Cleansing Pranayama Meditation
Kundalini Yoga has many super effective meditations and pranayamas (breathing techniques) to help you cleanse and purify your body and mind. Here is a great one I’d like to share with you to support you on your Graced by Green Cleanse experience.
With this Kundalini Yoga Pranayama Cleansing Meditation you are working with a specific breath ratio, a mudra and a mantra. These are all great tools that quickly have an effect on your mind, making it calm and pure. In addition there are many other benefits which will be explained step by step below.
Effects and meaning of this meditation:
The mantra So Hung means 'I am That' or 'I am Thou'. Through chanting (or mentally vibrating) this mantra you acknowledge that you are part of something much bigger than just your personal Identity. You affirm you are an inseparable part of the Divine.
With the mudra we are bringing all the fingers together. Every finger represents one of the five elements. In this mudra we bring all of them together, balancing the elements in the body. We are emphasizing the earth element that is connected to the ring finger, the ones that are pressing together. This helps us to ground and balance and increases our endurance. The ring finger is also connected to the sun (Surya Mudra) which increases our health and vitality. It can help encourage positive change in your life and speed up metabolism and stimulate digestion.
Finally with the 4/4 breath ratio we increase our clarity & alertness and trigger the glands, the guardians of our health.
Here’s your step by step guide
1. Posture: Sit in Easy Pose (Sukhasan) or any meditative posture that works for you. If sitting on the floor is not an option for you, you can also sit on a chair, making sure your spine is nice and straight.
2. Mudra: Now form the following mudra (seal of energy) with your two hands. Interlace all the fingers, except for your ring fingers.
Point them down between the palms and cross them, pressing the pads fingers together. Close the palms together and squeeze. Place the mudra in front of the Heart Center. Keep the elbows pressed into the sides of the body.
3. Eyes: 1/10th open. Look down through your eye lashes.
4. Breath: Inhale in 4 equal sniffs through your nose, filling up your lungs, try to engage your navel, bringing it out a little further each inhaling sniff. Exhale in 4 equal sniffs through your nose, pushing all the air from the lungs in 4 equal parts, again use your navel, pull it in towards your spine on each exhaling sniff.
5. Mantra: Sohung. On each inhalation, mentally vibrate So (So So So So), on every exhalation, mentally vibrate Hung (Hung Hung Hung Hung).
6. Duration: Start with 3 minutes and over time build up to max. 11 minutes, by adding a minute every week. Then continue for 11 minutes straight.
8. To end:Inhale deeply in one stroke, hold the breath in a relaxed manner, feeling the expansion from within and then gently exhale in one stroke, relaxing the mudra. Rest your hands on your knees and observe the effect of this pranayama, feel the sensations in your physical body and observe your mind.