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Mudras: Tools, Tuning Forks, and
Just Plain Handy
My first experience with mudras
was interesting and unexpected. I didn't even find out about mudras as such and yoga mudra
until much later.
We were studying using our sixth sense (or "inner sense", however you
want to call it) to tell things apart. It was a simple exercise and
I'll share it later on in the page. For now, let's just say that it had
a big impact.
You see mudras every day.
Ironically, many people use them already and don't even know it. The
"prayer" pose, where you put your hands together palm-to-palm, pointed
upwards? That's
called the Anjali mudra.
How about when you look at someone who is a deep thinker in the movies
or on TV. You'll see them looking
into the distance with their palms apart, touching their fingertips
together. That's called the hakini mudra.
One more on the "common, every day" category: When someone
has their hands clasped together. Their index fingers aren't folded in,
however. Instead, they're sticking straight up and are held together.
The net effect is that it looks kind of like a steeple. That's the kali
mudra. There are others, too and they don't always involve hand
gestures. One mudra I use every time I settle down to meditate is
called the mandala mudra.
That's just the beginning. There are others that don't even rely on
hand positions.
As a quick preview, here's one exercise/tool I learned from
Higher Balance:
- Touch the tip of your index
finger to the tip of your thumb on both
hands. Leave the other fingers extended and keep your palms up.
- Breathe in energy (prana),
paying attention to how you feel. Pay
special attention to how you feel in the center of your chest.
- Breathe out.
- Extend your index fingers and
touch your middle fingers to the thumb instead.
- Repeat the breathing exercise,
paying attention to the differences.
- Continue with the ring and
pinky fingers.
- After the pinky, switch back to
the ring and repeat. Then the middle finger, then the index finger.
- You're done! You're probably in
a better mental position than you were before, if not in a shifted
state of consciousness.
This exercise is extremely useful for many reasons. To me, one of the
best
is that it trains your senses to appreciate subtle shifts in energy.
For more, I would recommend checking out Higher Balance here.
So to return to the abominable pun I made in the headline at the top,
mudras are very (hehe) handy. They can be used to dial in your
spiritual senses. They can be used to give you a boost when you're
trying to get your mind and body to work together. They can even
help with day-to-day mental focus. Why not try them out?
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