According to Osho, chakras are not physical organs or seats of the soul’s consciousness but subtle contact fields where the physical and etheric bodies meet; yoga calls these centers chakras, and the linking, dynamic field is kundalini. In ordinary people there are about five such touch-points. They cannot be found anatomically; they are experiential energy junctions coordinating interaction rather than housing consciousness.
Chakras are invisible meeting spots between your body and its energy body, linked by kundalini—they’re not places where a soul sits and you can’t see them like organs.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Do you mean to say that the points of contact between our physical body and the etheric body are the chakras—and that there lies the consciousness of the soul?
No, no. These centers of contact between this body and that body are what yoga calls the chakras. And the field that links those centers—what should properly be called a field—is called kundalini. In an ordinary human being these two bodies touch each other at several places. Understand that at five points these two bodies are touching. These points cannot be found by cutting open the physical body, because they are only contact fields. There is no “thing” there.
Is there a counterpart to it in the body?
There are counterparts. There are counterparts in the body. The happening itself does not occur inside the body. But within the body there are those parts through which the soul’s contact becomes available to the body. Like two wires connected, both touching: there is a contact field through which the electricity of one wire passes into the other. In the same way there are certain places in our body—contact fields—where consciousness and the body are joined. These are what are called chakras. They are called chakras for this very reason—because when two energies meet, a whirl, an intense movement, is created there. Through that movement consciousness enters within. A chakra is not something static. In English the word “center” doesn’t convey it; it is misleading. A center is static—a fixed point. Chakra means: moving, dynamic; there is movement in it. Whenever two contact fields meet, a state of movement arises.…
Osho, do the chakras accompany the subtle body or not?
Chakras? Yes. If we understand closely, chakras are the fields of contact between the subtle body and this gross body. Wherever your gross body and that subtle body touch, those points are chakras. So they are the same in everyone; there is no difference— in all creatures, in everyone. Wherever the body is touched—even in a cow—there a chakra will form. And those touching sites are fixed. For example, understand that at the sex center there will be a chakra. Whether the being is of any species—a dog, a cat, a man, a woman—it makes no difference; there will be a very forceful chakra at the sex center. So that chakra will be present in all bodies; whatever their form, there will be a chakra at that place. Yes, that chakra may be smaller or larger, weaker or stronger. “Are there seven chakras?” Yes, there will be seven chakras. (Question…
The power of contacting the state of consciousness which is outside the mental body and therefore inconceivable is called mahavideha. Through this power the covering of the light is destroyed.
PERFORMING SAMYAMA ON THEIR GROSS, CONSTANT, SUBTLE, ALL-PERVADING, AND FUNCTIONAL STATE BRINGS MASTERY OVER THE PANCHABHUTAS -- THE FIVE ELEMENTS. FROM THIS FOLLOWS THE ATTAINMENT OF ANIMA, ETC., PERFECTION OF THE BODY, AND THE REMOVAL OF THE ELEMENTS' POWER TO OBSTRUCT THE BODY. BEAUTY, GRACE, STRENGTH, AND ADAMANTINE HARDNESS Ordinarily your energy moves either by the pingala or by ida. Yogis' energy starts moving through the sushumna. That is called kundalini, when the energy moves just between these two, right and left. Corresponding to your backbone these channels exist. Once the energy moves in the middle channel, you become balanced. Then a person is neither a man nor a woman, neither hard nor soft; or both -- man and woman, hard and soft. All the polarities disappear in sushumna; and sahasrar is the peak of sushumna. If you live on the lowest point of your being, that is muladhar: sex…
A guru is a person whose individuality is lost. Only then can he look deeply into your individuality. If he himself is an individual, he can interpret you, but he will never be able to know you. For example, if I am here and I say something about you, it is I who am talking about you. It is not about you; rather, it is about me. I cannot help you because I cannot really know you at all. Whenever I know you, it is in a roundabout way, by knowing myself. This point of my being here must disappear. I must be just an absence. Only then can I go deep inside you without any interpretation; only then can I know you as you are, not according to me. And only then can I help. Hence, the secrecy. So it is good not to talk about kundalini and chakras.