What are Chakras?

From the Book – Tantra Experience by Master Osho —

Tantra and Yoga suppose that there are seven centers in man’s physiology, the subtle physiology, not in the body. In fact they are metaphors, but they are very, very helpful to understand something of the inner man. These are the seven chakras.

First, and the most basic, is muladhar. That’s why it is called muladhar: muladhar means the most fundamental, the basic. Mul means the basic, of the roots. The muladhar chakra is the center where sex energy is right now available, but the society has damaged that chakra very much. This muladhar chakra has three angles to it: one is oral, the mouth; the second is anal; and the third is genital. These are the three angles of the muladhar. The child starts his life with the oral, and because of wrong upbringing, many people remain at the oral, they never grow. That’s why so much smoking, chewing gum, continuous eating, happens. This is an oral fixation, they remain in the mouth.

There are many primitive societies which don’t kiss. In fact if the child has grown well, kissing will disappear. Kissing shows the man has remained oral; otherwise what does sex have to do with lips? When for the first time primitive societies came to know about civilized man’s kissing, they laughed, they simply thought it ridiculous – two persons kissing each other! It looks unhygienic too, just transferring all sorts of illnesses to each other, infections. And what are they doing? And for what? But humanity has remained oral. The child is not satisfied orally; the mother does not give her breast as much as the child needs, the lips remain unsatisfied. So the child will smoke cigarettes later on, will become a great kisser, will chew gum, or will become a great eater, continuously eating this and that.

If mothers give their breast as much as the child needs, then the muladhar is not damaged. If you are a smoker, try a pacifier – and you will be suddenly surprised – it has helped many people, I give it to many people. If somebody comes and asks me how to stop smoking, I say, “Just halve a pacifier, a false breast, and keep it in the mouth. Let it hang around your neck and whenever you feel like smoking, just put the pacifier in the mouth and enjoy it. And within three weeks you will be surprised: the urge to smoke has disappeared.

Somewhere the breast is still appealing; that’s why man is so much focused on feminine breasts. There seems to be no reason. Why, why is man so much interested in feminine breasts? Painting, sculpture, film, pornography, everything seems to be breast-oriented! And women are continuously trying to hide and yet show their breasts; otherwise the bra is just foolish. It is a trick to hide and show together; it is a very contradictory trick. And now in America, where every foolish thing goes to its extreme, they are injecting chemicals into women’s breasts, silicon and other things. They are stuffing breasts with silicon so they become bigger and cam get the shape, the shape that grownup humanity wants to see. This childish idea…but man remains somehow oral. This is the lowest state of the muladhar.

Then a few people change from oral and they become stuck at thie anal, because the second great damage happens with toilet training. Children are forced to go to the toilet at a certain time. Now, children cannot control their bowel movements; it takes time, it takes years for them to come to a control. So what do they do? They simply force, they simply close their anal mechanism, and because of this they become anal-fixated. That’s why so much constipation exists in the world. It is only man who suffers from constipation.

No animal suffers from constipation, in the wild state no animal suffers from constipation. Constiipation is more psychological; it is a damage to the muladhar. A ind because of constipation many other things grow into the human mind.A man becomes a hoarder – a hoarder of knowledge, hoarder of money, hoarder of virtue…becomes a hoarder and becomes miserly. He cannot leave anything! Whatsoever he grabs, he holds it. And with this anal emphasis, a great damage happens to muladhar, because the man or the woman has to go to the genital. If they get fixated at the oral or at the anal, they never go to the genital. That is the trick the society has used up to now not to allow you to become fully sexual. Then anal-fixation becomes so important that genitals become less important. Hence so much homosexuality.

Homosexuality will not disappear from the world until and unless anal orientation disappears. Toilet-training is a great, dangerous training. A nd then, if some people become genital somehow they are not fixated at the oral and the anal and become genital – then there is great guilt created in humanity about sex. Sex means sin. Christianity has thought sex so much a sin that they go on pretending and proposing and trying to prove a foolish thing: that Christ was born out of a miracle, that he was not born out of a manwoman relationship, that Mary was a virgin.

Sex is such a sin that how can Jesus’ mother have sex? It is okay for other ordinary people…but for Jesus’ mother to have sex? Then how can Jesus, such a pure man, be born out of sex? Sex has been condemned so much, you cannot enjoy it. And that’s why energy remains fixated somewhere: oral, anal, genital. It cannot go upwards. Tantra says man has to be relieved, destructured from these three things.

