Swamiji Comes to Nigeria with ‘Art of Living’

Mary Ekah

Swami Shivapad, fondly known as Swamiji is in Nigeria with a mission to spread happiness and the seed of awareness to every Nigerian allowing one to tap into their inner wealth regardless of one’s status, position and power.

Swamiji’s very rare quality is his ability to interact with every age group, extracting one’s attributes and enabling them to blossom to their unrealised full potential.

“When we live every moment of our lives with awareness we do not allow the mind to reminisce about the past or dwell in the future. These are spheres of regret, anger, uncertainty and fear and the beauty, depth and the possibilities of the present dawns in you. The unbounded potential within you finds a means to express itself in the present. To experience this though one needs to dive deep within.

“Thus when we live a life of awareness, every moment we are unconsciously directing our mind to change its perennial habit of either living in the past or the future”, he said recently while briefing journalist in Lagos on the purpose of his visit to Nigeria.

He explained that mastering one’s mind is cakewalk for a person living with awareness in each moment, adding, “This seed of awareness can be sown and nurtured. Your unbounded potential can be experienced. Your mind can be mastered. This is all achieved, through meditation. Creativity, clarity of mind, intuition, sharpness of intelligence, empathy, re-emergence of value systems, a win-win attitude and effective communication skills are factors that are essential for business. These traits and values surface in you as by products.”

Swamiji is a dedicated yoga and meditation teacher who has devoted his life to the upliftment and betterment of society. From a tender age, Swamiji was often found sitting alone, observing nature and introspecting into the purpose of life. Upon his first interaction with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar he chose to abandon luxury for a higher cause of serving humanity and joined the Art of Living Foundation. He obtained his Masters in English literature (M.A), and excelled in various extracurricular activities, which include cricket, archery, and target shooting and racing. Photography is one of his greatest passions to date with a keen subject interest in wild life. A very rare quality is his ability to interact with every age group, extracting one’s attributes and enabling them to blossom to their unrealized full potential.

For the last 20 years, Swamiji has been teaching various programmes from The Art of Living extensively across India through to the remote areas of the northeastern states, as well as abroad. He has reached out to thousands with his expertise in meditation, specific yoga programmes and discourses on various scriptures empowering many facets of an individual through to improved ethics and ethos in the work environment. His wealth of knowledge has transformed and enabled a diverse population that ranges from villagers, public servants, community groups, medical professionals, army personnel, war veterans, corporate and government officials.

Swamiji has taught and continues to teach the various programmes across 3,000 villages and cities across India, South East Asia and Africa. In 2004, post Kargil war, he worked with the Indian Army personnel offering stress and trauma relief programmes as well as rehabilitation programmes. Further to this various training programmes for ITBP (Indo Tibet Border Police), were conducted under undue circumstances facilitating a better working environment and improved tenet.

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