Kindling Your Kundalini by Osho

Q: Is it helpful to visualize and know what is happening during meditation – for example, the movement of kundalini and the opening of the chakras?

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. 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.

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, it is positively harmful.

One thing more: it is not necessary to pass through chakras. It is not necessary; one can just bypass them. It is also not necessary that you will feel kundalini before enlightenment. The phenomenon is very different from what you may think. Kundalini is not felt because it is rising; kundalini is only felt if you do not have a very clear passage. If the passage is completely clear-cut, then the energy flows but you cannot feel it. You feel it when there is something there that resists the flow. If the energy flows upward and you have blocks in the passage, only then do you feel it. So the person who feels more kundalini is really blocked: there are many blocks in the passage, so the kundalini cannot flow.

When there is resistance, then the kundalini is felt. You cannot feel energy directly unless there is resistance. If kundalini moves and there are no blocks, then you will never feel any chakras. That is why someone may feel nine chakras, someone else may feel ten chakras, and someone else may feel only three or four, or one, or none. It depends. In actual fact, there are infinite chakras and at every movement, every step of the kundalini, a chakra is by the side to help. If the help is needed, it can be given.

Meditation as such is not really concerned with kundalini at all.

One has to go into meditation, then the energy begins to move. The part that is to be done by you is meditation. If you are deep in it, then the inner energy begins to move upward, and you will feel the change of flow. It will be felt in so many ways: even physiologically the change can be known.

So be concerned with meditation and not with kundalini. And when you are aware, things will begin to happen in you. For the first time you will become aware of an inner world that is greater, vaster, more extensive than the universe; energies unknown, completely unknown, will begin to flow in you. Phenomena never heard of, never imagined or dreamed of, will begin to happen. But with each person they differ, so it is good not to talk about them.

Only meditation is to be taught and to be listened to and to be understood. Then, everything else will just follow.

The Dynamic Meditation method that I am using is concerned with kundalini.

It is easier to work with kundalini because it is the second body that you are concerned with. The more deeply you go – to the third or the fourth body – the more difficult it becomes. The second body is the nearest one to your physical body, and there are corresponding points in your physical body, so it is easier.

If you work with the third body, the corresponding points are in the second body. If you work with the fourth, the corresponding points are in the third. Then your physical body is not concerned; you cannot feel anything at all in your physical body. But with kundalini you can feel each step accurately, and you know where you are. Then you are more confident. With the other methods you will have to learn techniques that will help you to feel the corresponding points in the second body or in the third body, and that takes its own time.

If you are concerned with any method, be concerned with it totally. Don't be involved in any other method, don't even think about any other method, because then it will become confusing. And the passage of kundalini is so subtle and so unknown that confusion will be harmful.

My method of Dynamic Meditation is concerned with kundalini. Even if you just go on watching your breath, it will be helpful to kundalini because breath, accompanied by prana, the life energy, is concerned with the etheric body, the second body. It, too, is not concerned with your physical body. It is being taken from your physical body, it is being drawn from your physical body, but your physical body is just the door.

My whole method is concerned with kundalini. Once the method has been grasped, everything can be done by it. Now, nothing more is needed.

Any method should channel the whole energy into one dimension. That is what my method of Dynamic Meditation does, and that is why it begins with ten minutes of deep, fast breathing.

Osho,“Meditation: the Art of Ecstasy”