by | Mar 2, 2017 | Mudras
My favorite statement of Swami Kripalu is: “The highest spiritual practice is Self-observation with compassion and without judgment.”
This is also one of the most difficult practices to do! Karuna Mudra can help your heart and chest to soften, allowing you to tap into the deep wellspring of your heart.
Karuna means ‘compassion’ and gives us the ability to see ourselves and others in a compassionate light. As one hand faces towards your heart in Karuna Mudra, and the other outward towards all beings, connecting loving unity through higher understanding, forgiveness, and absolute compassion within and outward to all others.
Begin by placing Left fingertips at the base of the Right fingers. Then cup both hands and rest Left thumb on lower Right thumb. Hold hands in front of your heart rotating the Left hand to face towards your heart and Right hand faces all other beings. (Image above is the final mudra)
- Directs breath into chest massaging heart and thymus.
- Releases tension in face and jaw.
- Gently expands subtle heart sending out waves of healing to whole being.
- Cultivates a warm heart of compassion, forgiveness and acceptance.
- Good for calming, releasing judgment, and seeing clearly.
“With a heart of Compassion, I fill with Love and Acceptance of myself.”
Practice Karuna Mudra with 5-10 natural breaths, and repeating the affirmation aloud and silently. You may like to increase the number of breaths by five or so each week if you practice this mudra regularly.
These mudras and information used by permission and modified from Mudras for Healing and Transformation by Joseph and Lilian LePage.
by | Mar 2, 2017 | Mudras
Kubera refers to the qualities represented by the lord of ‘wealth, wisdom and the remover of obstacles’. Kubera mudra helps to your blocks to be allows you to unfold your fullest potential!
“My Inner Golden Light Sparkles, Opening Me to My Potential.”
HOW TO: With both hands, curl all of your fingers into the centers of your palms. Extend pointer and middle fingers to touch thumb tips. Rest hands upward facing on the lap, or try Kubera Mudra with a yoga pose!
As you hold Kubera Mudra, envision golden light radiating in your solar center, sparkling and shimmering the color and bounty of your inner gems. Rest within your inner wealth and eternal brilliance as you feel your light expand through your whole body and being.
Hold for 5-10 natural breaths, increasing the number of breaths weekly as you continue to practice Kubera Mudra. State the intention statement above three times out loud, then silently. Notice how you feel in body, mind, and emotions. No known cautions.
FIVE ELEMENTS: Kubera Mudra activates and balances the ????Fire Element, helping you to strengthen your powers of digestion, assimilation with Agni, and glow with inner awareness and light.
- Cultivates feeling Empowered and Potent
- Strengthens and Balances Digestion
- Optimizes Energy for higher purposes
- Clears Stagnancy and Congestion
- Builds Self-confidence and Esteem
- Activates 3rd CHAKRA Manipura
These mudras and information provided are modified from Mudras for Healing and Transformation by Joseph and Lilian LePage.
by | Mar 2, 2017 | Yoga Wisdom & Inspiration
Have you been searching for wealth outside yourself? Perhaps in a goal that is attainable, something you are working towards, a perfection that has not yet come to fruition. Other times there may be feelings of shame bubbling up around how we think we ought to be, or what we don’t have, or expected that we should have. You are not alone in this. I catch myself all the time with these kinds of thoughts.
What you are searching for is already here inside of you, if you look.
Each of us is imbued with gems and gifts beyond match in the material world. For example, your body is a miracle, a gift from beyond, and may be the most sophisticated natural phenomena that has ever been created or come into existence. Honoring the gift of the body, instead of taking advantage of it, or using it as a working tool, or abusing and not taking care of it, often proves to be so difficult! It takes time to take care, to know this body, and to listen to its messages. And it is your responsibility- no one else’s- to take care of this gift.
Our prana vital life-force has a wisdom and grace to heal and balance the body through its cells, organs and body systems. One of the biggest favors you can do to honor and take care of your body, as well as to spark your inner gems, is to put it in it’s natural healing energetic state. Daily practices of yoga nidra, yoga breathing, and hand mudras, have been proven to bring you into your healing state called the ‘relaxation response’. Easy and doable.
Swami Kripalu said that the highest spiritual practice is “self-observation without criticism”.
Yet it can be intimidating to look inward because we may find our inner ‘judge’ staring us down. The ‘judge’ may always be here to some degree, but you have the ability to turn its volume down, and then listen to the positive and encouraging messages that are also within you. When you reduce judgment of yourself and others, amazingly enough your inner wealth will be revealed to you! It may have been hiding behind judgment and ‘shoulds’ all along.
Karuna Mudra cultivates self-compassion. I invite you to embark on a one day practice: set the intention when you arise to move through your day in ‘self-observation without criticism’. Allow yourself to be, just as you are, already complete and whole. There is nothing lacking. At the end of the day, reflect on what you experienced by journaling or sharing with a friend.
KARUNA MUDRA PRACTICE
Zen meditation teacher Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that each person is like a plant in the garden. Each with their own bloom and dormancy times, and each an important part of the whole garden of the universe. Some trees keep the shade so other plants do not dry out. Some plants have deep roots to keep the earth intact. Some flowers bloom in spring and are dormant in autumn, some bloom autumn time and bloom in spring. There is a flower I saw in Holland that blooms only every seven years! Trust that your inner wealth is alive and vibrant.
Connecting inward with the gifts that have been bestowed upon you can evoke contentment, gratitude and feeling whole and complete. Cherish the gifts that you have. So often I meet people who overlook their strengths, talents and abilities, imagining that their particular gift is an ordinary one, inadvertently overlooking one’s true purpose.
Take the time now to both honor and send gratitude for who you are in this moment, whole and complete, just as you are now. Be open to recognizing and understanding the gifts that you have, with your unique timing and purpose.
written by Jennifer Reis, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT Yoga Therapist, creator of Five Element Yoga® and Divine Sleep® Yoga Nidra. Copyright Jennifer Reis Yoga© 2017
