Teixeira Nubia - Yoga and the Art of Mudras

Yoga and the Art of Mudras

Nubia Teixeira

Photography by Andrea Boston

PREFACE

From a very young age, I have been drawn to work with my hands and intrigued by the power of this vehicle of my own body. I grew up in So Paulo, Brazil, and as a young woman looking for a way to deal with my emotions, I ventured into the realm of theater. Through voice projection, hand gestures, and body movement, theater practice taught me a way to redirect my misunderstood feelings into something positive and meaningful by acting them out. It showed me how my passions and my fears intertwined and sprang from the same source within me.

At the age of sixteen, I started practicing hatha yoga, which brought nourishment to my body, mind, and heart. The tradition provided me with a new language that was supportive of my deeper spiritual pursuits. Through my yoga practice, I was able to tap into the soul within the body and found a path to the sacred and the devotional within. The practice of yoga made me curious about my inner life and the world of mysticism. I devoted hours of my day to the practice and study of yoga and its philosophy and became interested in investigating a more subtle realm by deepening my yoga practice.

I studied yoga for four years at the Universidade de Yoga, in So Paulo. There, I was educated in the Swasthya yoga system, which is divided into eight main practices: mudra (hand gestures); puja (acts of worship); mantra (sacred sound); pranayama (breathwork); kriya (cleansing techniques); asana (postures); yoganidra (guided visualizations); and dhyana (meditation). During those four years, I learned how to link body, energy, and spirit and discovered the link between yoga and art. Since that time, my yoga teaching style has always tended to include mudras as part of the opening ritual, and I also always add mudra to mantra and yogasana practices.

Yoga had become my healing art and my dharma, and I knew that I had found a new way of expressing the artist within me. Yoga helped me feel balanced and strong in my body and gave me the ability to perceive and channel spiritual and healing energies sourced from the ancient well of this practice. I received benevolence and support from my teachers and felt the responsibility to share this gift with others. Since the beginning, my goal with yoga has been to support my students in aligning their physical bodies with their hearts and supporting them on their spiritual paths. I have also always wanted my students to experience beauty and to feel loved. When adjusting my students in yoga poses, I always made sure that my hands are filled with loving healing energy, as I consider it to be my service, or seva. Therefore, my mastery of Reiki only came to reinforce this call I felt to serve, work, and heal with my hands.

When I traveled to India, I was exposed to various classical Indian dance forms. Being exposed to the Odissi dance of Eastern India in particular, I was fascinated to see the devotional mood with which the dancers would tell stories, translate their prayers, and invoke the gods and goddesses, all by using their hands. To me, the language of the hands was much more captivating than all the hard work the dancers were doing with their bodies and feet. The dancers hand gestures were breathtaking and hypnotic, and the magic of their shapes and movements transported my eyes and spirit to a parallel mythical universe. It was one of the strongest impressions I can ever remember having in my life, and I felt I had found my pot of gold. So much richness filled my days, and the path of Bhakti Yoga entered my life through the medium of devotional dance.

My experience with dance deepened my relationship to the power of the mudras in my life and guided me to use the hand gestures not only as expressive art and a means of prayer to the Divine, but also as a way to help my students infuse and embellish their yoga practices with all of these influences. Through my daily spiritual practice in the form of prayer, dance, and yoga, I increasingly began feeling the presence and blessings of the divine gods and goddesses in my life, and as a result, I felt ready to introduce some of my sadhana as a devotional component to my yoga classes.

After an enriching trip to India, during which time I was able to fully absorb myself in the practice of yoga and the study of dance, I moved to California to be with my husband, Jai Uttal. Along with the gift of uniting with the love of my life, Jai, I was brought to Neem Karoli Babas feet. I had the honor to witness Jais daily devotion to his guru and to learn about the practice of Bhakti from Jais perspective, experience, and complete devotion. I saw that Maharajjis all-embracing presence was orchestrating all the events occurring in our lives; I immersed myself in Maharajjis Bhakti, and by his blessings, Jai and I were gifted with our beautiful boy, Ezra Gopal. Motherhood is for me the highest form of yoga. Being a mother, being Ezras mother, has taught me so much and allowed me to experience a type of unconditional love that I had never felt before.

Over the years, I have continuously studied both yoga and dance under the tutelage of traditional teachers. I have also immersed myself in the art of Reiki and Tantric Buddhist healing methodologies, and in so doing, I have devoted myself to creating a system of healing arts that is rooted in tradition but incorporates influences from various different cultural sources. It is my objective to offer a personal and authentic practice of what I call embodied Bhakti Yoga.

This book is an expression of all of these various influences in my life. Within these pages, I offer some of the most beautiful gems from my collection of mudras and asanasa collection that has been inspired by over twenty-five years of experiences, practice, and teaching. Most of the hand gestures are combined with yogasanas and inspired by Odissi dance postures. My sincere dedication and deep love for the two paths of yoga and Odissi have brought this humble offering into being, and my prayer is that within these pages you will find inspiration to infuse your practice with devotion, magic, and art.

Any mistakes Ive made will hopefully fall at the feet of the One I serve.

With love and respect,

Nubia

INTRODUCTION

yatho hastato dhrishtihi

yatho dhrishtisto manaha

yatho manatato bhavaha