Besides being used extensively in yoga, meditation and dance, Mudras have been an integral part of many Hindu and Buddhist rituals. Across various disciplines, there exist roughly 399 mudras. It is defined as a gesture, a mystic position of the hands, a seal, or even a symbol whereby specific positions can result in the states of consciousness that they symbolize.
We can effectively engage and influence our body and our mind by bending, crossing, extending, or touching the fingers with other fingers. For instance, there are mudras known to help individuals come to terms with their past. If we want contentment and peace in our everyday lives, there is no way to avoid clearing out what has burdened us in the past. This does not mean reflecting at the past repeatedly. Instead, we can free ourselves from past resentments, anger, prejudices, feelings of guilt through forgiving the other person and forgiving ourselves. If we find difficulty in doing such an act by ourselves, we can turn to our inner wisdom, our higher self, or the Divine within us, for help. Forgiveness, according to various religions, is the most challenging action, but the best path to finding inner peace.
Even with a little forgiveness, this will propel us to forgive a little more and in time the gateway to a new, light-filled future will open for us. We can only say we have fully forgiven someone when we can imagine them being happy and wishing them all good things and much love from the depths of our hearts. Such mudras that help in accelerating the process of working through and dissolving past painful experiences are shunya mudra, detoxification mudra, atmanjali mudra, and varada mudra.
