years later. Art career Graduating in 1964 with a degree in fine arts and design from the Philadelphia College of Art, he took a job with a textile firm. His watercolor paintings won awards at art shows including at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He created distinct textures and patterns with razor blades and eye-droppers. While still an art student, he played the flute in a "Music of India" concert at the Commercial Museum (Philadelphia Trade and Convention Center) in 1961. Yoga pioneer Desai started teaching yoga in the early 1960s in the Philadelphia area while still an art student. In 1966 during his first visit to India since coming to the US, Swami Kripalvananda gave him initiation and further instruction in kundalini yoga. Returning to the US, he left in 1966 his job to form The Yoga Society of Pennsylvania and teach yoga full-time. In 1970, he claimed to have had a Kundalini awakening experience that revealed to him that Patanjali's Yoga Sutras are a manual for the practice of Ashtanga Yoga rather than mere philosophy. Out of this experience Desai created a form of hatha yoga called Kripalu Yoga, named in honour of his guru. His Meditation in Motion approach is based on the practical application of Patanjali's Ashtanga Yoga in daily life. The system combines two traditional paths of yoga: the rigorous discipline of Ashtanga yoga with the path of initiation and surrender that is Kundalini yoga. In this system, the student begins with the practice of wilful discipline and gradually moves on to the more advanced practice of surrender to prana. To date, Desai is the founder of five yoga and health centers in the US, and co-founder of a university of Ayurvedic sciences. In 1966, the not-for-profit Yoga Society of Pennsylvania was formed, renamed in 1972 as the Kripalu Yoga Fellowship. By 1970, it had trained 44 teachers and had grown to 150 Yoga classes, attended by more than 2,500 students per week, in southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New Jersey, making it one of the largest Yoga organisations at that time. In 1972, the first Kripalu Ashram was founded in Sumneytown, PA. The 50-acre property was purchased to fulfill the growing demand among students for a yogic lifestyle experience. Desai reduced his teaching to once per week to make time for higher yoga practice. The ashram also became a program center that provided the