Ever wonder why prayer pose just feels spiritual? Probably not, but maybe you feel it’s a religious thing and feel silly doing it? Hopefully not. Here’s what it’s really about…
Prayer hands called Anjali Mudra (AHN-jah-lee MOO-dra) or sometimes Namaste is a humbling gesture used for greetings and farewells. It’s a sign and seal to salute, offer respect, honor or celebrate a person or a moment. This simple hand position offers many benefits to us as well:
- Empowers the heart muscle
- Neutralizes the positive (right, or male) and negative (left, or female) sides of the body
- Uniting of masculine and feminine energies
- Connects the right and left hemispheres of your brain
- Balancing and harmonizing, helps to keep us centered and positive.
- Alleviates mental stress and anxiety, calms and balances the mind
- Opens the heart
- Helps achieve focus
- Induces a inner meditative state
- Helps to promote flexibility in the hands, wrists, fingers and arms
When the hands and fingers are placed in a particular pattern, the energy within the body can be redirected and changed. In prayer pose the palms of the hands are brought together in front of the heart, thumbs rest lightly against the sternum (in the photo above my hands are higher then they should be due to nipple coverage #freethenipple haha). You can really feel the redirection of energy and gain some benefits with just the pose alone, but if you do it with intention, focusing the energy into your heart and taking some long, deep breaths you may get closer to something more powerful.
Namaste.
“The light in me bows to the light in you.”
Thanks for the encouragement!
You are an interesting and beautiful person Moon, I enjoyed reading a few of your blogs. ? Have a great day! ?
I’m these photos you look so Mongolian or Ural Altaic. The band on your head certainly adds to that. There is such a strong shamanic tradition there, one that predates, and even spawned the Hindu tradition (and the idea of namaste). Anyway, thank you for sharing the benefits of the prayer pose.
Having traveled throughout Southeast Asia, I learned to use the ?? When greeting and to show a sign of respect. Your blog takes it to another level that I never considered.