Five Element Mudra Meditation

In this guided meditation, I will first instruct you to find a comfortable meditating position with a long spine. If you are comfortable doing so, I will invite you to close your eyes. I will then guide you through a short warm-up practice for the hands before leading you through a sequence of five mudras to help engage focus on the five elemental energies.
The elements associated with the five fingers are:
thumb = fire
index finger = air
middle finger = space
ring finger = earth
pinky = water

Transcript

Hi,

And welcome back.

In today's practice,

I'm going to guide you through a mudra meditation to balance the five elements.

The word mudra is Sanskrit and it means seal gesture or finger posture.

Basically it's different positions that you do with your hands and your fingers.

It's said that these gestures of our fingers and hands gives us the ability to directly influence the various elemental energies in the body.

Even if the word itself mudra may not be familiar to you,

You're probably accustomed to these hand gestures and finger postures more so than you might think because a large part of our communication in daily life is often accentuated by using our hands.

In yoga specifically,

Mudras are used commonly in meditations together with a pranayama or breathing practice in order to help guide the flow of energy through the body.

The assumption here is that the different areas of hand can stimulate specific areas of the brain and by applying a gentle pressure to these areas in your hand with your fingers,

You can activate the corresponding region in the brain.

And then apart from that,

Each mudra helps to symbolize a certain feeling,

Emotion or even a state of being.

I like to use mudras in meditation as the point of focus.

So to prepare for our mudra practice,

We'll do a quick warm up with the hands and then I'll guide you through five different mudras to help balance the five different elemental energies in the body.

Before we begin,

Go ahead and find a comfortable spot.

So as with most of our meditations,

You can choose to find a comfortable standing position,

Seated position or lying position.

What you want to try to do is have a long spine,

Be able to breathe comfortably and allow your hands to rest somewhere comfortably where you're able to move your fingers slightly.

So find your comfortable spot.

Take a full deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Maybe allow your eyes to close and take another full deep breath in through your nose,

Fill up your lungs,

Maybe expand your belly,

Grow a little bit taller and then exhale through your mouth,

Settle into your spot.

Start to find a natural pace of breath in and out through your nose,

Allowing your lips to gently close.

And when we're ready,

We'll start to warm up the hands.

So wherever you're at,

Bring your palms together and slowly start rubbing them together as if you were trying to warm them up.

Maybe you even notice heat arising in your hands.

This helps to activate the nerve endings in your hands.

Bring your palms together as fast or as slow as you like.

Can also rub the backs of your hands together for a few breaths.

And continue rubbing your palms together,

Take one more deep breath in and out.

And then gently release your hands,

Letting them rest on your lap and your palms facing the sky.

Pay attention to any sensations in your hands,

Maybe a tingling,

A pulsating or gentle change in temperature.

Next we'll continue to warm up the hands by gently shaking them out.

So lifting your hands in the air slightly,

Start to allow them to shake,

Your fingers grow heavy.

Try to think about all of the tensions that you might hold in your fingers and hands from writing,

Typing on a computer,

Being on a phone,

Texting and messaging and just shake out all of this tension that you're holding in your hands.

This exercise also helps to stimulate the lymph glands and get your circulation going.

Continue gently shaking your hands for two more deep breaths.

We allow your eyes to softly close,

Focus all of your awareness in your next breath and then shaking and relaxing through your hands.

When you're ready,

Gently rest your hands again on your thighs or in your lap,

Palms up or palms down and gently tune in to your body,

Noticing any sensation.

And lastly,

We'll take a little stretch and help energize through the fingers.

So lift your hands up in the air again,

Straight out in front of you.

Turn your right palm up to face the sky,

Your left palm facing down to the ground,

Hands reaching out,

Arms shoulder width apart.

Start to open and close your hands,

Extending your fingers all the way out as far apart as they can and then clenching into your fists as tight as you can.

And align this with inhales and exhales or do this quicker.

Then rotate so that your right hand is facing down and your left hand facing up toward the sky and continue extending your fingers and clenching your fists,

Either in line with your in and out breaths or slightly faster,

Energizing through your hands.

If they start to become a little tired,

You can slow down.

And after your next exhale,

Gently release this movement,

Bring your palms toward one another to face each other about one to two inches apart.

Close your eyes and notice what you feel.

Be noticing any sensation between the palms,

Any tingling,

Any temperature difference or any gentle pulsation.

Maybe even play with the distance of your hands,

Bringing them slowly farther apart and then gently closer together.

Take one final deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Allow your hands to relax once more in your laps,

Back of your hands down and palms facing up.

So next we'll start our mudra practice.

I'll guide you through five different mudras which are related to the five different elements.

But before we begin,

To give you an overview of all of the fingers on the hands aligned with the five elements.

Your thumb is representative of the element fire or agni.

The index finger is associated with the element air or vayu.

The middle finger is the representation of space or akash.

