Why this year’s summer solstice matters so much for a new religious movement mired in controversy

Throngs of people, most wearing white clothing and many adorned in traditional Sikh attire, gathered in the Jemez mountains of New Mexico in June 2019. The occasion was the summer solstice. Those who came to celebrate were part of a community started in the U.S. in 1969 by an Indian Sikh man named Harbhajan Singh Puri, who later became known as Yogi Bhajan or Siri Singh Sahib. Puri was a Punjabi Sikh who had worked as a customs agent in India before moving to Canada and then to the U.S. He gained a following while teaching yoga in the U.S.