Amrita Baba

He was born and raised in Finland in a non-religious family, and describes receiving spontaneous visions from childhood. At twenty-three he left a career in music production for practice. A year later he took up Zen, sitting eight hours a day and eventually living in a Japanese temple, and became a close student of the Zen master Terayama Tanchu until the latter's death in 2007.

From Zen he moved into tantric yoga in the Hindu tradition. He counts the years from 2004 to 2011 as his retreat period and dates his first awakening into the nondual nature of mind to 2011. From around 2008 he began teaching at the urging of others, and Open Heart grew out of that.

The system is broad by design: therapeutic work with trauma alongside physical yoga, mantra, dance, singing, meditation and guru yoga, with deity practice and empowerments on top. Some of what the site says about him is his own account rather than anything an outsider can check. It calls him an enlightened master, names gurus from past lives including Jesus, Padmasambhava and Babaji, and states that twelve of his students have reached full enlightenment. Worth knowing before you decide, in either direction.