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Wow, what a practice this morning. One of those ones where I kept thinking of things I should do and things I should write down and things that I should think about. Yikes. It really wasn’t until bhujapidasana that I kind of settled down.

You know, we always tend to think of practice as a kind of ideal situation, where you have a long string of Yoga Journal moments, but how often is that really the case? I consider myself very lucky because I get a good number of blissful practices. But the bumpy ones, the ones where I have pains or am just dragging my sad ass through the sequence, well, those are the practice, too. And not just a sketchy part of the practice. Nope, those moments are as legit as the spectacular moments. I think the “yoga industry” has done us a disservice by taking pictures of people always at the top of their form. YJ makes it look like some people have 100% perfect practices and the rest of us are either losers, or people who just need a little more practice in order to have a 100% perfect practice. As if you can crack some barrier and then always be perfect. In the end, though, I think it’s more like a batting average. I’d love to ask Richard Freeman or Tim Miller what they figure their lifetime blissful, easy practice average is.

Okay, so forget the nice clothes and the pristine space and the new mat. Get your shoddily-clothed (or underpants-wearing) sluggish butt on the floor of your dust-bunny ravaged home (or shala) and set to it. THAT’S what practice is.

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As Christopher Walken wants more cowbell!, so yogis want more moola bandha.

The mind is illuminated in stages as the kundalini rises through the spinal cord, piercing the chakras. it does not actually travel through each chakra one by one, but ascends the sushumna to the brain and sahasrara chakra where all the chakras are situated. It actually works on them at a psychophysiological level, that is, on brain and mind simultaneously.

The scriptures indicate that in order for kundalini to achieve its final upward movement to sahasrara it must first pierce through three major granthis (psychic knots). These are brahma granthi, vishnu granthi and rudra granthi, situated in mooladhara, anahata and ajna chakras respectively. Each granthi represents a particular state of consciousness, or attachment, which acts as an obstacle on the path to higher awareness.

1. Brahma granthi, situated in mooladhara chakra, symbolizes attachment to possessions — body, material objects, etc. It is associated with feelings of lethargy and ignorance, and minfests as severe limitations in the ability to act.

2. Vishnu granthi, situated in anahata chakra, symbolizes attachment to people inclusing relatives and friends.

3. Rudra granthi, situated in ajna chakra, symbolizes attachment to psychic visions and powers (siddhis).

Kundalini cannot begin or continue to rise until the granthis are pierced or, in other words, attachment is broken.

The scriptures go on to state that by the practice of the three bandhas (moola, uddiyana and jalandara) the sixteen adharas are closed. Adhara means ‘a support, a vital part.’ The sixteen vital parts are the thumbs, ankles, knees, thighs, prepuce, organs of generation, navel, heart, neck, throat, palate, nose, the middle of the eyebrows, forehead, head and brahmarandhra (the aperture in the crown of the head through which the soul is said to leave the body at death). When the sixteen adharas are closed, the consciousness becomes completely introverted with no means of escape, and meditation spontaneously takes place. This moola bandha helps us to gain deeper internal meditative states. It also pierces brahma granthi, liberating us from attachment and taking us inward.

Through the practice of moola bandha the yogi attempts to reach the source or ‘moola’ of all creation. His goal is the complete restraint (bandha) of the patterns of consciousness (chitta) which include mind (manas), intellect (buddhi) and the ego (ahamkara). Through controlled restraint, he achieves union with the universal flow.

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The “more cowbell” reference reminds me of my favorite Christopher Walken SNL skit: The Continental. It seems like everyone is familiar with “More Cowbell!,” but few have seen “The Continental.” So check it out here.