Chin Mudr

Thumb and forefinger on each of both hands join as a zero. The rest of the fingers are extended, with the middle finger touching the nonfolded part of the forefinger. The hands are placed palms-down on the thighs while sitting in Vajrasana. This mudr activates the diaphragm, making for deep "stomach-breathing", as the diaphragm pushes out the internal organs when it descends towards the pelvis on inhalation. Slow rhythmic breathing in a 5-2-4-2 rhythm (5 being the exhalation, and 4 is the inhalation) makes prana flow in the pelvis and in the legs.

Chinmaya Mudr
Thumb and forefinger are the same as Chin Mudr . The rest of the fingers are folded into a fist. The non-folded part of the forefinger and the middle finger should still be touching. Like in Chin Mudr , the hands are placed palms-down on the thighs while sitting in Vajrasana. This mudr activates the ribs, making them expand sideways on inhalation. Slow rhythmic breathing in a 5-2-4-2 rhythm (5 being the exhalation, and 4 is the inhalation) makes prana flow in the torso and in the throat.

Adi Mudr
Thumb is folded into the palm, touching the base of the small finger. The rest of the fingers are folded over the thumb, to create a fist. Like in Chin Mudr , the hands are placed palms-down on the thighs while sitting in Vajrasana. This mudr activates thepectoral muscles, making the chest expand forward on inhalation. Slow rhythmic breathing in a 5-2-4-2 rhythm (5 being the exhalation, and 4 is the inhalation) makes prana flow in the throat and in the head.

Brahma Mudr
Palms are in Adi Mudr , but the inside of the palms face upwards and are located at the level of the navel, with the left and right knuckles and first finger joints touching. This is done while sitting in Vajrasana. Breathing becomes full: in inhalation, thediaphragm descends, the ribs then expand, and then the pectoral muscles move forward. Exhalation works in the same order, which creates a "wave" or ripple effect. Slow rhythmic breathing in a 5-2-4-2 rhythm (5 being the exhalation, and 4 is the inhalation) makes prana flow in the entire body.

Dharmacakra Mudr
The Dharmacakra mudr represents a central moment in the life of Buddha when he preached his first sermon after his Enlightenment, in Deer Park in Sarnath. In general, only Gautama Buddha is shown making this mudr , save Maitreya as the dispenser of the Law. This mudr position represents the turning of the wheel of the Dharma. Dharmacakra mudr is formed when two hands close together in front of the chest in Vitarka, having the right palm forward and the left palm upward, sometimes facing the chest. There are several variants such as in the frescoes of Ajanta, India where the two hands are separated, and the fingers do not touch. In the Indo-Greek style of Gandh ra the clenched fist of the right hand seemingly overlies the fingers joined to the thumb on the left hand. In pictorials of H ry -ji in Japan the right hand is superimposed on the left. Certain figures of Amit bha, Japan are seen using this mudr before the 9th century.

Dhy na Mudr
The Dhy na mudr ("meditation mudr ") is the gesture of meditation, of the concentration of the Good Law and the sa gha. The two hands are placed on the lap, right hand on left with fingers fully stretched (four fingers resting on each other and the thumbs facing upwards towards one another diagonally), palms facing upwards; in this manner, the hands and fingers form the shape of a triangle, which is symbolic of the spiritual fire or the Triratna (the three jewels). This mudr is used in representations of the kyamuni Buddha and Amit bha Buddha.

Sometimes the Dhy na mudr is used in certain representations of Bhai ajyaguru as the Medicine Buddha, with a medicine bowl placed on

the hands. It originated in India most likely in the Gandh ra and in China during the Wei period. This mudr was used long before the Buddha as yogis have used it during their concentration, healing, and meditation exercises. It is heavily used in Southeast Asia in Therav da Buddhism; however, the thumbs are placed against the palms.

Jnana Mudr
The Jana mudr ("mudr of knowledge") is done by touching the tips of the thumb and the index together, forming a circle, and the hand is held with the palm inward toward the heart.

