Mudras in Yoga, The Meaning and Science behind it

Sadhguru: The word mudra literally means “a seal.” It is a certain position of the hand. Mudras are a subtle science of arranging your body in a certain way. The way your systems functions can be altered just by changing the positions of your palm. This is a whole science by itself which essentially involves the geometry and circuitry of the body. By holding a certain mudra, the energies tend to move in a particular way. In yoga, there are systems where you can regulate your breath in a certain way, with certain counts and proportions. By doing this, you can pinpoint your energy to any cell in the body if you want.

Mudras: Opening up the cosmos

Hands are capable of many things apart from eating and doing physical work. You can make these hands in such a way that if you move it here, you can make something happen somewhere else and pinpoint it wherever you want it, because these hands are the instrument to everything. This is like the control panel to everything.

Either you can keep this human system as a small little human being or you can enlarge this into a tremendous possibility. Whichever way it is, the control panel is still here. If you do the right things with this system, you can do miraculous things with life. That will take a lot of exploration, and a lot of sadhana is involved.

The many kinds of mudras

There are hundreds of mudras, some for health, some for wellbeing, some for creating certain other kinds of processes. For different aspects of life there are different mudras. In Indian culture, for everything they identified a particular asana, a mudra, and a particular kind of breathing, so that a human being brings out the best within himself. This still lives everywhere across the culture, but it is being practiced without the necessary understanding and awareness.

Editor’s Note: “Mystic’s Musings” includes more of Sadhguru’s insights on the human energy system. Read the free sample [pdf] or purchase the ebook.