Everyone awakened finds the same inner center, but some explain it with thinking and others with feeling—so don’t confuse the song or the speech with the source.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Are all enlightened ones navel centered? For example, is krishnamurti head or navel centered? Was ramakrishna heart or navel centered?
Every enlightened one is navel centered, but the expression of each enlightened one may flow through other centers. Understand the distinction clearly. Every enlightened one is navel centered; there is no other possibility. But the expression is a different thing. Ramakrishna expresses himself from the heart. He uses his heart as the vehicle of his message. Whatsoever he has found at the navel he expresses through his heart. He sings, he dances -- that is his way of expressing his bliss. The bliss is found at the navel, nowhere else. He is centered at the navel, but how to say to others that he is centered at the navel? He uses his heart for the expression. Krishnamurti uses his head for that expression; that is why their expressions are contradictory. If you believe in Ramakrishna you cannot believe in Krishnamurti. If you believe in Krishnamurti you cannot believe in Ramakrishna,…Read the full discourse →
Last night you said that with the dawn of enlightenment, the space between the two eyebrows, the third eye, becomes all inclusive. The other day you said that all enlightened ones are centered in their navel, and on still another day you have explained about the silver cord in the middle of the spine. Thus, we know about three basic things as the roots of man. Please explain the relative significance and relative functions of these three things: the navel center, the third eye and the silver cord.
If someone should come from space, from some other planet, and he should see you, he will not be able to conceive that you have any sex center. If he should listen to your talk, he will not be able to understand that there exists anything like sex. If he moves in your society, in the formal world, he will not know that anything like sex is happening. We have created a division. A barrier is there, and we have cut off the sex center from ourselves. Really, because of sex we have divided the body into two. The upper means "higher" in our minds and the lower means "lower" -- it is condemned. So "lower" is not just some information about the location of the bottom half, it is an evaluation also. You yourself do not think that the lower body is you. If someone asks you, "Where are…Read the full discourse →
If someone asks you where your consciousness is, your hand goes to the head. When consciousness is centered in thought, the head becomes the center. When it is centered in feeling and love, the heart becomes the center. So a lover will place his hand on his heart. A man working out a mathematical problem scratches his head, not his heart. His hand will not go to the heart. And if a lover, lost in love, were to place his hand on his head, it would seem absurd—love has nothing to do with the head. When consciousness is in feeling, the heart is the center. When it is in thought, the brain is the center. But the brain develops very late. The heart too begins beating only after nine months. Before even that, consciousness is centered elsewhere: at the navel. The child is connected to the mother through the navel.Read the full discourse →
Beloved Osho, our impulses seem to be stronger than our understanding. When we look with awareness at our own feelings of hatred, jealousy and anger, they seem to be arising from the navel center. The witnessing and rising up of the waves happens simultaneously. Please, tell us why these waves arise from the navel center? Is our unconscious related to the navel center and is there a great store of these impulses in our unconscious, or are they created moment-to-moment?
So in the name of spirituality there are two possibilities available: either withdraw the fuel supply so that there is no fear of the steam being created, or go on adding weights on the kettle lid so that there is no fear that it will blow off. In one case the result is a dull person who is dead before he has died, and in the other a person doomed to go mad when the explosion finally happens. Those whom we call monks follow one or the other of these two paths of sickness. But look at Buddha or Mahavira; they look neither sick nor insane. It is rare to find a body as beautiful as Mahavira's. His every cell is the incarnation of dance and bliss. Looking at an image of Mahavira it is hard to imagine that we could ever find a more beautiful body. But just look…Read the full discourse →
Performing samyama on their power of cognition, real nature, egoism, all-pervasiveness, and functions brings mastery over the sense organs. From this follows instantaneous cognition without the use of the body, and complete mastery over pradhana, the material world.
ONLY AFTER THE AWARENESS OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SATTVA AND PURUSHA DOES SUPREMACY AND KNOWLEDGE ARISE OVER ALL STATES OF EXISTENCE. Right now when you look at a flower, the flower is there, but have you ever felt your eyes? You see the flower, but have you felt the power of your eyes? It should be there because you are using your eyes to see the flower. And of course eyes are more beautiful than any flower because all flowers have to come through the eyes. It is through the eyes that you have become aware of the world of flowers, but have you ever felt the power of the eyes? They are almost dull, dead. They have become passive, just like windows, receptive. They don't go to their object. And power means being active. Power means your eyes going and almost touching the flowers, your ears going and almost…Read the full discourse →