
relationship with me

for eight years
out of my 16 years,

until I found out he was having

sexual relations with
other women at the time.

From the standpoint
of the power dynamic,

anyone that he was with
was rape.

Nobody feels they have much
choice in the situation.

You know,
he's the one in control.

Rape can't happen unless
a woman invites it.

There is no way that a woman
can be raped.

I mean, what an absurdity.

Anyway,
how do I feel about that?

I feel like he was covering himself.

I was cleaning the house
and he said,

"Turn around for me,"

which I have subsequently learned

was a common thing
he did with people.

And he touched my boobs, like,
very --

as I finished turning around.

I remember, it was almost like
sizing me up.

And then he said,
"You're turning out nicely."

You know, like I'm getting ready
for him, essentially.

I was doing dishes, and he came
up from behind me,

and he grabbed my chest,
and he just kind of said,

"I'm just telling you
to stand up straight

and have a good posture."

And he put his hands on my
chest, and he said,

"Be proud of these."

He gave me a wedding ring,

called me his wife, said I was
his youngest wife,

I was his most innocent wife,
I was his virgin wife,

called me the Virgin Queen.

Called me the Virgin Queen.

And he starts yelling at me
about not being a virgin.

I essentially think he wanted to
make sure I was a virgin

so he could break me.

He would force me to come watch
pornography with him.

He then said to me the next time
he saw me,

"Come get in bed with me."

And he didn't stop asking me.

And he changed it into,

"You need to learn how to kiss.
Come make out with me."

And I just got more and more
aware of

that I was in danger.

I was freaked.

And I just wanted to
get out of there.

There was no one else there.
I was so scared.

The adrenaline was rushing,
and I walked to that door,

and I was like,
"I'm never going back."

I think that if I had stayed,

the abuse would have
never ended.

I'm not turning around. I am
not going to give him a kiss.

I am not going to get into bed.

Looked at that door, and I was
just in my mind thinking,

"I need to get out of here."

Walked over to the bed,
and he reached for me,

and my whole body just froze.

My hands were shaking.

I think he might have seen that
I was crying.

And then he just brought my face
close to him

and kissed me on my forehead.

And I walked out of that room,

and I felt, "I will not tell
anyone this,"

because I didn't want to hurt
the community.

And I thought that I was
the only one,

and I thought it was worth
holding it in

so that no one else
would hate him.

Silently, many women in 3HO

are suffering grievous abuse
behind the scenes.

Meanwhile, their venerated guru
was meeting Pope John Paul II

to discuss world unity.

The '90s are jet-set years
for Yogi Bhajan.

When he's not entertaining
dignitaries in his ashram,

he's advising governors

and meeting with the rich
and powerful.

As the noise around 3HO grows,

so do its finances.

And Yogi Bhajan wants it all.

People would open a business,

and as soon as the business was
halfway successful,

he would sweep in,

send some of his secretaries
from the accounting department,

and say, "Oh, we can just take
that now."

And he would do the same thing
with the properties.

In the late '80s and '90s,

he began to come in and take
those properties.

And as far as I know, the equity
went in his pocket.

I think a lot of the money went
towards buying extravagant gifts

for Yogi Bhajan.

I remember giving him envelopes
full of cash.

He would take it,
and then he would say,

"Oh, put it by my altar,"

and he'd pretend that he was
meditating on it.

The scale of Yogi Bhajan's
corruption

in some way matches
the scale of

how big the organization grew.

The depth of corruption was on
so many different levels.

Yogi Bhajan
was a huge swindler,

amassed huge amounts of money,

and he also was actually
a rapist.

The amount of abuse
that he was carrying on.

There are so many people who'd
set up a lot of this abuse

in motion.

I never warned anybody about
what happened.

I knew I wouldn't be believed.
Things never changed.

After 16 years,
I chose to leave.

Literally, I'm sure
there's at least 100 women

that he assaulted.

There are many
who will never speak up

because he kept it covered,

and people were terrified.

If you listen to any negativity
about the teacher,

it will pollute
your spiritual destiny,

and you will fall.

You will fall from grace.
You will fall.

Whenever allegations emerged
about his behavior,

Yogi Bhajan returned fire.

And to this day, he has many who
are prepared to defend him,

even in the face
of overwhelming evidence.

I was raped. I was this.
I was that.

Wow. I don't believe it.

They're barking dogs.
They're barking at the master.

Instead of going on
with their life,

they need to slander him.

When you see them
on this thing,

look at their faces.

See if you think they're lying.

I've looked.
I have my conclusion.

He was celibate.
He had diabetes.

It wasn't possible.

And they imagined it.

Read his lectures, watch his
tapes, research it.

What can I tell you?