So Tantra says that the first great work has to happen in the muladhar. For oral freedom screaming, laughing, shouting, crying, weeping, are very helpful. That’s why my choice of encounter, gestalt, primal and that type of group they are all helpful to relieve the oral fixation. A nd to relieve you of the anal fixation, pranayam, bastrika, fast chaotic breathing, is very helpful, because it hits directly on the anal center and makes you able to relieve and relax the anal mechanism. Hence the dynamic meditation is of tremendous value. And then the sex center: the sex center has to be relieved of the burden of guilt, condemnation. You have to start relearning about it; only then can the damaged sex center function in a healthy way.

You have to start relearning to enjoy it without any guilt. There are a thousand and one types of guilt. In the Hindu mind there is a fear: that semen energy is great energy; even if a single drop is lost, you are lost. This is a very constipatory attitude -hoard it! Nothing is lost. You are such a dynamic force, you go on creating that energy every day. Nothing is lost.

The Hindu mind is too much obsessed with virya, with semen energy; not a single drop should be lost’ They are continuously afraid. So whenever they make love, if they make love, then they feel very much frustrated, very much depressed, because they start thinking so much energy is lost. Nothing is lost. You don’t have a dead quota of energy; you are a dynamo – you create energy, you create it every day. In fact the more you use it, the more you have it. It functions like the whole body: if you use your muscles they will grow, if you walk your legs will be strong, if you run you will have more energy to run. Don’t think that a person who has never run and suddenly runs will have energy – he will not have energy. He will not have even the musculature to run. Use all that has been given to you by God and you will have more of it! So there is one Hindu madness: to hoard. This is on the lines of constipation. And now there is an American madness that is like diarrhoea: just throw, go on throwing – meaningfully, meaninglessly, go on throwing. So even a man of eighty years continuously thinks in childish ways.

Sex is good, sex is beautiful, but is not the end. It is the alpha but not the omega. One has to go beyond it, but going beyond it is not a condemnation! One has to go through it to go beyond it. Tantra is the most healthy attitude about sex. It says sex is good, sex is healthy, sex is natural, but sex has more possibilities than just reproduction. And sex has more possibilities than just fun. Sex is carrying something of the ultimate in it, of samadhi. The muladhar chakra has to be relaxed, relaxed from constipation, relaxed from diarrhea. The muladhar chakra has to function at the optimum, one hundred percent; then energy starts moving.

The next chakra was svadhishthan: it means the abode of the self; it is the death chakra. It is a very strange name to giveto the death chakra: abode of the self, svadhishthan, where you exist really. In death? – yes. When you die you come to your pure existence, because only that dies which you are not. The body dies. The body is born out of the muladhar. When you die the body disappears, but you? -no.

The second chakra is svadhishthan. That is the hara, the death center. These two centers are very much damaged, because man has been afraid of sex and man has been afraid of death. So death has been avoided: don’t talk about death! Just forget about it, it does not exist. Even if sometimes it exists, don’t notice it, don’t take any note of it. Go on thinking that you are going to live forever; avoid death! Tantra says: Don’t avoid sex and don’t avoid death. Once you accept death and you are not afraid of it, once you accept sex and you are not afraid of it, your two lower centers are relaxed.

And those are the two lower centers which have been damaged by the society, badly damaged. Once they are relieved…. The other five centers are not damaged. There is no need to damage them because people don’t live in those other five centers. These two centers are naturally available. Birth has happened: the sex center, muladhar. A nd death is going to happen: svadhishthan, the second center. These two things are there in everybody’s life, so society has destroyed both centers and tried to manipulate man, dominate man, through these two things. Tantra says: Meditate while you make love, meditate while somebody dies; go, watch, see. Sit by the side of a dying man. Feel, participate in his death. Go in deep meditation with the dying man. A nd when a man is dying there is a possibility to have a taste of death, because when a man is dying he releases so much energy from the svadhishthan chakra…. He has to release because he is dying. The whole repressed energy on the svadhishthan chakra will be released because he is dying; without releasing it he will not be able to die.

