Nirav, also known as Thomas is the founder of Anuttara Ashram and co-founder of Anuttara Yoga. He has been working steadily, persistently and vigilantly at creating a space of peacefulness and solitude for the awakening of love in it's most practical form, in the act of giving.
Nirav is a wacky, funloving, and rather humouristic yogi-- seemingly skilled in more than just yoga, and meditation. He is known on any random day at the ashram to be teaching yoga, giving a class on the chakra-s, possibly if we're lucky making porridge, and then leading the karma yoga activities, and getting very greasy with the ashram's veggie oil run grease truck: Nancy. Along with this he is known to work on plumbing and gardening and building and collecting and splitting firewood (he is indeed a mean splitter), and well anything else you could name I suppose, that has to be done around the ashram.
He has himself been practising Yoga and Tantra since 1999. First, under the direct guidance of Swami Vivekananda Saraswati in India and Thailand with the International School of Agama Yoga. Later in 2009 he met Guruji Raj Kumar of the right handed path of traditional tantra of India with MahaTantra, and 3 months later he met with Prembaba of Brazil, under the Saccha Lineage located in Rishikesh India.
Nirava has based his study and practise of tantra yoga on an understanding of the depths of meditation, which has led him into many solitary retreats of up to 3 months into yoga practises and Buddhist meditation. Since 2002 he has been teaching in, India, Thailand, and Canada.
Yoga Classes with Nirava are unlike any other. It is apparent from the moment the class begins that he has spent a lot of time studying the countless aspects and areas of the vast topic that is yoga. While in his asana classes you feel that you are held and supported while also being gently guided into spiritual growth. In his Yogic Philosophy classes one feels the magnitude of his knowledge and the information is delivered in a fun and comfortable environment that makes it easy to obsorb. Nirava's sense of humor makes it easy to be at the ashram and is a constant reminder to not take life or your spiritual practice too seriously. It is not often that one gets to have a class taught by a teacher with such profound understanding of yoga and yoga philosophy. His knowledge and love of the practice radiates throughout the room and helps each of his students to expand in the areas that they personally need.
To be in the presense of a yoga teacher of his stature is not an every day event and one finds themselves trying to soak up as much of his wisdom as possible. Nirava is incredibly easy to talk to, making it easy to ask him any of those large philosophical questions that might have otherwise gone unanswered.