Karana Mudr
The Karana mudr is the mudr which expels demons and removes obstacles such as sickness or negative thoughts. It is made by raising the index and the little finger, and folding the other fingers. It is nearly the same as the gesture known as corna in many 'western' countries, the difference is that in the Karana mudra the thumb does not hold down the middle and ring finger. 1. Stress Relief
Yoga can help reduce the effects of stress on your body. One of the benefits of yoga is that it encourages relaxation and can lower the amount of cortisol in your body.

2. Pain Relief
Daily exercises of yoga can help ease the aches and pains of the body. Many people with very serious diseases have reported less pain after these daily exercises, such as asanas or meditation.

3. Better Breathing
You will learn to take deeper, slower breaths with daily exercises of yoga. It will help to increase your lung function and set off the body's relaxation response. This can be one of the most powerful benefits of yoga.

4. Flexibility
You will notice your level of flexibility will increase, which will help with your range of motion. Sometimes in the yoga daily exercises, people cannot even touch their toes. The benefits of yoga will include lengthening the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in your body to help you become more flexible.

5. Increased Strength
Yoga poses use all the muscles in your body and help you increase your strength level from head to toe. The benefits of yoga and daily exercises will help you strengthen your muscles close to the bones, which increase the support of your skeletal system as well.

6. Weight Management
You will see the benefits of yoga begin to affect your scale. Daily exercises are always recommended, but yoga helps reduce the level of cortisol in your body. This aids in weight loss and fat burning.

7. Improved Circulation
Yoga will help improve your body's circulation. In turn, with daily exercises, you will see the benefits of yoga with lowered blood pressure and pulse rates.

8. Cardiovascular Conditioning
Even the most gentle style of yoga will help to lower your resting heart reate and increase your overall endurance. This is one of the important benefits of yoga to help improve the amount of oxygen taken in during the daily exercises.

9. Focus on the Present

You can have greater coordination, memory skills, reaction times, and improved concentration skills by utilizing yoga for daily exercises. These benefits of yoga will extend far out of the yoga center.

10. Inner Peace

What more could you want. This is one of the primary reasons that people do daily exercises of yoga. This is one of the most important benefits of yoga and is also one of the more easy ones to attain.

Benefits of Yoga on Other Health Conditions

Do you have frequent headaches? Yoga can rid you of tension headaches and migraines because yoga circulates blood and oxygen to your head, which can often prevent headaches from starting. A regular yoga practice helps boost antioxidants throughout your body, resulting in a stronger immune system and improved ability to heal quickly from disease or injury. Yoga can help you lose weight and maintain a healthy weight throughout your life. Power yoga is a vigorous form of yoga that burns calories, resulting in weight loss. Many women going through menopause report an easing of symptoms when they begin practicing yoga.

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Benefits of Yoga in Everyday Life

Yoga can help cure insomnia, as regular yoga practice leads to better and deeper sleep. Yoga can help fight fatigue and maintain your energy throughout the day. Yoga is an effective treatment for a variety of autoimmune diseases because it can reduce the symptoms these diseases often cause, such as stiffness, malaise, fatigue, and weakness.

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Benefits of Yoga on Mental Health

Yoga benefits anyone's mental health by helping him or her relax, and it is an effective form of psychological therapy. Yoga reduces anxiety and stress, resulting in better health, better mood, and better concentration throughout the day. Yoga has been used to help treat a wide variety of emotional and mental disorders, including acute anxiety, depression, and mood swings. Even children can benefit from yoga. Those with attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity can learn to relax and get control by using yoga breathing and yoga asanas. Because yoga is a form of meditation, it results in a sense of inner peace and purpose, which has far-reaching health benefits. Yoga has been used to help heal victims of torture or other trauma.