So when a man dies or a woman dies, don’t miss the opportunity. If you are close by to a dying man, sit silently, meditate silently. When the man dies, in a sudden burst the energy will be all over, and you can have a taste of death. And that will give you a great relaxation. Yes, death happens, but nobody dies. Yes, death happens, but in fact death never happens. While making love, meditate so that you can know that something of samadhi penetrates into sexuality. And while meditating on death, go deep into it so that you can see that something of the deathless enters into death. These two experiences will help you to go upwards very easily. The other five centers fortunately are not destroyed; they are perfectly in tune, just energy has to move through them. If these first two centers are helped, energy starts moving. So let death and love be your two objects of meditation.

Whatsoever has been given by the muladhar is taken away by svadhishthan. Your mother and father have given you a certain mechanism; that is taken away in death. But you? – you existed even before your father and mother had known each other; you have existed always. Jesus says – somebody asks him about A braham, what he thinks about the prophet Abraham, and he says: Abraham? I am, before Abraham ever was. Abraham existed almost two thousand, three thousand years before Jesus, and he says: I am, before Abraham was! What is he talking about? As far as bodies are concerned, how can he be before Abraham? He is nor talking about the body, he is talking about I-am-ness, his pure being – that is eternal.

This name, svadhishthan, is beautiful. It is exactly the center that in Japan is known as hara. That’s why in Japan suicide is called harakiri – to die or to kill yourself through the hara center. This svadhishthan takes only that which has been given by the muladhar, but that which has been coming from eternity, your consciousness, is not taken away. Hindus have been great explorers of consciousness. They called it svadhishthan because when you die then you know who you are. Die in love and you will know who you are. Die in meditation and you will know who you are. Die to the past and you will know who you are. Die to the mind and you will know who you are. Death is the way to know. In ancient days in India the master was called the death – because you have to die in the master. The disciple has to die in the master, only then does he come to know who he is. These two centers have been very much poisoned by the society; these are the centers easily available to the society. Beyond these two are five more centers.

The third center, manipura, is the center of all your sentiments, emotions. We go on repressing our emotions in the manipura; it means the diamond. Life is valuable because of sentiments, emotions, laughter, crying, tears and smiles. Life is valuable because of all these things, these are the glory of life. Hence the chakra is called manipura, the diamond chakra. Only man is capable of having this precious diamond. Animals cannot laugh; naturally they cannot cry either. Tears are a certain dimension which is available to man only. The beauty of tears, the beauty of laughter, the poetry of rears and the poetry of laughter are available to man only.

All other animals exist with only two chakras, muladhar and svadhishthan. They are born and they die; between the two there is nothing much. If you are also born and you die, you are an animal, you are not man yet. And many millions of people exist only with these two chakras; they never go beyond them. We have been taught to repress sentiments, we have been taught not to be sentimental. We have been taught sentimentality does not pay: be practical, be hard; don’t be soft, don’t be vulnerable, otherwise you will be exploited. Be hard! A t least show that you are hard, at least pretend that you are dangerous, that you are not a soft being. Create fear around you. Don’t laugh, because if you laugh you cannot create fear around you. Don’t weep; if you weep you show that you are afraid yourself. Don’t show your human limitations. Pretend that you are perfect.

Repress the third center and you become a soldier, not a man but a soldier – an army man, a false man. Much work is done in Tantra to relax this third center. Emotions have to be relieved, relaxed. When you feel like crying you have to cry, when you feel like laughing you have to laugh. You have to drop this nonsense of repression; you have to learn expression, because only through your sentiments, your emotions, your sensitivity, do you come to that vibration through which communication is possible. Have you not seen it? You can say as much as you want and nothing is said; but a tear rolls down on your cheek…and everything is said. A tear can say much more; you can talk for hours and it won’t do, and a tear can say all. You can go on saying, “I am very happy, this and that…” but your face will show just the opposite. A little laughter, a real authentic laughter, and you need not say anything, the laughter says all. When you see your friend, your face beams, flashes with joy.

The third center has to be made more and more available. It is against thinking, so if you allow the third center you will relax in your tense mind more easily. Be authentic, sensitive; touch more, feel more, laugh more, cry more. And remember, you cannot do more than is needed, you cannot exaggerate. You cannot even bring a single tear more than is needed, and you cannot laugh more than is needed. So don’t be afraid, and don’t be miserly. Tantra allows life all its emotions. These are the three lower centers – lower not in any sense of evaluation. These are the three lower centers, lower rungs of the ladder.

