Question: When we are meditating, is it necessary to place our hands in any special position?

Sri Chinmoy: It is not at all necessary to have the hands in any special position. Meditation should be done inwardly and devotedly. If you have inner calm and poise, you do not have to worry about your outer position. Let the hands remain wherever they are. The main thing is meditation. When you are meditating, your whole physical, vital and mental existence should be entering into your meditation.

As far as the inner experience is concerned, you can place your hands anywhere. The important thing is to keep them relaxed. You can let them rest on your knees, with the fingers facing downwards, half-closed. Or there are various mudras, with the fingers held in different positions, but these are helpful only for beginners, if they inspire the physical mind to enter into a deeper consciousness. If you want to know more, there is a whole subject called hasta mudra. Hasta means hand; mudra means posture. It deals with the positioning of the fingers and hands.