You can believe me,
not believe me.

This isn't a cult.

In 2004, after a long battle
with diabetes and heart disease,

Yogi Bhajan dies at his home
in Española at the age of 75.

Honoring the life
and contributions

of Yogi Bhajan,
a leader of Sikhs,

and expressing condolences
to the Sikh community

on his passing.

Congress hails him as
the king of spirituality.

And recognize his legendary
compassion, wisdom,

kindness, and courage.

But to many, his death means
he'll never face justice.

The amount of women
that he did this to

and the level of abuse.

He sent us to the schools.
He sent us to the camps.

We were told to call him
our grandfather.

And the fact that we were just
sexual beings for his taking

is so infuriating and so hard,

and it's like, I'm furious,
I'm hurt.

This is not the way a Sikh
should behave.

In the Kundalini yoga world,
there has been an upheaval.

I have been rocked to my core.

How do we move forward with all
these allegations?

It is only 15 years after
the death of Yogi Bhajan

that the allegations against him
finally gain traction.

Because of her memoir claiming
sexual abuse.

"My Life with Yogi Bhajan" by
Pamela Saharah Dyson.

I needed to tell my story

to help liberate so many of
the women who were abused by him

and who never spoke until
my book came out.

Pamela Dyson's memoir

exposes the abuse she suffered
at the hands of Yogi Bhajan.

Its release prompts many more
victims to come forward.

This is the first time I'm
speaking out on a public level.

We're all talking about it.

For the first time in my life
after 30 years, I'm believed.

With 3HO's secrets now
in the spotlight,

an independent investigation
launched by 3HO

reveals that at least 25
allegations of sexual abuse

are most likely true.

But Yogi Bhajan's most ardent
followers remain unconvinced,

opening a rift
among the believers.

He didn't like this kind of
nonsense, kind of abuse.

He didn't tolerate it.

And now that people are whining
and crying

and trying to make a case that
he was an abuser,

it's a gross misrepresentation,
by my view.

The side of Yogi Bhajan

that was so charismatic
and embraced us

felt very, very real.

And those people who are still
believing in that,

it's all they know.

They can't understand this other
aspect of him.

Pamela Dyson, you know,
I'm aware of her allegations.

She did an excellent slander campaign,

but it's not truthful

and has no basis in fact,
as far as I can tell.

It's been a little bit hard
for me

because while I'm so grateful
that the book came out,

if it had just been Pamela and
nobody else had said anything,

nothing would have changed

because she had no credibility
in that community.

Nobody believed her.

Her role...

to me, was setting up a lot of
the infrastructures

of what 3HO is now.

I am 100% a believer that
3HO is a cult.

Yes, I do.

However, I was as gullible

and manipulated as everyone.

And I know that's hard for some
people to see because,

especially, I think,

from the eyes of the second generation,

who would see me as Premka
the secretary-general,

and that was an illusion.

He would tell me that
I had no other destiny,

kept me locked,

not looking for or hoping
for anything else.

I didn't ever expect that
I would become pregnant.

I just thought that he could
control that.

A lot of the belief
that we held,

I thought that
he had superior capacity,

and he immediately
just brushed it off,

"Don't worry,
I'll take care of it.

We'll have it cleaned out,"
was his terminology,

when we get to India.

The abortion was performed in
a small, little clinic,

hole-in-the-wall place,

which nearly killed me.

I made a really
difficult choice

to leave all of the friends, all
of the family that I had in 3HO.

I'd like to reconciliate
with the people,

and I'm definitely open to
working with them

and staying here.

I do think there are healthy
things about 3HO,

and that's living a clean lifestyle.

I really do believe that.

Exercise, in terms of yoga
or whatever it is,

and being clear in your mind
in meditation.

I don't think you can have
true happiness

if you can't make your
own choices.

However, I always felt an urge
to still do yoga and meditation,

albeit not Kundalini,

and I still find myself reaching
out to people I grew up with.

I don't think it ends with him
just because he's dead.

The structure is what compels
the behavior

and keeps it cycling on
through time,

and that continued on
after him.

In the long run, I don't think
3HO as an organization

will survive
unless they're truthful.

They have to start reporting
sexual abusers,

not hiding things.

They have to actually be honest
with themselves

and not hold any person up
on a pedestal ever again.

There's been many, many
accounts of the sexual abuse by

Yogi Bhajan.

If I had known, boy,
I would have...

I probably would have shot
Yogi Bhajan,

to be honest with you.

This is the original
Kundalini yoga asana manual.

I practice this one meditation.

You're supposed to be able to
see auras

when you practiced it,
he said for 40 days.

But I never was able to see auras.

And I don't really think that it
increased my aura, either.