Kundalini: The Awakening of the Life Force

Beloved OSHO

One reason is that any knowledge about kundalini or about esoteric paths of bioenergy — the inner paths of elan vital — is generalized. It differs from individual to individual; the root is not going to be the same. With A it will be different, with B it will be different, with C it will be different. Your inner life has an individuality, so when you acquire something through theoretical knowledge it is not going to help — it may hinder — because it is not about you. It cannot be about you. You will only know about yourself when you go within.

There are chakras, but the number differs with each individual. One may have seven, one may have nine; one may have more, one may have less. That is the reason why so many different traditions have developed. Buddhists talk of nine chakras, Hindus talk of seven, Tibetans talk of four — and they are all right!

The root of kundalini, the passage through which kundalini passes, is also different with each individual. The more you go in, the more individual you are. For instance, in your body your face is the most individual part, and in the face the eyes are even more individual. The face is more alive than any other part of the body; that is why it takes on an individuality. You may not have noticed that with a particular age — particularly with sexual maturity — your face begins to assume a shape that will continue, more or less, for the whole life. Before sexual maturity the face changes much, but with sexual maturity your individuality is fixed and given a pattern, and now the face will be more or less the same.

The eyes are even more alive than the face, and they are so individual that every moment they change. Unless one attains enlightenment, the eyes are never fixed. Enlightenment is another kind of maturity.

With sexual maturity the face becomes fixed, but there is another maturity where the eyes become fixed. You cannot see any change in Buddha’s eyes: his body will grow old, he will die, but his eyes will continue to be the same. That has been one of the indications. When someone attains nirvana, the eyes are the only door by which outsiders can know whether the man has really attained it. Now the eyes never change. Everything changes, but the eyes remain the same. Eyes are expressive of the inner world.

But kundalini is still deeper.

No theoretical knowledge is helpful. When you have some theoretical knowledge, you begin to impose it on yourself. You begin to visualize things to be the way you have been taught, but they may not correspond to your individual situation. Then much confusion is created.

One has to feel the chakras, not know about them. You have to feel; you have to send feelers inside yourself. Only when you feel your chakras, and your kundalini and its passage, is it helpful; otherwise, it is not helpful. In fact, knowledge has been very destructive as far as the inner world is concerned. The more knowledge gained, the less the possibility of feeling the real, the authentic, things.

You begin to impose what you know upon yourself. If someone says, “Here is the chakra, here is the center,” then you begin to visualize your chakra at that spot; and it may not be there at all. Then you will create imaginary chakras. You can create; the mind has the capacity. You can create imaginary chakras, and then, because of your imagination, a flow will begin that will not be kundalini but will be simple imagination — a completely illusory, dreamlike phenomenon.

Once you can visualize centers and can create an imaginary kundalini, then you can create everything. Then imaginary experiences will follow, and you will develop a very false world inside you. The world that is without is illusory, but not so illusory as the one you can create inside.

All that is within is not necessarily real or true, because imagination is also within, dreams are also within. The mind has a faculty — a very powerful faculty — to dream, to create illusions, to project. That is why it is good to proceed in meditation completely unaware of kundalini, of chakras. If you stumble upon them, then it is good. You may come to feel something; only then, ask. You may begin to feel a chakra working, but let the feeling come first. You may feel energy rising up, but let the feeling come first. Do not imagine, do not think about it, do not make any intellectual effort to understand beforehand; no pre-notion is needed. Not only is it not needed, but it is positively harmful.

And another thing: kundalini and the chakras do not belong to your anatomy, to your physiology. Chakras and kundalini belong to your subtle body, to your sukshma sharira, not to this body, the gross body. Of course, there are corresponding spots. The chakras are part of your sukshma sharira, but your physiology and anatomy have spots that correspond to them. If you feel an inner chakra, only then can you feel the corresponding spot; otherwise you can dissect the whole body, but nothing like chakras will be found.

Source: Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy
OSHO – Kundalini: The Awakening of the Life Force

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MAN SLEEPS almost one-third of his life, twenty years approximately. But sleep has been neglected, terribly neglected

Nobody thinks about it, nobody meditates on it. This has happened because man has paid too much attention to the conscious mind.

Mind has three dimensions. Just as matter has three dimensions, mind also has three dimensions. Only one dimension is conscious, another dimension is unconscious, and still another dimension is there which is superconscious. These three dimensions are of the mind — just like the matter, because deep down mind is also matter. Or, you can say it otherwise, that matter is also mind. It has to be so, because only one exists.

Mind is subtle matter; matter is gross mind. But ordinarily man lives only in one dimension, the conscious. Sleep belongs to the unconscious; dreaming belongs to the unconscious. Meditation, ecstasy, belong to the superconscious, just like waking and thinking belong to the conscious. So, we have to go slowly into this phenomenon of mind.

The first thing about mind to be remembered is, it is just like an iceberg — the topmost part is on the surface; you can see it, but it is only one-tenth of the whole. Nine-tenths is hidden underneath. You cannot see it ordinarily unless you move in the depth. But these are only two dimensions. There is a third dimension — as if a part of the iceberg has evaporated and has become a small cloud and hovers in the sky. It is difficult to reach to the unconscious; it is almost impossible to reach to that cloud — of course, part of the same iceberg, but evaporated.

That’s why meditation is so difficult, samadhi so arduous. It takes one’s total energy. It demands one’s total devotion. Only then does the vertical movement into the cloud-like phenomenon of the superconscious become possible. The conscious is there; you are listening to me from the conscious. If you are thinking what I am saying, if you are inside making a sort of dialogue with whatsoever I am saying, a sort of commentary goes on inside, this is the conscious mind.

But you can listen to me without thinking — in deep love, heart-to-heart, not in any way verbalizing what I am saying, judging what I am saying, right or wrong, no. No valuation — you simply listen in deep love, as if the mind has passed, and the heart listens and beats with joy. Then the unconscious is listening. Then whatsoever I say will go very deep to your roots.

But the third possibility is also there, that you can listen through the superconscious. Then even love is a disturbance — very subtle, but even love is a disturbance. Then there is nothing, no thought, no feeling. You simply become a void, an emptiness, end to end. And into that emptiness falls whatsoever I say and whatsoever I am. Then you are listening from the super-conscious.

These are the three dimensions. While you are awake, you live in the conscious — you work, you think, you do this and that. When you fall into sleep, the conscious is no more functioning, it is resting. Another dimension starts working, the unconscious. Then you cannot think, but you can dream. And the whole night there are almost eight cycles of dreaming continuously. Only for a few moments you are not dreaming, otherwise you are dreaming.

Source: OSHO

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