Akash mudra
Akash Mudra enhances the space/ether element out of the five elements of the body. The word Akash in Sanskrit means Space/ether, and mudra means a gesture of hands.
What is Akash Mudra?
The middle finger symbolizes ether or space surrounding all creation. The thumb symbolizes the fire element. Akash mudra,is used in Ayurveda and Yoga for increasing the space within the human body.
How to practice Akash Mudra:
Sit in a comfortable meditative posture Sukhasana, Vajrasana, Padmasana or you can sit in a chair. Keep your eyes closed and take deep breaths calming your mind and body and inturn stimulating the prana in the body.
Fold your middle finger and touch the tip of the middle finger of the tip of thumb and straighten the rest of the fingers. .Place your hands on your thighs just above your knees with your palms facing the sky.
Benefits of Akash Mudra:
Akash mudra has a lot of spiritual, mental, and emotional benefits.
- It helps in the pain and healing of sinuses. According to acupressure, the points of sinus are also found in the middle finger of the hand. By pressing these points, sinuses and colds are healed.
The mind is composed of ether. One who practices Akash Mudra gains expansive consciousness and awareness. It broadens the mind. It calms the mind from continuous thoughts or distractions. The sattvic or undisturbed mind is an expression of the essence of ether or space. - This mudra is a panacea for mentally and physically challenged children.
- Also according to Ayurveda migraine is due to the lack of space element in the body. This mudra helps to balance this element and one can get migraine relief.
- Hearing power improves with this mudra. It alleviates ear diseases. Sound and ether/space are inseparable, the ear is hence considered the associated sense organ for the element ether and voice or mouth its organ of action. Hence it helps to improves voice and throat also.
- Aakash mudra activates the visuddha (throat) chakra.
- The blood vessels are filled with ether. The reduction of ether in the body increases the space but decreases the structure or collapses it, it also leads to destruction of tissue. Akash mudra is good for heart’s health. It provides relief from the pain caused by the condition of angina pectoris, normalizes the blood pressure and has a healing effect on the heartbeat.
- It helps alleviate anger, sorrows, and fears, tendencies towards untruthfulness. Love is the emotional symbolism of space and expansiveness it is the highest form of nourishment.
- The practice of Akash Mudra increases calcium in the body. It makes teeth strong and cures diseases related to bones or skeletons.
- This mudra also detoxifies the body and creates the healing space within the body by facilitating the flow of toxins in the form of carbon dioxide, urine, feces out of the body, detoxifying it.
- Ether is light so with this mudra it helps reduce heaviness in the body.
Contraindications:
People of Vata nature should not do this pose. This can cause problems with gas, dryness of skin, arthritis.