Jim Leonard was born in San Bernardino, California, on June 2, 1955. After discovering a book on yoga when he was 8, Leonard began his life-long quest for spiritual enlightenment and how to teach it to others. He spent his adolescence learning everything he could about how to permanently reach higher states of consciousness.

In 1977 he left San Bernardino for San Francisco to study Rebirthing with Leonard Orr at the Theta House. In 1979, Leonard Orr, Jim and others traveled to India looking for the most adept spiritual masters they could find. It was there that they discovered Haidakhan Babaji, who went on to have great influence on all of them, including Jim.

After returning from India with his new found discoveries, Jim made the decision to devote the rest of his life teaching Integrative Rebirthing, which he later renamed Vivation. He conducted more than 45,000 Integrative Rebirthing and Vivation sessions in 22 countries during his life. During the 1980s he conducted Integrative Rebirthing and Vivation seminars jointly with his wife, Anne Jill Leonard. They later divorced.

According to the official Vivation website, Jim's books on Vivation sold more than 250,000 copies and were translated into a dozen languages. Jim taught hundreds of people to be Vivation Professionals and founded Associated Vivation Professionals, the worldwide professional organization for Vivation.

Jim Leonard died in Tacoma, Washington, on September 23, 2008.

Jim Leonard was best known for his creation of Vivation, a type of meditation and breathwork used to resolve negative emotions and attachments. First known as Integrative Rebirthing, Vivation is a form of meditation whose primary aim is the permanent and pleasurable resolution of suppressed negative emotions. The word "Vivation" comes from the Latin word vivé (to fully embrace life).

Vivation integrates the essential principles found in yoga, breathwork, and meditation into a unified process of healing and personal transformation. It has roots in kriya yoga, Vipassan? and modern breathwork. The teaching of Vivation places strong emphasis on facilitating the emotional autonomy and self-realization of its practitioners. According to their official website, more than 100,000 people have learned the process, with hundreds of professionals teaching Vivation worldwide.