Mesko - Healing mudras: yoga for your hands

The material contained in this book is not intended as medical advice.
If you have a medical issue or illness, consult a qualified physician.

A Ballantine Wellspring Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright 2000 by Sabrina Mesko

Photography by Dorothy Low
Illustrations by Kiar Mesko
Costume design, photo design, and styling by Sabrina Mesko

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Based on an edition that was self-published in 1997 under the title The Yoga Dance.

Ballantine is a registered trademark and Ballantine Wellspring and the Ballantine Wellspring colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.ballantinebooks.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-91635

eISBN: 978-0-307-55662-2

v3.1

To the greatest parents in the world,
Bibi and Kiar

This book manifested in my hands through divine hands. Now this book and its energy are yours. I thank the Divine Universe for giving me the opportunity to help others.

My deepest gratitude to the following wonderful people:

I must thank my teachers, gurus, and masters whom I learned from and had the privilege to meet: Guru Maya, Paramahansa Yogananda, Bhikram, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and, most of all, Yogi Bhajan.

My parents, Kiar and Bibi, who sacrificed much, and encouraged and guided me on my lifes journey. I love you.

My brother, Kristopher, and sister, Iris, for their support.

My agent, Lisa Swayne, for her belief and guidance from the start.

My editor, Leslie Meredith, for her vision and for recognizing the beauty, power, and importance of these hand teachings.

And Jeff Kutashthe angel protectorfor his extraordinary love and encouragement every day in every way.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart and soul.

Love and peace and blessings.

My journey to create this book has been a long but inspiring one. It has undoubtedly taken me quite a few lifetimes to achieve it. I believe that we all have a mission in our life that we have chosen to accomplisheven before we are born. This book is mine.

Finding your lifes purpose can be quite a challenge. You may think you know why you are here and what you are supposed to do with your life. Yet an event or a series of events can uproot you, whirl you completely around, and deposit you on a completely new path. Astoundingly, we often find that this path is the one that we were looking for all along, even though it is not the path we had envisioned for ourselves.

I grew up in Ljubljana in Slovenia, in an enormously talented, artistic family. My father is an artist and sculptor, my mother a journalist and linguist. My sister, an archaeologist, has done extensive research on dance in Egypt, and my brother specializes in spiritual art. Every day of my early life, I was surrounded by love and an appreciation for beauty and saw all around me the profound and enlivening effect that art has on the enjoyment and quality of daily life. I was propelled into my love of dance and music even before I could really walk. I became a professional ballerina in my teens and danced in classical ballet companies all over Europe.

Because I have always had a tremendous desire to help people, I also taught disabled and blind children how to dance. This experience confirmed my belief that encouragement and positive feedback can make a great difference in our ability to face the challenges that life presents us. The world can seem a hard place, and it is very important to show each other and especially our younger generation that we can achieve our dreams, and that we can do so without compromising our beliefs or ourselves. I truly believe that there is a rewarding and positive answer to every problem that enters our lives. Our daily mission is to find that better way, pursue it ourselves, and open it to the next person behind us. Together, we can turn our world into a harmonious and happy one.

To be most effective in accomplishing our daily mission and our lifes mission, and to deal effectively with lifes challenges, we must first find an inner peace and strength within ourselves. The techniques presented in this book give you the key to unlocking the limitless powers that lie within you. You have been born with all the inner resources you needyou have only to discover and develop them. This book of mudras is a quick instruction guide to getting to know your sacred powers and freeing them for your use every day. Mudra is the password to the data of your inner computeryour unseen power. All you have to do is activate one function at a timethere is only one mudra on each page, so you can proceed at your own pace in this spiritual strength trainingand you will discover a new way to re-program your body, mind, and soul to achieve your full potential.

I began to practice yoga after a back injury cut into my dancing career. Eventually, I realized that dance had been only the connecting path to my true lifes mission of studying and teaching yogaparticularly yoga that you can use to help you live your daily life. Mudras are wonderfully effectiveand easy to doyet until now they have not been widely taught as a technique for living.

Even though I had studied different meditation teachings and techniques for many years, it took me a long time to develop a deep understanding of the hand gestures of mudras. Aside from a few very basic mudras used for common meditations, the hundred-plus mudras themselves just werent being taught. For several years while studying yoga and holistic medicine, I couldnt find any information about mudras. I continued to search, however, and was fortunate to eventually meet wonderful teachers and masters who instructed me in the art of mudra. As the saying goes, when the student is ready, the master will appear. This certainly was true in my case. When I was ready for the next level of my training, events would unfold in such a way that I would be led to my next teacher. As I studied meditation, breathing, and yoga, I had the constant feeling that I was being reminded of something familiar rather than learning something completely new. When I finally began to practice mudra techniques for the first time, I instantly felt that my entire life journey made sense. Now it brings me great joy and a sense of fulfillment to share this knowledge and technique with you.