Chakras are like plug sockets where your invisible self plugs into your body; everyone has seven, and practice can wake the sleepy ones.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
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…Read the full discourse →
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.…Read the full 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.Read the full discourse →
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…Read the full discourse →
Chakras are centers until the life force comes to them. The moment the life force comes to them, they begin to be chakras. Now they are not centers, they are wheels, rotating. And each wheel, by rotating, creates a new sort of energy. This energy is used again to rotate further chakras. So as the life force passes through each chakra, it becomes more vital, more alive. Kundalini is the passage through which the life force moves. The life force is located in the sex center, stored in the sex center, the muladhar. It can be used as sex energy; then it generates a particular life, a biological life. Then too it creates movements, then too it creates more energy; but this is biological. If this same energy moves upward, the passage of kundalini is opened. The sex center, the muladhar, is the first to open.Read the full discourse →