According to Osho, any effect produced from outside—like shaktipat’s transmitted charge—inevitably declines unless continually refreshed. What endures is the energy that awakens from within you, including the inner uprising catalyzed by shaktipat; that becomes your “basic capital.” So the borrowed radiance fades, but the self-arisen awareness it triggers remains and can be cultivated through your own practice.
The outside boost wears off, but the spark it lights inside you stays—so keep tending your own flame.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Questioner: in case a contact with the medium is not maintained, does the effect of shaktipat wear off?
The effect is bound to decline. In fact, every effect wears off gradually. Effect itself means that it has been caused by an outside agency, and so it will decline. But the energy rising from within you is going to stay, because it is your own. Energy coming from without is bound to diminish and disappear. But what comes from your inside is not going to diminish; it will stay. Also that energy will stay which rises under the impact of shaktipat. Your basic capital does not wear off, but the effect does.
Osho, is the effect of shaktipat short-term or long-term? Does it carry one all the way to the final journey, or is shaktipat needed many times?
The real point is: whatever is arising within you, that alone will be long-lasting; shaktipat can only be a support, it can never become the root. It cannot become the root. What is already within you will become the root. That alone is your wealth, your real wealth. Shaktipat will not increase your wealth; shaktipat will increase the capacity of your wealth to grow. Understand this distinction clearly. Shaktipat will not increase your wealth, but the pace at which your wealth grows, the speed at which it expands, will become more intense. Therefore shaktipat is not your wealth. It is like this: you are running, and I come after you with a gun. My carrying a gun behind you is not going to become part of your running’s wealth, but because of my gun you will run faster. You will still be the one who runs; the energy will still…
This question had arisen because of the fact that the effect of shaktipat wears off by and by.
Yes, it will get less and less. In fact, what is attained from another is bound to diminish. Besides it is only a glimpse and you are not to depend on it. You have to awaken it within yourself: then only will it be permanent. All influences are foreign; they belong to the outside. I pick up a stone and I throw it in the air: it will fall according to the force exerted by me. The stone has no strength of its own, but it may well think, as it flies through the air, that it has strength to cut through the air and that there is no one to stop it. But then it does not know what influence has caused this; it does not know the force of the hand behind it. It will fall -- if not after ten feet then after twenty, but it will…
You have said that shaktipat, transmission of vital energy, takes place through the medium of an egoless person and that he who says, "I can do shaktipat," is for sure a phony and shaktipat will not happen through him. But I know many such people who practice shaktipat, and the kundalini energy starts moving and growing as written in the scriptures. Are these false processes? If so, how and why?
This is also an important point to understand. In fact there is nothing in this world which has no false counterpart to it. False coins exist in every dimension of life. And it is always the case that the counterfeit coin is brighter in appearance than the genuine one. It has to be, because it is the brightness that will make it attractive; it is useless in its reality. A true coin works even if it is not bright. A false coin makes loud claims because it has to compensate, and because of its worthlessness it is easily available. All spiritual achievements have their false counterparts and there is no experience without a counterfeit counterpart. If there is a real kundalini there is a false kundalini too. If there are genuine chakras, there are false chakras also. If there are true methods of yoga there are false methods as well.…
Osho, is it appropriate or harmful for a seeker to receive shaktipat through many individuals? What possible harms are there in changing the conductor (the medium), and why?
The real point is this: you feel the need to take it many times only when shaktipat hasn’t happened. You feel the need to take it from many people only when what you took earlier went to waste—when it didn’t happen. If it has happened, the matter is finished. The reason you feel the need to take it again and again is that the medicine hasn’t worked; the illness stands where it was. Naturally, then you change doctors. But the one who is cured doesn’t ask whether to change doctors or not; the one who isn’t cured says, “Should I go to another doctor? What should I do?” He changes ten, twenty doctors. So, first: if even a single ray of shaktipat has become available, there is no need to change. That question simply doesn’t arise. If it has not become available, then you do have to change—and people keep…