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Mudras: Yoga in Your Hands
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Mudra is a Sanskrit word (of course), which translates as formation of the hands. In shorthand, you might think of mudras as doing yoga with your hands. Mudras can refer to a gesture, a mystic or spiritual positioning of the hands, even a symbol. There are also eye and body positions and breathing techniques that can be called mudras.
The postures and techniques of mudras represent specific states of consciousness. And, they have the ability to create those states, and the physical benefits they represent in our bodies. Indeed, the inherent power of a mudra is that by engaging specific areas of our brain, they can have a profound impact on our physical, emotional and spiritual bodies.
Before you consider mudras as some strange “yoga-only” technique, consider the many ways we have learned to use our hands historically, and in daily life. Man and women-kind has always used hand gestures.
We use hand gestures as a way of communicating with other individuals; as a way of self expression; and frequently as a desire to commune with our higher selves. Think about common hand gestures. You cross your fingers for good luck. You shake someone’s hand as a greeting. You give a high-five, a thumbs up, a peace sign, a salute. You clap your hands to show appreciation at a performance.
Our hands are communication devices equal to our voice (certainly true if you use your hands for sign language). All religions use hand gestures as a form of expression. Hands are commonly used in all forms of prayer or worship. It is easy to understand that communication with our hands can assume the same significance that we attribute to our voices. We can use our hands to communicate with other individuals. And, we can use our hands to communicate internally, with our conscious and unconscious selves.
The Egyptians were among the first people to make a formal connection between using specific hand positions to create an effect on our both our physical body and our internal states. The use of mudras spread quickly and it is common to see statues and images of famous religious figures - Buddha, Christ, Krishna – all using hand gestures, or mudras, as both a symbolic expression and as a specific method to achieve a physical, mental and spiritual effect.
