Community on Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda and Spirituality

Postures and Mudras for Meditation

Find out which Asana (posture) is best for meditation. How to hold your legs and your hands.

Basically you can differentiate the following Asanas:

Cross-legged positions (Padmasana, Siddhasana, Swastikasana, Sukhasana, Muktasana)
Kneeling positions (Vajrasana)
Sitting on a Chair

Please contribute freely: Any questions on Meditation posture? Any advice?

Tags: meditation, murda, posture, pranayama, sitting

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Permalink Reply by Sukadev Bretz on May 31, 2010 at 4:05pm

Video: Sitting postures for Meditation and Pranayama. This Video is in German - but the visuals are international. You might want to fastforward to 45' .

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Permalink Reply by Sukadev Bretz on May 31, 2010 at 4:06pm

It is important to sit straight for meditation and Pranayama. A good teacher can help: He can gently push the shoulders back and down. An he can push forward the upper back - you can sit much straighter in this way.

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Permalink Reply by Sukadev Bretz on May 31, 2010 at 4:06pm

It is important that the head is straight in Meditation pose. I find aspirants who have meditated for a number of years - and hold their head too hight, too low, or to the right or to the left. It is a good idea to ask somebody else to check one's head posture. And of course, any Yoga Teacher should make sure the head is held straight.

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Permalink Reply by Sukadev Bretz on May 31, 2010 at 4:20pm

Hand Position for Meditation: If your mind wanders or feels drowsy during meditation, try to hold the hands above the navel, as in the following photo:

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Permalink Reply by Kriyananda Maharshi Dayananda on June 1, 2010 at 8:48am

Dear Sukadev,

Asanas make the body flexible so that a practitioner could remain long time for a particular posture and if he is comfortably sit for a 3-4 hours can go for meditation other wise taking support of belt or whatever other stuffs can disturb him/her to be in meditation and hence it is very clearly advised in "Astangayoga" of Yogsutra of Maharshi Patanjali and that are as follows.

Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dhyan, Dharana and Samadhi. So what I felt and come to understand that people do not follows the initail subject but start doing meditation that is I think not good for those who really want to be in Yoga. So please give a thought why it is set like this and why not in an opposite or some other way.

Generally, it is seen that meditation is practiced with Mudras i.e. Dhyan Mudra or Gyan Mudra and that are good to be with but mind it when you already in meditation state then mudra or postures do not affect because he is cut off with external world.

-Kriayananda Maharshi Dayananda