To Infinity and Beyond!

Jivamukti founder David Life discovers that practicing mula bandha makes the body less earth-bound.

By David Life

Mula bandha also lifts and compresses the bowel and lower abdominal region. This creates a solid foundation, a platform under the breath that makes it possible to increase or decrease the pressure inside the torso and facilitate movement. The bandha creates lightness and fluidity; when it is properly applied, the body is less earth-bound and more mobile.

Through gradual refinement, mula bandha becomes less muscular and more subtle, energetic, and etheric. This movement from outside to inside, from mundane to rarefied, from unconsciousness to enlightenment, is the basic pattern of transcendental yogic awakening. On an energetic level, mula bandha allows us to feel, restrain, and then direct our energies toward enlightenment. Finally, when practicing mula bandha on the highest level, the yogi sees the Divine in all with equanimity and detachment.

On a physical level, mula bandha consists of a contraction, a muscular lifting-up in the floor of the pelvis. Although the pelvis itself is primarily a bony structure supported with ligaments, the pelvic floor consists of muscle fibers and fascia (connective tissue). These tissues intersect and overlap in complex ways; for our purposes, we can divide the pelvic floor into three muscular levels, each of which can be sensed and moved separately.

The most superficial physical level of mula bandha corresponds to the "contract your anus" instruction. If you are unsure about whether you understand this contraction, place a finger in or on the anal opening and alternately squeeze it shut and protrude it outward. The outward movement is the wrong direction.

Technically, isolation of the anal sphincter contraction is not mula bandha but a cousin, called ashvini ("dawn horse") mudra, named after the rather peculiar habit that horses have of pursing the anal sphincter. But contracting the anal sphincter does provide a doorway to the deeper layers of mula bandha. This muscle is connected by ligaments to the tip of the spine; when you contract it, you draw mula-dhara chakra upward, as in mula bandha. Eventually, with mula bandha applied correctly, the anus will soften and lift into the body. At first, you'll probably unconsciously contract other muscles of the pelvic floor along with the anal sphincter. The next step in the refinement of your mula bandha is to sort out some of these other unconscious contractions and make them conscious.

The intermediate physical level of mula bandha involves isolating the contraction of the perineum (the region between the anus and the genitals) and perineal body (which extends inward from the perineum and is the insertion point for eight muscles of the pelvic floor)—without contracting the anal sphincter.

In order to feel the perineum, press a finger into the space between the anus and scrotum or labia. Or, better yet, sit for a few minutes with a tennis ball or the heel of your foot placed in the space between the anus and genitals. Alternate between anal and perineal contractions until you can feel the difference. With some experience, you will find that you can refine your experience of mula bandha by moving deeper into the pelvis through the isolation of the perineum. This refinement carries the contraction of the bandha inward and upward, giving you a physical experience of the yogic process of moving from external to internal awareness.

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