Welcome to Mudras
A mudra is a hand gesture meant to be a wordless connection with deeper consciousness. In meditation, yoga, qigong, and other forms of energy work, mudras help to complete the energy circuit inside us and allow our life force (chi) to work within the body.
How They Work
Even if you've never heard the word, you are already familiar with many mudras. For example, the Hakini mudra places the fingertips of the left hand in contact with the fingertips of the right. This mudra is used to focus the attention. If you haven’t done it yourself, you’ve seen others using it, even when they aren’t aware of its significance.
You may have seen pictures of people in yoga classes, sitting in the lotus position, with their hands resting on the knees and the tip of the thumbs touching the tips of the index fingers.
This position is known as the Gyan mudra and it helps to clear the mind and enhance awareness.
There is a particular meditation that utilizes four-finger mudras that I have found useful in calming the anxious mind and reducing fear and trepidation. It’s a simple movement performed while sitting quietly and focusing the attention on the hands.
It’s called the Kiran Kriva and it’s performed like this: first touch the tip of the thumb to the tip of the index finger. Then moving to the next finger, one after another, touch the thumb tip to the tip of the middle finger, then the ring finger, then the little finger. To enhance concentration, you may touch each successive finger, you may also sing or chant the following, drawing out the sounds: ‘Saaaaah’, ‘Taaaaah’, ’Naaaaah’, ‘Maaaaah.’
Repeat the movement several times, and hold each finger position for a few seconds before moving to the next. It is more beneficial to hold each position for a few minutes rather than doing them quickly. It is possible to do it so quickly that you lose the benefit. It is impossible to do it too slowly, but you will intuitively know when to move to the next finger.
The mantra that's repeated while practicing Kirtan Kriya is intended to be emotionally uplifting. The sounds come from the mantra ‘Sat Nam’, which means “my true essence’.
Are They Effective?
Clinical research has shown that practicing Kirtan Kriya for just 12 minutes a day can improve cognition and activate parts of the brain that are central to memory. For that reason alone, The Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation recommends practicing this meditation for 12 minutes each day to fully reap the benefits of the exercise.
From an Eastern perspective, it is believed that the placement of the tongue on the roof of the mouth while making these sounds stimulates 84 acupuncture points on the upper palate.
By activating those points, a beneficial bio-chemical transformation occurs in the brain. Western research has revealed that utilizing the fingertip position in conjunction with the sounds enhances blood flow to particular areas in the motor-sensory part of the brain.
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