By Amanda O’Rourke
NEW BERLIN — As the stress of the holiday season reaches a full tilt — shopping to finish, cards to send, meals to prepare and family to visit — Union County yogi Sudharman has one message: relax, and focus.
“When we relax and experience the joy in the moment, we live in the present,” he said. “It may be called the present because that’s God’s gift to us.”
Sudharman is yogi at the Integral Yoga Center of Pennsylvania, 428 Market St., where he teaches the practices and principles of yoga to all ages and abilities in classes Mondays through Saturdays.
The one-time church seems a fitting location for the center dedicated to healing one’s entire person — body, mind and spirit. The sweet smell of incense fills the center’s spacious great room, and at the sanctuary’s front sits Sudharman, dressed entirely in white.
His long, wavy, white hair and beard give away his 70 years, but his bright blue eyes — and physical flexibility — stand in contrast to his age, revealing the inner joy and health he found through yoga 40 years ago while visiting a friend in Mexico.
“Yoga has given me the tools to enjoy every breath,” he said.
It’s difficult to reconcile Sudharman’s physical characteristics — his whispered voice and slender build — with his past as all-American football player, Navy Seal and jet-setting businessman.
He was born Joe Fenton, the son of a prison worker and nurse, and moved to New Columbia when he was 7 and to Lewisburg when he was 12. A football star, he went to Cornell University on an athletic and academic scholarship, graduating with a degree in zoology with plans to attend medical school.
Instead, he went into business, eventually working as general manager of a minor league football team, working alongside coaching legend Vince Lombardi.
It was a chance encounter while visiting a friend in Mexico that Sudharman said changed his life. The stock market had just taken its biggest hit since 1929, and Sudharman had his savings in high-risk, high-return stocks. So he decided to stay in Mexico until the market recovered and to take 7 a.m. yoga classes “so I wouldn’t party too much,” he said.
“In yoga, I found a peace and a joy I had when I was 10, 11, 12, swimming in the Susquehanna, playing Little League baseball, just being glad to be alive,” he said. “I promised myself I would never lose this again and I would do this yoga for the rest of my life.”
From Mexico, Sudharman traveled to Canada, where he learned from the students of Swami Satchidananda and later from Satchidananda himself.
“I thought I knew something about being human, but I realized what I knew was so tiny in comparison to what’s available to be known,” he said. “I didn’t know about all there is to know. When the mind is still and the senses are controlled, we have access to wisdom.”
Sudharman teaches his students what he learned and continues to learn to this day: to live in the present, not the past or the future, but the here and now, and not get caught in the negative, circular rut he says occurs when we think and worry about past or potential future events.
“That’s what I learned, to live in the present, to be totally present in the moment, to find the humor and joy in a situation no matter what,” he said.
What about his name? Sudharman, the yogi said, means to harness one’s inherent ability to live an ethical, moral and useful life. “Our job is to discover that and live it,” he said.
To learn more about Sudharman and the Integral Yoga Center, visit his Web site at www.yoga-center.com.