The ring finger represents the element of earth or prithvi.

And then the pinky finger is associated with the water element or jal.

So we'll begin with the earth mudra.

And the mudra to connect to the earth element is called prithvi mudra.

And prithvi is Sanskrit for the word earth.

In order to create this mudra,

Bring the ring finger of each hand to the tip of the thumb,

Which is the energy of fire.

And this helps to nourish and amplify the energy of earth from the ring finger.

So gently press the tips of your ring fingers and thumbs together with a gentle pressure and extend the other three fingers out like branches.

And once you have your mudra,

You can let your hands rest on your knees on your lap with palms facing up or down,

Or even have your fingertips grounding down next to you.

Allow your eyes to close gently and breathe in and out through your nose.

And keep in mind the feeling of grounding and anchoring.

This mudra helping you to strengthen the connection to your body.

Bringing any energy of health,

Healing and vitality to all areas of your body that need it.

So you channel this mudra and breathe.

Focus on anything you need to feel at home and safe in your body.

Take a last deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Breathe naturally through your nose and gently release your ring finger.

We'll move next to the water mudra or jal mudra,

Touching the tips of your pinkies or your littlest finger to the tips of your thumbs and both hands.

If you press too hard,

You'll want to feel only a gentle pressure.

Let the other three fingers soften down as if your hands were floating in water.

You have the option again to have your palms face up or face down.

The jal mudra helps to balance the circulation of water in the body.

Hopes to open the gateway into the flow of feelings,

The movements of change in life.

Keeping in mind that flow implies a sense of movement and feelings of resistance toward change and movement might lead to rigidness and tightness,

Creating a dam within us so that water can no longer flow freely.

Realizing this jal mudra helps to destroy this dam of resistance and helps to enable us to follow a path of least resistance and move with the currents of life.

Can learn to accept change as it's happening.

Our body is 70% water,

Therefore connecting with the fluid nature that we are can help us to find a sense of emotional balance.

Take one more deep breath in through your nose and as you exhale through your mouth,

Release your mudra gently and next we'll connect to a fire mudra,

Agni.

Bring your hands together and connect your two thumbs.

The most common way to do this is to interlace the fingers of both of your hands,

Bringing your palms together and then let your two thumbs join together pointing up.

Can rest your thumbs against the base of your ribcage or gently in your lap,

Allowing your thumbs to point upward toward your heart.

Then close your eyes or gaze down gently toward your thumbs imagining two twin flames.

The element of fire is the connection to our energetic and passionate self.

In fire,

We find the vitality that feeds our entire system.

Using this mudra helps to reconnect with the fire flame that lives inside you and helps to ignite your life with a feeling of purpose and power.

Allowing this mudra,

This element and the transformative force of fire to bring you where you need to be.

Take another breath in through your nose and as you exhale through your mouth,

Gently release your hands,

Separate your fingers and allow them to rest again in your lap.

Next we'll move on to the air mudra or vayu mudra.

To activate this air element,

Bring the tip of your index finger and your thumb of both hands to touch and rest your hands once more on your knees or your lap.

And allow the palms to face up as an action of openness and connection.

Air may be the most important element to us because we cannot survive without it.

We can even only go for a few minutes without breath.

And this is why breath in yoga is synonymous with the element of air.

Each new breath never tires of nourishing and energizing us and it establishes the relationship between our inner and outer world.

Air can be considered the power of our thoughts,

Our mind and also our inspiration.

And take one more deeper breath into your nose and side through your mouth,

Gently releasing your mudra.

As we come to our final mudra and our final element of space or akasha mudra.

We form akasha mudra by bringing the tip of your middle finger of each hand to the thumb.

Since the middle finger is our longest finger,

It's sometimes called the stairway to the divine as it's facing up into the direction of the ever spacious infinite of space.

Can let your palms face either up or down and allow your remaining three fingers to relax.

Space is the all encompassing mother of the five elements and itself contains all other elements.

It's the element of the rhythm of music,

The vibration of singing,

The creativity of dance.

It determines how we communicate and express our authentic selves and our authentic truth to the world.

Use this mudra whenever you need to speak or use your voice.

It can help to purify your mind and your thoughts and allow you to come into your highest alignment and integrity to allow your words to flow out naturally.

Take one more deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth,

Allowing your hands to relax.

Allow your palms to face up or down or bring them gently together in front of your chest.

Breathe naturally in and out through your nose.

Be bringing your awareness to each finger one at a time,

Checking in with each element.

Giving yourself just one more moment of quiet stillness before continuing on.

Take a final breath in through your nose,

Feeling the air come in through your throat to your lungs,

Expanding your belly,

And let the air flow gently out through your mouth.

When you feel ready,

Softly blink your eyes open.

Offer yourself a gentle moment of thanks for taking time for your practice and have a great rest of your day.

Thank you for practicing with me today.

Namaste.