Then comes the fourth center, the heart center, called ana-hata. The word is beautiful. Anahata means unstruck sound. It means exactly what Zen people mean when they say, “Do you hear the sound of one hand clapping?” – unstruck sound. The heart is just in the middle: three centers below it, three centers above it. And the heart is the door from the lower to the higher, or from the higher to the lower. The heart is like a crossroads. And the heart has been completely bypassed. You have not been taught to be heartful. You have not even been allowed to go into the realm of the heart, because it is very dangerous. It is the center of the soundless sound. It is the nonlinguistic center, unstruck sound.

Language is struck sound, we have to create it with our vocal chords; it has to be struck, it is two hands clapping. The heart is one hand clapping: in the heart there is no word, it is wordless. We have avoided the heart completely, we have bypassed it. We move in such a way in our being, as if the heart does not exist, or at the most as if it is just a pumping mechanism for breathing, that’s all. It is not. The lungs are not the heart. The heart is hidden deep behind the lungs. And it is not physical either, it is the place from where love arises. That’s why love is not a sentiment, and sentimental love belongs to the third center, not to the fourth. Love is not just sentimental. Love has more depth than sentiments, love has more validity than sentiments.

Sentiments are momentary. More or less the sentiment of love is misunderstood as the experience of love. One day you fall in love with a man or a woman and the next day it is gone, and you call it love. It is not love, it is a sentiment. You liked the woman – liked, remember, not loved it was a like, just as you like ice cream. It was a like. Likes come and go, likes are momentary; they cannot stay long, they don’t have any capacity to stay long. You like a woman, you loved her, and finished – the like is finished. It is Just like you liked ice cream; you have eaten it, now you don’t look at the ice cream at all. And if somebody goes on giving you more ice cream, you will say, “Now it is nauseating; stop! I cannot take any more.” Liking is not love. Never misunderstand liking for love, otherwise your whole life you will be just a driftwood, you will be drifting from one person to another. Intimacy will never grow.

The fourth center, the anahata, is very significant, because it is in the heart that for the first time you were related to your mother. It was through the heart that you were related to your mother, not through the head. In deep love, in deep orgasm, again you are related through the heart, not through the head. In meditation, in prayer, the same happens: you are related with existence through the heart, heart-to-heart. Yes, it is a dialogue – heart-to-heart, not head-to-head. It is nonlinguistic. And the heart center is the center from where the soundless sound arises. If you relax into the heart center, you will hear omkar, aum.

That is a great discovery. Those who have entered the heart, they hear a continuous chanting inside their being which sounds like ‘aum’. Have you ever heard anything like a chanting which goes on by itself? – not that you do it…. That’s why I am not in favor of mantras. You can go on chanting “A um, aum, aum,” and you can’create a mental substitute for the heart. It is not going to help, it is a deception. And you can go on chanting for years and you can create a false sound within yourself as if your heart is speaking; it is not.

To know the heart you are not to chant aum, you have just to be silent. One day, suddenly the mantra is there. One day, when you have fallen silent, suddenly you hear the sound coming from nowhere. It is arising out of you from the innermost core; it is the sound of your inner silence. Just as in a silent night there is a certain sound, the sound of the silence, exactly like that on a very, very much deeper level, a sound arises in you. It arises, let me remind you again and again. It is not that you bring it in; it is not that you repeat “A um, aum.” No, you don’t say a single word. You are simply quiet, you are simply silent, and it bursts forth like a spring…. Suddenly it starts flowing, it is there. You hear it – you don’t say it, you hear it.

That is the meaning when Mohammedans say that Mohammed heard the Koran – that is the meaning. That is exactly what happens at the innermost core of your heart – not that you say it, you hear it. Mohammed heard the Koran, he heard it happening inside. He was really puzzled; he had never heard anything like this. It was so unknown, it was so unfamiliar.

The story says that he became ill…it was so weird! When suddenly, sitting in your room, if one day you start hearing inside aum, aum, or anything, you will start feeling, “Am I going mad?” You are not saying it, nobody else is saying it – are you going mad? Mohammed was sitting on a hilltop when he heard it. He came back home trembling, perspiring, he had a high fever. He really became disturbed…he told his wife, “Just bring all the blankets and cover me! I have never had such a trembling; a great fever has come to me.” But his wife could see that his face was illuminated: “What type of fever is this? His eyes are burning, afire with something tremendously beautiful. A grace has entered with him in the house. A great silence has fallen over the house.” Even his wife started hearing something. She said to Mohammed, “I don’t think it is a fever, I think God has blessed you. Don’t be afraid! What has happened? tell me!” His wife was the first Mohammedan; Khadija was her name. She was the first convert. She said, “I can see. God has happened to you, something has happened to you, something is flowing from your heart all over the place. You have become luminous! You have never been like this, something extraordinary has happened. Tell me why you are so much worried and trembling. Maybe it is new, but you tell me.” And Mohammed told her, very much afraid of what she would think, but she became converted; she was the first Mohammedan. It has always happened so.

