Mudras: happiness of pranic balance.
Mudras are simple postures of the body, postures of fingers, hands, eyes, neck and stomach that alter the flow of prana shakti. When you do the Shanti Path, you bring the index finger and the thumb together in a hand mudra. By placing the fingers in this manner you are creating an energy circuit in the body so that energy is not wasted; instead, it is reinvested in the body.
Mudras and bandhas work more specifically with the pranic body. Kirlian photography is a system where a body part is photographed with special equipment and the picture shows the energy emission of that body part. Generally, energy is discharged from the extremities of the body: the hands, the fingers, the toes, the soles of the feet, the buttocks. In Kirlian photography, the electromagnetic field that surrounds the whole body and which many people call ‘aura’, becomes visible.
This energy emission has different colours and lengths, each representing a particular condition of the physical body. If the colour of the energy emission is blue, strong and even, it indicates you have a healthy body. If the colour is yellow, orange or ashen, it indicates that there are imbalances in different parts of the body. The colour can also represent a particular organ of the body which is affected. With the practice of mudras and bandhas, you redirect the electromagnetic discharge back into the body.
The meaning of the word ‘mudra’ indicates this process. It is derived from the root mud, which means to be happy. Mudra is a practice in which the pranic systems are properly aligned and balanced, and therefore a sense of happiness and joy takes over the whole personality.
Mudra is rebalancing, rechannelling, redirecting the energy emission to harmonize the prana shakti. With this, a sense of euphoria, happiness and joy is experienced.
From the book “Hatha Yoga Yatra 3 Understanding Mudra and Bandha”, pg. 3-4, Sw. Niranjanananda Saraswati