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Benefits of Yoga to Your Bones, Muscles, and Joints

The physical benefits of yoga are myriad. Yoga keeps your body strong, as it involves all the muscles in your body to hold and balance yoga asanas (poses). The various yoga postures strengthen your feet, legs, hands, abdominals, lower back, legs, and shoulders. Yoga's stretching and breathing exercises improve your flexibility, helping joints, tendons, and muscles stay limber. People suffering from osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis will see a noticeable improvement in their stiffness, pain, and other arthritic symptoms by practicing yoga poses and postures. Yoga improves your endurance, especially the more athletic forms of yoga such as ashtanga yoga, power yoga, vinyasa yoga, and Bikram yoga. These rigorous yoga practices follow a specific sequence of poses (asanas) that become more challenging as you progress. Unlike the more gentle hatha yoga, the forms of ashtagna yoga, power yoga, vinyasa yoga, and Bikram yoga require you to keep your body in constant motion between poses, resulting in a strenuous cardiovascular workout and improved core strength. Hatha yoga can relieve chronic back and neck pain, since the poses and postures gently stretch and strengthen your back and neck muscles. Yoga is often prescribed to help heal various injuries, including repetitive strain injuries, knee and back injuries, pulled hamstrings, even minor skin burns. Of course, you should consult your physician before using yoga as a treatment for any injury! Yoga is an excellent weight-bearing exercise that can improve your bone density. This is particularly beneficial for women approaching menopause, since yoga can help ward off osteoporosis, or thinning of the bone.

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Benefits of Yoga to the Cardiovascular System

Yoga has tremendous health benefits for your heart. Most notably: The gentler forms of yoga lower your blood pressure because the asanas (yoga poses, postures, and yoga positions) keep blood flowing evenly throughout your body while you focus on your breathing. People suffering from hypertension can benefit from yoga tremendously, as hatha yoga can lower your heart rate and blood pressure. Many practitioners claim that yoga has also lowered their cholesterol. Power yoga is an excellent form of cardio conditioning, which strengthens core muscles while it keeps blood and oxygen circulating throughout your body.

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What is yoga? Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word yuj which means to unite or to join. Even though, people tend to think that yoga is a series of exercises with twisted body poses, it is not so. Basically, it helps you to connect with your inner spirit, which is essentially divine and is connected to the universal spirit or God.
Yoga is a way of life, an art of righteous living or an integrated system for the benefit of the body, mind and inner spirit. This art originated, was perfected and practiced in India thousands of years ago. The references to yoga are available in 'Upanishads' and 'Puranas' composed by Indian Aryans in the later Vedic and post- Vedic period. The main credit for systematizing yoga goes to Patanjali who wrote 'Yoga Sutra', two thousand Years ago. He described the principles of the full eight fold yogic discipline. He composed the treatise in brief code words known as 'Sutras'. 'Yoga Sutra' is the most important basic text on Yoga. It is through this basic treatise that the essential message of yoga spread throughout the world.

Types of yogas Although people associate yoga with only exercises or asanas as they are commonly called, yoga is of many types. The most popular type is Hatha Yoga. This type of yoga contains various types of asanas and is beneficial in improving the body strength and flexibility. Karma yoga teaches you the way of right action without expecting the fruits of labour and offering the activity as the service to almighty. You learn devotion and unconditional love for the divine by Bhakti Yoga. Answer to your deeper questions like: who am I, Where do I come from, come from Jnana Yoga. Control your mind and be free from worldly attachments by practicing Raja Yoga. Kundalini Yoga releases the energy present in the chakras or energy centers in your body by teaching you deep breathing. Tantric Yoga worships the feminine energy and teaches you to look at your body as a source of divine.
Asanas' in Sanskrit means posture. There are around 84 asanas - each one has a special name, special form and a distinct way of performing. Asanas are designed to promote, a state of mental and physical well-being or good health. This may be defined as the condition that is experienced when all the organs function effectively under the intelligent control of the mind. Asanas have an extraordinary capacity to overhaul, rejuvenate and bring the entire system into a state of balance.

