Most important results of the practice of yoga appear in the behavior of the practitioner, claims Sudhir Tiwari, who teaches yoga even in Finland.
The son of the master of Pranayama returned from the business world to the tradition.
It is due to the Pranayama, or at least yoga teacher Sudhir Tiwari believes so. Mr. Tiwari, who is a resident in Canada used to work for an American health product corporation GNC as a sales director in Toronto. He was a superior for some 200 employees. Mr Tiwari was faced with strict deadlines, stress and competition. However, he remained calm. Did not to react from anxiety. Made sure that the people who worked for him were fine and that it was pleasant for them to work for the Company.
Similarly, some months ago he overslept in his Stop over hotel in Taiwan on his way to China. An important flight had just departed. He did not panic but instead started to look for a new flight. ”Without Pranayama, I think I would have run around pointlessly. Now, however, the situation was under control. I did not panic”.
Pranayama calms down the impulses of fear. Many things happen but with the help of pranayama they stay better under control. if not, you have to modify your practice.
Sudhir Tiwari teaches all over the world, also in Finland. he took over the task from his father, a famous Pranayama master Om Prakash Tiwari, 85, in 2012.
The spiritual home of both gentlemen is in western India, in the Kaivalyadham Yoga institution. There he became a yoga teacher in 1981. However, he still considers himself to be a student of Yoga. “I travel around the world delivering what I have learned”. I convey the teachings of my father and my teacher. Somebody can call it teaching, he says.
His message is undiluted yoga. Pure and traditional yoga. It means multi dimensional practice which contains also other practices in addition to physical asana practices such as Pranayama, mantra and meditation. It emphasizes inner experience instead of form or visual outer excellence. Also Yama and Niyama are very important.
According to Mr. Tiwari some students measure the success and progress of their practice referring to mystical and esoteric experiences such as to arousal of Kundalini energy. According to him most important results can be seen in the behavior of a practitioner. How is the practitioner connecting with other people? Is he easily getting upset? Is his furious easily? Provided that the Practice is working, these things will be overcome first. Yoga restores one’s personality allowing the student of yoga to handle better his or her emotional reactions, Tiwari argues. Given that one has practiced for years but he still has desire enlightenment and kundalini energy and at the same time he becomes angry, runs around pointlessly and is jealous etc., the practice has not been yoga but something that appears similar to yoga.
The Canadian understands that people are after and are looking for some special experiences. We seek for everlasting happiness in the world which is for ever changing, he formulates. We can experience some happiness when we calm down. We become peaceful when our emotional impulses are under control. Yoga is helping us in that respect.
Growing with yoga
Sudhir Tiwari was born with yoga and pranayama. His father was working as a secretary for Kaivalyadhama health and yoga Institute where the family was resident permanently. It has been the goal of the Institute established by yoga guru Swami Kuvalayananda (1883-1966) to connect traditional, classical Yoga with the modern science by way of example through the means of scientific investigation. More over the institution offers courses in yoga.
When Sudhir was young, he was running around in the courtyards of the Institute doing asanas with others, following the lectures on the back row, reading books in the library and copying his father’s pranayama techniques.
For me those places were home. I went always to places where something was happening. I grew up without knowing that it was yoga. I thought, that is how the life is.
Tiwari started his asana practice at the age of 12 and his Pranayama practice a year later. My teacher was the director of the Institute, Swami Digambarji, who also took me to the Indian medical tradition, namely to Ayurveda. When Tiwari later on studied engineering sciences in the University of Bangalore, he was teaching yoga in the filial of the Institute on a weekly basis. He moved, in late 80s, first to United States and later on to Canada. He graduated from an international Business school and got married with an Indian lady. The couple have two children.
The life brought him back to yoga
The life of Sudhir Tiwari was changed in 2010 when he terminated his employment contract with a vitamin and food supplement Corporation GNC. The company was turned around and he was seeking for new challenges. Tiwari was employed as a vice president in the health Corporation called Divine Wellness and selling online yoga lessons. He was responsible for international affairs of the Company and was teaching its yoga teachers.
It was challenging because it required constant traveling to India. Tiwari terminated the employment after one year. When my father learned that I had terminated my employment contract, he asked me to become his successor. I did not hesitate. “My latest job had already brought me from the corporate world back to yoga although it, too, was a corporation”.
Today Tiwari is teaching abroad about 1/2 of the year. Constant adjusting to time zones felt hard at the beginning. For example, the time difference between Toronto and Beijing is 12 hours. While traveling he often wakes up during the night.
It was due to the jet lag that caused him to sleep over in Taiwan, too.
The job is so rewarding, that he finally agreed to accept it as a whole. I concluded that I can either complain about traveling or I can learn to live with it. When I accepted it, It didn’t bother me anymore. I love what I do and I don’t see this as a job.
People are alike everywhere
In Finland Tiwari has been teaching pranayama since 2013. The workshop arranged by an Ayerveda consultant Lana Lavaninan takes place normally during the January month.
In Europe the workshops contain more practical training compared to, for example, to the workshops in Asia. they request for more theory and long days.
In the beginning students are often reserved and observe each other, Tiwari explains. Once they open up, they are alike everywhere, something which he finds inspiring.
There is, however, one thing that is surprising to him: the students are joking with one another before the class begins but become very serious ones it has started. Why? Yoga is not serious or rigid, Tiwari points out. Tightness and too much insistence on rules are obstacles in the Practice. One has to practice honestly and with regularity but not to think that the day has been spoiled if you have to skip the practice. That is called dependency, he states. We practice in order to experience yoga not to do mechanical practice. This cannot however be an excuse to skip the practice.
Tiwari’s personal main practice consists of asana, pranayama, chanting and praying. He practices for example. Ujjayi pranayama and Anuloma Viloma or alternate nostril breeding.
At the end of his practice he is chanting Om -mantra for tens minutes. However, sometimes there is time only for praying.
I practice honestly. I practice with my heart. I am not seeking for pre-determined results. If I would be expecting certain results, I would face more difficulties in my life.
Yoga is like a funnel
For Tiwari a pure yoga means keeping things simple. Eg. for asana and pranayama there is certain protocol which secures certain results which has been validated for of thousands of years.
The Canadian compares traditional yoga with muffins: baking requires certain kind of dough and an optimal temperature and baking time. Otherwise the result is something else like cookies. Dough tolerates some individual differences like blueberries or chocolate chips.
Individual alternations to the structure of asana are ok as well, Tiwari explains. Pushing, over doing or a strong assistance, however, do not, according to him, belong to asana.
Provided that you practice yoga according to the tradition, there’s no risk of injury. In our institution thousands of people have practiced almost for the period of hundred years on daily basis and no one has ever injured himself. Tiwari wants to make clear that he doesn’t want to criticize different yoga styles. He wants to respect everything that is benefiting people in the name of yoga. This goes even to beer yoga. As long as it is not creating distraction or injury. Yoga makes things better. When the word yoga is connected to beer the whole thing then has a positive connotation. This is where the beauty of yoga exists, anything that connects to it becomes better.
The world of yoga is like a funnel
Even though the journey begins from the edges it always ends up to the middle. The sincere, honest practice of yoga always finally leads to the original source, to the core.
By Johanna Pohjola