[1] Ernst Lothar Hoffmann was born in Waldheim, Germany, the son of a German father and a Bolivian mother.

[2] During his time in Italy Hoffman became familiar with the work of German life-philosopher Ludwig Klages whose biocentric metaphysics greatly fascinated him and influenced his approach to and understanding of Buddhism.

In 1930 he founded the Variyagoda Hermitage in a tea-estate in the mountains near Gampola, but he only lived there for one year with his German stepmother Anne Habermann who had come with him from Europe.

[7] The scholar Donald Lopez questions whether the 'initiations' that Govinda received are to be understood in the traditional Tibetan way of the term, i.e., as an empowerment by a Lama to carry out Tantric rituals or meditations.

Govinda himself wrote in Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism that he understood 'initiates' to mean 'individuals who, in virtue of their own sensitiveness, respond to the subtle vibrations of symbols which are presented to them either by tradition or intuition.

'[8] And in The Way of White Clouds, he wrote: "A real Guru's initiation is beyond the divisions of sects and creeds: it is the awakening to our own inner reality which, once glimpsed, determines our further course of development and our actions in life without the enforcement of outer rules.

"[9] Govinda stayed on in India, teaching German and French at Rabindranath Tagore's Visva-Bharati University in Santinekan.

In 1938, after two failed attempts and on recommendation of the prime minister of Uttar Pradesh, he managed to become a full British citizen.

In the camp Govinda stayed with the German monk Nyanaponika Thera, with whom he studied languages, and formed a close friendship that lasted till the end of his life.

[13] In 1947 he married the Parsi artist Li Gotami (original name Ratti Petit, 22 April 1906 - 18 August 1988) from Bombay, who, as a painter, had been his student at Santinekan in 1934.

Govinda and Li Gotami wore Tibetan styles robes and were initiates in the Drugpa Kagyu lineage.

[14] The couple lived in a house rented from the writer Walter Evans-Wentz at Kasar Devi, near Almora in northern India.

[15] Kasar Devi, in hippie circles known as 'Crank's Ridge', was a bohemian colony home to artists, writers and spiritual seekers such as Earl Brewster, Alfred Sorensen and John Blofeld.

Many spiritual seekers, including the Beat Poets Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, the LSD Gurus Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner, the psychiatrist R. D. Laing, and Tibetologist Robert Thurman came to visit Govinda at his ashram.

[16] From Kasar Devi, Govinda and Li Gotami undertook journeys to Tibet in the late 1940s, making a large number of paintings, drawings and photographs.

[17] While on the expedition to Tsaparang and Tholing in Western Tibet in 1948–49, sponsored by the Illustrated Weekly of India, Govinda received initiations in the Nyingma and Sakyapa lineages.

On his journeys to the West Govinda made friends with the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser, the Zen and Taoist teacher Alan Watts, the pioneer of transcendental psychotherapy Roberto Assagioli and the author Luise Rinser.