Jnana & Chin Mudra

Namaste. Today we're going to explore Chen Mudra. Chen Mudra is one of the spiritual mudras and it's one of my favorite. It has a beautiful story with it. So we're going to do a little exercise together first. So turn your palms up and just look at your hands. Go ahead and bring all the fingers together and open the hands a couple of times. Now join together your thumb and your index finger and make a circle with the thumb and the index finger and then open the hands back up. Thumb to the index finger again and you're going to rest them on your lap by turning your hands down and then bring the palms back up. So when the hands are facing up it's called Nyanamudra and when the hands are down it's called Chen Mudra. But here's the interesting spiritual lesson behind the mudra that I just love. So open your hands up. Let's look at your thumbs. Your thumbs are the representation of the divine, of God. And the index finger is a representation of your soul, the individual soul of man or woman. And when you join these two together you're asking for help. You're asking for unity, the unity between you and the divine. But here's the really fascinating part. When you open your hands, so go open your hands one more time. Without moving your fingers I want you to your thumb to touch any fingertip but don't move the other fingers. See, you can't reach them. Now open the thumb out, use the index finger, see if you can touch the thumb with the index finger without the thumbs assistance. Nope, not happening is it? It takes your soul moving towards God and God moving towards you to create the union. That's the beautiful message of this mudra. You can't sit there and say oh save me because you've got to act and move towards, right? So this action of drawing together is very powerful. So go ahead and rest your hands either with the palms up which is Janamudra or with the hands down which is Chen Mudra. Either is fine. Allow your eyes to close for a moment. Remember that the quality of the fingers you're making a circle with those two fingers and the quality is very soft but there's enough pressure that you're aware of the pressure itself so you can feel what's taking place between the fingers. You can feel the relationship there. Now this mudra I love because it's teaching us a kind of vulnerability. It's teaching us that we have got to ask for help. We're not in this alone. That's what the mudra is saying. The minute you move towards the thing that can help you, the minute the thing that can help you move towards you. So turn the palms up, open the hands back out, then rest your palms flat on your lap. Now with the mudra sometimes the hands get tired when you're in mudra. This is a beautiful one to take up to 10 to 15 minutes a day. You could use it in your meditation practice even. But when the hands start to fatigue you go ahead and you open the hands up and you rest them on your lap. You rest the hands. There's a lot of energy that's learning to pull through the hands and you don't want to fatigue your hands. It's not necessary. So practice your mudra. I hope this has been helpful. Namaste. Peace out.