Celebrate National Yoga Awareness Month

By Susan Ni Rahilly

Gentle Power is within you, and it subtly illuminates your Shining Self. The Hand Mudras of Yoga prepare you for Meditation and redirect life force energy back into the Mindbody system using a Yoga practice that is gently powerful.  This practice is both  balancing and a Divine gift for rediscovering the Shining Self within.

Ancient practices, passed down from the Rishis to the Gurus (usually in secret); the Mudras are attitudes which represent awareness of the psyche through mood or emotion in the inner world of the Spirit. The Hand Mudras of Yoga are practised in a wonderfully gentle way with subtle power, with breathing and withdrawal of the senses – Pranayama and Pratyahara – bringing awareness of our energetic body, self-healing and preparing for Meditation. Using the subtle energies and Ayurvedic Elements in this form of Yoga through the practice of Mudra, the mind gradually turns inward and induces the state of concentration or Dharana for Meditation.

The Mudras redirect Prana – your life force energy – back into the body/mind system and help strengthen the link between the physical, the mental and the pranic bodies . . . ultimately establishing balance to bring about higher states of consciousness. And bringing the light of Prana to shine on the Self within.

In these practices we work with an awareness of elements in our energy as a way of deepening our awareness and understanding of the gentle subtleties of our inner world which, with time and patience, ultimately lead us to the discovery of what we call in Yoga the Shining Self within. We focus on the Ayurvedic elements of Earth, Sun, Air, Space, Life Energy and Water.

Ayurveda is the ancient healing practice of India – the science or knowledge of life – and primarily our ultimate aim is to balance the elements of fire, earth, air, water and space, bringing harmony and balance to our life energy – and 6 of the Hand Mudras in Yoga direct energy in this way. Giving us today, a wonderful way of the ancients to work with the gentle power within us.

OM Times Magazine » syndicated