Transcription
Welcome back. Today I want to talk about a very powerful Moola Bandha progression. We're going to suck the energy up all the way past the third chakra today. So we'll get into that, and then we will discuss varying yogic philosophies and which might be best for us. So let's get into it.
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So usually, Moola Bandha is given very, very simply. We just squeeze the anus, relax. Squeeze the anus, relax. Squeeze, relax. And you practice that until you get a sufficient amount of control over those muscles.
Now, let's take it to the second level. We're going to squeeze the anus and then squeeze further up as if we are stopping the flow of pee. Now, squeeze the anus and then squeeze up above as if you're stopping the flow of pee. That's it. Relax. Now you squeeze and pull up, and it's as if with those two instructions, you are squeezing and pulling up into the second chakra. Relax.
Now, we'll take it one step further. We'll squeeze the anus, then we'll stop the flow of pee, squeezing higher, and then we'll pull it one more time into the abdomen. And to do this, we're going to do a partial or a full stomach lock. So to do the stomach lock, you can kind of hunch forward to make it a little bit easier. You can stand if you like, put your hands on your knees, take the whole gut and pull it in towards the spine. That is the stomach lock. Very, very simple, very easy. It's easier if you breathe out and then you do it. So I breathe out, pull the gut in.
So now we're going to take the first two instructions and combine it with a full or partial third instruction. So now we squeeze the anus, then we pull farther up, we stop the flow of pee, and then we pull that into the gut. So you can let the stomach come into the spine. It's as if you're in a little race and you're passing the baton from the first muscle set to the second muscle set while still holding the first muscle set. Then the second muscle set will pass to the third muscle set while still maintaining all three muscle sets. They're all exerting pressure upwards.
So let's try that. One, two, three. Make sure your shoulders are nice and relaxed. Let's try that again. Squeeze the first, pull it into the second, pull that into the stomach. Make sure your shoulders are relaxed. And now relax.
So what we've done is we've extended, extended the Moola Bandha into the stomach lock. So we have the root lock, the stomach lock, and then we can add to that the neck lock. So let's try that. Squeeze the first, pull it into the second, pull it into the stomach lock, and now relax the neck forward to do the neck lock and relax. When you do that, you're doing the Maha Bandha. You're doing all three. The neck lock is exerting pressure right here on either side of the neck. This is a pressure valve, and if your heart rate is too high or your blood pressure is too high, it sends a signal down to the heart. It actually sends it to the medulla, and then the medulla sends it down to the heart, "Hey, slow down," or "Hey, blood pressure, you better relax." And so by doing the neck lock, we exert that small pressure on the neck, and it sends a signal to the heart to lower the heart rate just a little bit.
All of these are wonderful tools for your yogic tool chest, but when it comes to Moola Bandha, I absolutely don't recommend it. I think I've been very steady on YouTube for about six years, and six years I've never brought this up to you. Why is that? Because I don't recommend it. But it's out there, you're going to hear about it, so I want you to know about it. I want it to be a tool in your toolbox, but I don't recommend it until you have done at least one year of Om Japa in the chakras. So you've really spent a year or three years really cleaning yourself out with the Om Japa, then yeah, go ahead and throw it in and experiment with it and see what it does for you.
Now, the Western doctors have a very similar technique which also stimulates the lower portion of the vagus nerve, and they call them vagals. And all you do is bear down as if you're going to go to the bathroom. Instead of having an upward pull that the Moola Bandha is doing, you exert a downward pressure as if you are going poop. I'm sorry, that's how it works, and it will stimulate the lower portion of the dorsal vagal. And I don't recommend any of that. I don't recommend the Moola Bandha, and I don't recommend the vagals. You don't need it. And after a year or three years of Om Japa in the chakras, you really won't need it.
So why is that? Forest, why? So because it's out there and because you're going to hear it, I want it to be a tool in your toolbox. After a year of Om Japa, absolutely go ahead and try it out if you want to try it out a little. Now, that's great, no problem with that. But doing it every day is a different philosophy than the Kriya Yoga. And I'll explain why. I actually saw this with Kanda and his book, I think it was Raja Yoga, and he mentions that there are fundamentally two different kinds of yogic philosophy, and this is so huge, it's so true, and you're going to see the truth of it today, I hope.
The first philosophy says, "We got this project of Kundalini, and it is tough, and it is hard, and it is unnatural, and we have to get out and push the bus because it's not happening fast enough for us." When the yogi approaches the yoga in this kind of a way, there's usually a tension, there's a, there's a little bit of a, a feeling of manic need, and you may see that inside of yourself. I've certainly seen it inside of myself where at times I was just on fire and I was really stressed out and worried that it was never going to work. And so it creates this artificial intensity which eventually gets all in your way. You can't meditate with all of that urgency. You have to let it all go. You have to enter into peace. You have to be relaxed. You have to be trusting. You have to be willing to experiment and follow the old yogis and say, "I think these guys actually know what they're doing a little bit. Try it out, see what happens." But that is the first philosophy, and that is the Moola Bandha. The Moola Bandha is getting out behind the bus and wants to shove everything up. And the purpose of the progression that I just gave you is the roll-up of consciousness. So they are attempting to pull the energy and the consciousness past the hardest part, which is the lower three chakras, and get it up into the heart. We hope that's what they're attempting to do. Can I just yank it up here into the heart? Can I get out and push it? And we all want to be in the heart, right? We all want to bypass the lower three chakras, right? So there may be times when you want to do one of those and see if it helps you in that moment.
