Krishna Kaur Khalsa is a Black American teacher of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan.
Background
Khalsa was born Thelma Oliver in Los Angeles, California on May 6, 1941. Her father, Cappy Oliver played trumpet with Lionel Hampton"s band and her mother tried her hand at roller skating, wrestling, and singing before settling down to raise five children.
Education
She studied dance at a school run by Jeni Le Gon before majoring in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of California in Los Angeles University of California, Los Los Angeles
Career
Oliver dropped out of school in 1961 and went East to pursue her calling as a performer. Her off-Broadway stage debut was in The Blacks (play) by French dramatist Jean Genet, where she performed the role of Virtue along with Louis Gossett, Junior. Oliver also performed in the musicals Fly Blackbird and Cindy, and the revue The Living Premise, where in 1963 she replaced Diana Sands for two months.
Oliver also took a number of film roles beginning with a part as a "Negro woman" in the hit South Pacific (1958 film).
Her contribution to the 1961 swashbuckler Pirates of Tortuga is not credited. In Black Like Maine (film), released in 1964, Oliver played the role of Georgie.
She performed the role of "Ortiz"s girl" in Sidney Lumet"s The Pawnbroker. The cast included Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, and Morgan Freeman.
Thelma Oliver"s biggest success as a performer came when she landed the role of "Helene" in the Broadway musical Sweet Charity with Gwen Verdon.
Yogi Bhajan renamed her "Krishna Kaur" - meaning Divine Princess. In her words: "The revolution is really one of the mind. Blacks have got to realize where the power really is.
The struggle is not on a physical level
lieutenant is on the level of the mind."
Known for her musical talent, Krishna Kaur never gave up performing. In the 1970s, she toured and recorded with a group called "Sat Nam West." In 2014, she released an album, One Creator.