Hindus say the Vedas were recited by God himself. It simply means that they were heard. In India for the holy scriptures we have a word, the word is shmti; shruti means that which has been heard. At this center of the heart,the anahata chakra, you hear. But you have not heard anything inside you – no sound, no omkar, no mantra. That simply means you have avoided the heart. The waterfall is there, and the sound of running water is there, but you have avoided it. You have bypassed; you have taken some other route, you have taken a shortcut. The shortcut simply goes from the third center, avoiding the fourth.

The fourth is the most dangerous center because it is the center out of which trust is born, faith is born. And the mind has to avoid it. If the mind does not avoid it, then there will be no possibility for doubt. Mind lives through doubt. This is the fourth center. And Tantra says: Through love you will come to know this fourth center.

The fifth center is called vishuddha. Vishuddha means purity. Certainly after love has happened there is purity and innocence, never before it. Only love purifies, and only love…nothing else purifies. Even the ugliest person in love becomes beautiful. Love is nectar: it cleanses all poisons. So the fifth chakra is called vishuddha – vishuddha means purity, absolute purity. It is the throat center. And Tantra says: Only speak when you have come to the fifth center via the fourth – only speak through love, otherwise don’t speak. Speak through compassion, otherwise don’t speak. What is the point of speaking? If you have come through the heart and if you have heard God speaking there or God running there like a waterfall, if you have heard the sound of God, the sound of one hand clapping, then you are allowed to speak. Then your throat center can convey the message, then something can be poured even into words. When you have it, it can be poured even into words.

Very few people come to the fifth center, very rarely – because they don’t come to the fourth even, so how can they come to the fifth? It is very rare. Somewhere a Christ, a Buddha, a Saraha, they come to the fifth. The beauty even of their words is tremendous; what to say about their silence, even their words carry silence. They speak and yet they speak not. They say and they say the unsayable, the ineffable, the inexpressible. You also use the throat, but that is not vishuddha. The chakra is completely dead. When that chakra starts, your words have honey in them. Then your words have a fragrance, then your words have a music to them, a dance. Then whatsoever you say is poetry, whatsoever you utter is sheer joy.

And the sixth chakra is agya: agya means order. With the sixth chakra you are in order, never before it, With the sixth chakra you become the master, never before it. Before it you were a slave. With the sixth chakra, whatsoever you say will happen, whatsoever you desire will happen. With the sixth chakra you have will, never before it; before it, will exists not. But there is a paradox in it. With the fourth chakra ego disappears. With the fifth chakra all impurities disappear and then you have will – so you cannot harm through your will. In fact it is no longer your will, it is God’s will, because the ego disappears at the fourth, all impurities disappear at the fifth. Now you are the purest being, just a vehicle, instrumental, a messenger. Now you have will because you are not; now God’s will is your will. Very rarely does a person come to this sixth chakra, because this is the last, in a way. In the world this is the last. Beyond this is the seventh, but then you enter a totally different world, a separate reality. The sixth is the last boundary line, the checkpost.

The seventh is sahasrar: sahasrar means one-thousand-petaled lotus. When your energy moves to the seventh, sahasrar, you become a lotus. Now you need not go to any other flower for honey, now other bees start coming to you. Now you attract bees from the whole earth – or even sometimes from other planets bees start coming to you. Your sahasrar has opened, your lotus is in full bloom. This lotus is nirvana. The lowest is muladhar. From the lowest life is born, life of the body and the senses. With the seventh life is born – life eternal, not of the body, not of the senses. This is the Tantra physiology. It is not a physiology of the medical books.

Please don’t look for it in the medical books, it is not there. It is a metaphor, it is a way of saying. It is a map to make things understandable. If you move this way, you will never come to that cloudedness of thoughts. If you avoid the fourth chakra, then you go into the head. Now to be in the head means not to be in love; to be in thoughts means not to be in trust; to be thinking means not to be looking.