MUDRA CLUSTER: A SHORT STORY

Following his morning prayer, he presented the following mudras, remembering that mudras are hand gestures that aid in concentrating the mind on God.

His first mudra represented the awakened Atman in him and was the most powerful and enduring of all his mudras.  The palms of his hands were open at his face like an open book.

The second gesture was the rudder of concentration mudra.  The rudder kept him on an even keel in the flow of the awakened Atman.  His one hand was out in front of him like guiding a ship.

His next mudra symbolized his receiving energy from the awakened Atman.  His hands were up in the air in front of him like antennae.

Then there was his mudra representing transcendental consciousness, the background, pure consciousness that is in all things and that in humans illuminates the conditioned consciousness.  Here, the hands begin together as though in a Namaste greeting, but then are extended out, indicating expanded consciousness.

The fifth gesture was one hand up as if waving to someone, not unlike its meaning as a mudra.  It was his acknowledgement of and greeting to his spiritual family, his kindred spirits, both here in the world of form and over in the afterlife, in other dimensions, planes.  He had in mind everyone from Shankara to Madame Blavatsky to D. T. Suzuki.

Sixth was the oblique-world gesture.  The oblique world was that region of consciousness that was, metaphorically, just out of sight, backstage, behind the scenes.  A lot takes place there, psychically especially, that we are not immediately aware of.  This is the place of jiji muge, as Zen calls it, where the mutual interpenetration of all things and events occurs.  Meaningful coincidences, synchronicity, also arises there.  To represent this, he cocked his two hands diagonally to the side.

Lastly was his gesture for moksha, liberation.  He created the gesture of raised hands on June 3, 2015 when he accepted that there was only one thing in his life now, that his life was for that one thing only, and that was the awakened Atman.  Everything other than the awakened Atman was, for him now, irrelevant or simply not the point.

He ended his presentation where he began it, with the awakened-Atman gesture of open hands.