HOLLYWOOD ACTRESS-model Joy Bryant (Antwone Fisher) is a big fan of Kundalini yoga. Bryant, 32, who is a strict vegetarian, reportedly goes for Kundalini yoga for the “great” workout it offer for the mind and body. She was quoted as saying that she did it more for the meditative part of it but she reaped physical benefits also in the process.

Bryant, who was awarded a full academic scholarship to the prestigious Yale University, has recently joined the cast of NBC’s drama “Parenthood”, playing a single mother. Hindu statesman Rajan Zed has extended an invitation to other Hollywood celebrities to explore kundalini or other forms of yoga, which he says is both a mental and physical discipline by means of which the human-soul (jivatman) unites with universal-soul (parmatman). Since around 2,000 BCE, yoga practice has been handed down from one guru to the next.

In kundalini (sometimes described as serpent force of the hathyogi), it is said that by suitable exercises, the ‘serpent of wisdom, life, and fire’ can be stimulated and appropriately directed to invigorate the soul and the body. A meditative and physical form of yoga, it is considered a spiritual science that can lead to enlightenment under the guru’s guidance. It is also termed as ‘yoga of awareness’ because it “awakens” the Kundalini within us.

Rajan Zed, President of Universal Society of Hinduism, in a statement from Nevada (USA) today, pointed out that some sages had described yoga as the silencing of all mental transformations which lead to the total realisation of the Supreme Self. Some have used yoga to gain liberation by removing all sensory barriers.