Sahaja Yoga (Nirmala Srivastava / Shri Mataji)

Nirmala Salve Srivastava (1923–2011) — known to followers as Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi — founded Sahaja Yoga in Nargol, India in May 1970, claiming to have spontaneously discovered a method by which the kundalini could be awakened en masse for free, and identifying herself as the incarnation of the Adi-Shakti (the primordial divine feminine). The movement spread internationally from the late 1970s and now operates collective-meditation networks in 80+ countries plus the international headquarters at the Cabella Ligure villa (Italy). Substantial controversies have centred on the Sahaja Yoga International School established at Dharamsala (India) and later Cabella, where ex-students and parents have publicly described long parent-child separation, restrictive marriage arrangement (the famous mass weddings personally arranged by Shri Mataji), restricted secular curriculum, and pressure to surrender personal property to the movement. Judith Coney's 'Sahaja Yoga: Socializing Processes in a South Asian New Religious Movement' (Curzon Press, 1999) is the standard ethnographic study. After Shri Mataji's death in February 2011, succession disputes between the Vishwa Nirmala Dharm trustees and members of her family (including son-in-law Romesh Saini) have resulted in multiple national-court cases over property and trademark control through the 2010s.