How to awaken the kundalini?

Osho, I want to be rich, I want a high position, and I want a beautiful woman too. What should I do?

A man once placed an advertisement—meant for people like you: “Send two rupees and learn the formula to become a millionaire overnight.” Now who wouldn’t want to become a millionaire for two rupees! Almost a hundred thousand people sent their money. A week later, everyone who had sent the two rupees received the reply: “Do exactly what I did.” He had indeed become a millionaire overnight! One lakh people sent two rupees each—two lakhs landed in his lap. This is how you’re being duped—through gambling, matka. And it’s not only people who run these scams; governments do it too. Governments that claim to be Gandhian run lotteries! A lottery is gambling—a cheat dressed up nicely. But the greedy get hooked: “Just one rupee for a chance at lakhs. If it comes once, that’s enough…!” But what will you do after getting lakhs? There’s a famous story by Tolstoy: A tailor…

Osho, why do Shankara and you, before telling us to sing the praises of Govinda, always address us as fools?

Edison said, people say I know a great deal. My condition is like that of a small child on the seashore who has gathered a few shells and conches. That is the extent of my knowledge—just a few shells in my fists—while the vast ocean lies there, unknown to me. Your little knowledge seems very big to you! You have lit a small lamp; its flickering light falls a little around you, a small area gets illuminated—and you call this knowledge! And the infinite lies there filled with darkness; you have no awareness of it! When you understand your foolishness, you will say, “Is this knowledge—the flicker of a tiny lamp!” The infinite lies ahead to journey through, to explore, to search—and I, clutching these shells in my hands, am posing as a wise man! Then you will drop even this “knowledge.” And the day you know that you are…

Osho, in kundalini sadhana there is talk of the ascent and the descent of kundalini—arohan and then avarohan. So this descent—does it mean sinking back into the kund, or is it something else?

In truth, sinking into the kund is neither descending nor ascending. In sinking into the kund, both these notions disappear. It is not going up or coming down; it is dissolving, ending. When a drop falls into the ocean, it neither descends nor ascends. Yes, when a drop dries in the sun’s rays, it ascends toward the sky; and when, cooled in the cloud, it falls to the earth, it descends. But when it reaches the ocean there is no ascending or descending—there is sinking, dissolving, dying. So this talk of going up and coming down—of descent—is meant in quite a different sense. It means that the energy we raise from the kund sometimes has to be sent back to the kund. We do raise this energy, and many times we have to return it as well. There can be many reasons. The chief reason is that often more energy…

Questioner: you said at the nargol meditation camp held recently, that the sadhana or discipline of kundalini is a way of preparing the body. Will you please explain it?

In a deeper physical sense, the awakening of the kundalini means that you have so much energy with you that your old channels are not able to contain it, and so it irresistibly seeks new avenues and new doors. As a result, many new and subtle senses within you will become awake and active. These extrasensory centers will make you telepathic and clairvoyant; you will begin to see and hear things which are beyond the reach of your ordinary eyes and ears. You will experience certain things your normal senses have nothing to do with. Altogether new sense organs will become active within you. And the most profound result of the intensification of the new senses will be that you will begin to know the invisible world which lies hidden in your body, which is the most subtle and imperceptible part of your body, and which we call the atman…

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.