ON THE STEEP slope of Sassoon Road in Pok Fu Lam, overlooking old banyan trees and the swelling sea, lies the University of Hong Kong's Centre of Behavioural Health. In just three years, this centre has paved the way for research on holistic practices. 'The centre endeavours to provide means to achieve harmony and balance of mind, body and soul by bringing together eastern and western health philosophies, principles and practices,' says director Professor Cecilia Chan.
Last year, the centre turned its gaze on yoga. Enlisting the help of writer and instructor Nilima Bhat, it brought in Sri Swami Vidyanand, a so-called urban guru, with a new form of integrated yoga known as The Yoga of Transformational Living. His classes drew professors and students, and the department set out to measure any changes that occurred in students during the six-week courses.
I visited the final class of a series of lunchtime courses. In the centre's conference room, a group of men and women lie on their stomachs gripping their ankles, rocking back and forth while making strange snorting sounds. These are some of the university's leading medical students and professors. It's a bizarre scene.
Clad in bright red, Vidyanand darts around the room correcting postures. The former spiritual head of Hong Kong's Sriyoga School of Integrated Yoga, Vidyanand has been trying to make yoga accessible to all manner of people since he arrived in the SAR last year. In February, he was responsible for leading Panchabhoota, a dance show fusing Indian classical dance and yoga at City Hall.
Born into a distinguished line of Bhakti yogis, Vidyanand has had more than 25 years of training in hatha, white tantra, raja, mantra, ashtanga and kundalini yogas. Taking inspiration from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, who formed Integral Yoga, he has created transformational yoga, whose key aim is detoxification and cleansing.
He says transformational yoga is particularly suited to a modern environment, and that it has much faster effects than ancient yoga forms. It combines a series of postures, or asanas, with pranayama breathing techniques and chanting of mantras. It's intended to be a complete workout for the mind, body, emotions and psychic being.