Kayan Wellness Festival: What I learnt from spending three days at the Abu Dhabi event

The National

06-02-2025

I am only 20 minutes into a Qigong session when everything starts to snap into place. Not so much physically as mentally, as my internal chatter fades away. It is a reminder of just how resistant the mind is to changing its ways. That is why it takes until early Saturday afternoon at Kayan Wellness Festival in Abu Dhabi for me to shake off the week and the outside world, and lean into the present moment. It is not festival of music and not quite a mindfulness retreat, so what does a weekend event like this entail, and what can visitors take away? The Qigong session provided my first learning: to be in the present moment – which can take more that an occasional 45-minute yoga class to achieve. After three days spent in talks, workshops and soaking up the atmosphere on Al Fahid Island, here are the lessons that left a lasting impression. Sadhguru, an Indian yoga guru who rose to global fame in the early 2000s, was the headline speaker at the three-day event, making his first appearance in the UAE. Queues of his followers and curious festival-goers circled a pop-up amphitheatre as the clock crept closer to 8pm. After the support act – handpan player Anas Alhalabi and his band – Sadhguru eventually made his way to the stage – in true rock star fashion – an hour late. Even as someone not overly familiar with his work (meaning some of his star presence was lost on me), his teacher status was palpable as he commanded silent attention. Sadhguru joked that, due to the lights, he could not see whether people were awake or asleep. But the not-so-sleepy Friday night crowd soon made themselves heard, proving they had plenty of energy to see the weekend through. Intelligence was on Sadhguru's mind. For him, the human brain is 'a true miracle', humanity's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Yet 'too many people experience this miracle as a misery manufacturing machine' he said, detailing mental afflictions such as depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation. He asked the audience: 'If you had a choice, would you like your intellect to be sharp or blunt?' Most people muttered in favour of the former. Then he asked: 'Why don't we give a knife to a child's hand? Because it's dangerous if the child is not conscious enough.' He extended the metaphor to say that a knife in itself never harms. 'The same goes for your intellect – it is a sharp instrument. If you do not know how to hold it, if you do not know how to wield it, then it will cut you up to ribbons,' he said, getting to the heart of why it is essential to train our minds to work in our favour. The following evening, Mo Gawdat likewise declared: 'The ultimate superpower is intelligence.' He quickly added, however, that it is not inherently a positive thing. As he often does, the former Google X executive, author and podcaster spoke about artificial intelligence, the dystopia or utopia it could bring about, and humanity's role in either outcome. Like wellness gurus before him, he addressed the notion of retreat – but not in the way you might think. 'The truth of the matter is that humanity does not need to continue forward, it needs to retreat backwards,' he told the audience. Now more than ever, 'the answer is to return to things like our core essence, our spirituality, our human connection', Gadwat said. 'The problem is not a problem of progress. The challenge that humanity is facing is a problem of morality.' When it comes to ensuring the superpower of AI is used for good, Gawdat said it is our duty, like any responsible parent, to instil good ethics into the technology, which he believes will ultimately become sentient. Yet his message was not scaremongering, as he clarified. 'I'm not the kind of guy that's predicting the end of the world at all,' Gadwat said. 'As a matter of fact, I'm predicting that we will end up with a total abundance … we will first get through a bit of a tough time, followed by a total utopia.' The next problem for mankind? 'Utopia gets us to the question – what is our purpose?' You may be new to the wellness world, or you may be a regular at sound healing sessions and chanting circles. Either way, a weekend wellness festival provides ample opportunity to try something new – which can be hard to make time for in our busy day-to-day lives. Over the three days, wellbeing sessions included chakra clearing, sound journeys, cacao ceremonies, chanting circles, breathwork and more. As for fitness, there was yogalates (a combination of yoga and Pilates), rhythmic bodyweight HIIT and ecstatic dance, to name a few. I have taken home a nugget of wisdom from my first Qigong session, including how to activate my kidney meridian line by tapping my feet. What draws people to a music festival? As well as the attraction of seeing their favourite artists perform live, a collective effervescence is generated when so many people come together to revel in their passions. The same goes for wellness festivals. Walid Aboulnaga, a breathwork practitioner running workshops and hosting sessions at the event, told The National: 'You can walk, smile at everybody, and feel it easy to talk and connect. 'As opposed to different venues, concerts, places with alcohol or just different energies, this is love,' he continued 'It's very beautiful. And once you're in the space, you want more of it.'