Joseph H Pereira

Pereira was born into a Roman Catholic family and grew up in the suburbs of Bombay, studying Sanskrit at school. He took a master's degree in philosophy and psychology at the University of Bombay and a licentiate in theology, and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest.

He began practising yoga as a boy and in 1968 met B. K. S. Iyengar, becoming his student; he is a certified teacher of Iyengar yoga. He also trained in counselling theory and practice on the Carkhuff model and at the Hazelden institute in Minnesota.

Pereira began working alongside Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in 1971. Ten years later, in 1981, he founded the Kripa Foundation with a few residents on the premises of the church at Bandra where he was parish priest.

Kripa grew into a network of rehabilitation and care centres in India, with associated centres abroad, working on chemical dependency and on HIV and AIDS. The treatment model developed at Kripa combines the twelve-step programme with yoga and meditation, and has been the subject of considerable attention outside India.

Pereira has served as national coordinator in India for the World Community for Christian Meditation and as a Class A trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous in India, and has taught yoga philosophy and psychology, including at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He is known as the singing priest for his musical background.

Pereira received the Priyadarshini National Award in 1989, the Mother Teresa Memorial National Award in 2008 and the Padma Shri from the Government of India in 2009 for social work.[2][3][4][5]