But the other philosophy of yoga is completely different, and this is what I'm showing in my book, and it doesn't come from me, it comes from the Bhagavad Gita, straight from the Gita with boughs beneath and roots above. It's showing you that you, you are an upside-down tree. The limbs of the tree are going down, the roots are going up. So how do your arms and your legs hang? They hang downward, don't they, as you're standing? And the roots of your brain are above, and that's where we're going. There's no forcing up the tree, it's a falling. I mean, does that just blow your mind? It blew my mind. It's falling. We are falling back to the roots. And the Kriya Yoga purposely creates a magnet towards the brain, and it is the low idle state, and that magnet and the Om Japa in the chakras, which allows this falling back into the brain. No pushing was necessary, right? It's a falling back to our home. The projection comes out of the brain, is thrown down into the body in a chakra, and we M into the chakra, we disrupt the radio signal, and so the radio signal bounces back to its home. It falls. It falls from when it came. That is the Raja Yoga. That is the Kriya Yoga. That's a totally different philosophy. We didn't have to get out and push it back, right? Totally different philosophy.
The philosophy of Kriya Yoga through the Panchinon lineage, which was so beautiful and clear and clean and original, just get everything out of the way. Ashok G told me a million times, "Clean, clean, clean it out. Just clean it right out. Just get in there and clean it right out over and over and over." He stressed the the cleaning. Why? Because when you clean, the channel is clear, and you fall straight back to the brain. No pushing, no prying, no shoving, no getting behind the bus. "I have to push this thing." No. "I have to push this thing." No. Uh-uh. Totally different philosophy. I like to say, if I have a well-organized house, if I'm going from my bedroom to the bathroom, it's going to be a clear shot. I don't have to jump over or jostle through a million things to make that shot to the bathroom. It's going to be clear and easy. So from the bathroom to the bedroom, it's clear. There's nothing in the way. And how did I do that? Well, I keep it clean, right? I keep it clean. That's the Om Japa in the chakras.
So when you do the Moola Bandha, especially just the first one where you're just pulling, pulling, pulling on the very first chakra and you're hoping that it awakens this Kundalini energy and you can start to feel that, "Yay, I feel it, great." When you do that a lot in the beginning of your spiritual journey, it can create a very powerful magnet towards the base of your spine. And you haven't had a year or three years to clean out the chakras through Om Japa. You haven't started that process, right? And so now you've got a magnet in the thick of it, and you have not yet cleaned the house. And so you're magnetized into all the stuff which is down there. And so I get, I hear it all the time, yogis who have done a lot of these practices and they haven't done the three insurance policies of Kriya Yoga, Mahamudra, Nadi, Om Japa in the chakras. They, they haven't done those very basic, easy insurance policies every single day. And so they awaken all of these old issues that have not yet been cleared out, and they get into trouble. And that is a huge possibility if you are doing Moola Bandha, even if you're pulling it up into the third chakra, even if you're doing the neck lock, you're doing the whole Maha Bandha, you can still run into that because you're creating so much energy towards the base of the spine rather than creating a magnet towards the brain.
So two very different philosophies. I want you to be able to understand this. I, I want you to be able to talk with other yogis and see the differences in their philosophy. I would love it if every yogi could do the Moola Bandha and they're clean enough and it was helpful and it was great and they never had a problem. And a lot, a lot of times that is the case. But sometimes, and too often, it turns into a problem. And so I cannot recommend it. It's much better to do the Om Japa, do the long breathing, enter the low idle state, sit very still, enter into the freeze response, notice the four proofs, get pulled into the heart by a magnetic force because you are cleaning everything out, get pulled all the way into the brain, and it's absolutely perfect and beautiful, and you've done the work, you've done the insurance policies, you've cleaned yourself out, and now you're ready, and now it's easy and natural. And that's what I wish for you.
So I hope you love this. I hope it was instructional and and you understand these two core philosophies and their differences. Now, later on, after a year or three years, you can mix and match. Yeah, absolutely, no problem. That's, that's great. It's one more beautiful tool inside of your toolbox. But it deserves your respect, especially in the beginning. It's all about falling back, falling back to Krishna, falling back into the brain. That's it. That's all it is. It's just a falling. It's so easy. A little bit of sitting very still, a little bit of the long breathing, a little bit of all home Japa in the chakras, and you'll be falling right back to the brain, or towards the brain, into the heart. Just beautiful. It's so easy. It's so natural. It is your birthright. It's inside of you. You can't run from it. There's no running from the right brain. It's right there. Everybody has this potential.
So I hope you love this. If you did, be sure to hit that bell down below so I can see all of you next time.
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