Surya Namaskar Surya Namaskar means greeting or bowing the sun. Usually all sessions of Yoga asanas begin with the 'Surya Namaskar' or sunsalutation. It nourishes and energizes the upper part of the body. Utthan Pada Asana (Leg Lifting Posture) 'Utthan' means to raise up and 'Pada' means legs. In this posture the legs are lifted upwards. It strengthens the spinal code and removes disorders of the back. Paschimothan Asana (The Forward Bend) Paschimothan Asana also known as touching toes posture, means stretching the back. It brings flexibility and corrects disorders of the spine. Bhujanga Asana (The Cobra) 'Bhujanga' means serpent or snake. This asana is named after the king of the snakes, Cobra. It provides a youthful appearance and for women, makes child birth easy. Salabha Asana (The Locust) 'Salabha' or locust is a type of grass hopper. It is a reverse of cobra posture. It is strenuous and can be practiced in parts at the initial stage. It favourably activates all the organs of the lower part of the body. Sarvanga Asana (The shoulder Stand) 'Sarva' means all and 'Anga' means body, so Sarvanga is the posture of the whole body. As the whole body weight in this posture rests on the shoulders, it is also called 'Shoulder Stand Posture'. It is a purifying, nourishing and energizing asana beneficial to the whole body. Matsya Asana (The Fish Posture) Matsya Asana is so called because in its perfect posture, one is supposed to float like a fish in water. It is beneficial to perform this asana after Sarvanga Asana. It has corrective effects for the neck and shoulder troubles. Dhanur Asana (The Bow Posture) The body form in this asana resembles a bow or 'dhanur'. It is one of the best asana for activating and strengthening the joints of the body. It has some special benefits for women. Hala Asana (Plough Posture) The plow or Hala Asana is an extreme forward bending exercise. It has some excellent benefits and occupies a very prominent place in asanas. It is a unique asana for gaining sexual powers. Shava Asana (Relaxation Posture) 'Shava Asana' means posture of a dead body. Also known as 'Yoga Nidra' which means yogic method of sleep. It is an asana which claims to provide a satisfactory relaxation of both the body and the mind.

Classical Period
The Classical Period is marked by another creation - the Yoga Sutra. Written by Patanjali around the second century, it was an attempt to define and standardize Classical Yoga. It is composed of 195 aphorisms or sutras (from the Sanskrit word which means thread) that expound upon the Raja Yoga and its underlying principle, Patanjali's Eightfold path of Yoga (also called Eight Limbs of Classical Yoga). These are:

1.
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Yama, which means social restraints or ethical values; Niyama, which is personal observance of purity, tolerance, and study; Asanas or physical exercises; Pranayama, which means breath control or regulation; Pratyahara or sense withdrawal in preparation for Meditation; Dharana, which is about concentration; Dhyana, which means Meditation; and Samadhi, which means ecstasy.

Patanjali believed that each individual is a composite of matter (prakriti) and spirit (purusha). He further believed that the two must be separated in order to cleanse the spirit - a stark contrast to Vedic and Pre-Classical Yoga that signify the union of body and spirit. Patanjali's concept was dominant for some centuries that some Yogis focused exclusively on Meditation and neglected their Asanas. It was only later that the belief of the body as a temple was rekindled and attention to the importance of the Asana was revived. This time, Yogis attempted to use Yoga techniques to change the body and make it immortal.

Post-Classical Yoga
At this point, we see a proliferation of literature as well as the practice of Yoga. Post-classical Yoga differs from the first three since its focus is more on the present. It no longer strives to liberate a person from reality but rather teaches one to accept it and live at the moment. Yoga was introduced in the West during the early 19th century. It was first studied as part of Eastern Philosophy and began as a movement for health and vegetarianism around the 1930's. By the 1960's, there was an influx of Indian teachers who expounded on Yoga. One of them was Maharishi Mahesh, the Yogi who popularized Transcendental Meditation. Another one is a prominent Yoga Guru Swami Sivananda. Sivananda was a doctor in Malaysia and he later opened schools in America and Europe.

Savasana or proper relaxation; Asanas or proper exercise; Pranayama or proper breathing; Proper diet; and Dhyana or positive thinking and Meditation Sivananda wrote more than 200 books on Yoga and Philosophy and had many disciples who furthered Yoga. Some of them were Swami Satchitananda who introduced chanting and Yoga to Woodstock; Swami Sivananada Radha who explored the connection between psychology and Yoga, and Yogi Bhajan who started teachingKundalini Yoga in the 70's.