"There are two roads to fulfillment: Prayer and Meditation.
Prayer makes you a supplicant at the feet of God.
Meditation (dhyana) induces God to come down to you and inspires you to raise yourselves to Him; it tends to make you come together, not place one in a lower level and the other on a higher."
The little finger, the ring finger, and the middle finger represent the three characteristics (gunas), viz. dull (tamasic), passionate/dynamic (rajasic) and balanced/pure (sathwic). The middle finger thus signifies purity (sathwa).
The forefinger, that is, the pointer finger, is called the life finger; it symbolizes the individual (jiva) aspect of man. The thumb signifies Brahman. The joining of the forefinger with the thumb, and the three other fingers stretched together apart, indicates the desire for the emergence of the individual with god (deva). This is called 'chin mudra'. While performing silent repetition of the name (japa), the rosary (mala) should be put on the middle finger, which represents the pure quality (sathwic guna), thereby isolating and separating the individual (jiva) from the qualities (gunas).
With the tip of the forefinger touching the thumb, go on rotating bead by bead. This signifies the aspiration of the individual (jiva) to merge with Brahman. In this process, even if the forefinger were to touch slightly the middle finger, it would acquire only the pure (sathwic) quality and not all the qualities (gunas).
SIGNIFICANCE OF 108
The number 108 is sacred because man breaths 21600 (=200x108) times a day, and it becomes 9 by adding up each number (=1+0+8). 9 is Brahman's number. 108 or 1008 Names is recommended in the scriptures because there is just a chance that we will utter at least one Name out of the Namavali with the sincere yearning to which the Lord will respond and bless.
(reproduced from various sources of the world wide web).
