According to Osho, kundalini is psychic—real yet nonmaterial. The actual phenomenon is an inner, forceful upsurge felt as a rising or penetration; ‘serpent,’ ‘flowering,’ ‘jet,’ etc., are symbols the mind supplies to understand and communicate it. Materiality is only one dimension of reality, so do not dismiss the psychic as unreal; attend to the experience beyond its metaphors.
Kundalini is a real inner energy you feel, not a physical thing, and we use images like snakes or rockets just to describe it.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: is kundalini a psychic phenomenon?
The obsession with the objective must go. Subjective reality is as real as objective reality, but the moment you conceive of it, you give it a fragrance of your own. You give it a name of your own, you give it a metaphor of your own. And this way of perceiving it is bound to be individual: even if someone experiences the same thing, the records will differ. Even two snakes will differ, because the metaphor has come from two different individuals. So these metaphors -- that the feeling of kundalini is like the movement of a serpent -- are just symbolic, but they correspond with reality. The same movement is there; the subtle movement, just like a snake, is there. The force is there, the golden appearance is there -- and all of this corresponds to the symbol of the snake. So if that symbol is congenial to you,…
Osho, this Kundalini sadhana—Is it psychic or spiritual?
You know that eating is physical, yet if one does not eat, the soul’s presence in the body will very quickly come to an end. Even though food goes to the body, if the body is in a certain condition, the soul can remain in it. So Kundalini is mental, psychic. But when Kundalini is in one state, there is movement toward the soul; in another state, there is no movement toward the soul. So it is psychic, but it becomes a step toward the spiritual. It is not spiritual in itself. If someone says Kundalini is spiritual, they are mistaken. If someone says food is spiritual, they are mistaken. Food is physical. Yet it becomes a foundation for the spiritual. Breath is material, and thought is also material; everything is material. Their subtlest form we are calling “psychic”—the subtlest form of matter. But all these become the basis for…
Questioner: is the sadhana or discipline of kundalini psychic or is it spiritual?
It is just spiritual... You know that eating is physical, but if you don't eat, the soul will soon leave your body. So although food goes into the body, yet it is necessary that the body be in a particular state so the soul stays in it. The same way although the kundalini is psychic it is necessary that the kundalini be in a particular state so that you can reach the soul. If the kundalini is not in a particular state, if it is different from what it should be for you, then it is not possible to reach the soul. So although kundalini is psychic, it serves as a stepping stone to the spiritual. It is not spiritual in itself, and if somebody says so he is wrong. If somebody says that eating is spiritual, he is wrong. Eating is physical, but it serves as a base for…
Osho, in yesterday’s talk you said that a seeker should first be concerned with becoming a vessel, and should not go about begging from place to place. But the very meaning of a seeker is that he has obstacles in practice. He doesn’t know how to become a vessel, how to prepare. So if he does not go asking, what should he do? How difficult it is to meet the right guide!
But searching and begging are two different things. In fact, the one who does not want to search is the one who begs. Searching and begging are not the same; they are opposites. He who wants to avoid searching begs; a seeker never begs. And the processes of searching and begging are entirely different. In begging you have to keep your attention on the other—the one who will give. In searching you have to keep your attention on yourself—the one who is to receive. It is true that there are obstacles on the path of the seeker. But if we understand rightly, saying there are obstacles on the path of the seeker means the obstacles are within the seeker; the path too is within. And to understand one’s obstacles is not very difficult. So we will have to speak a little more extensively on what the obstacles are and how…
In yesterday's talk, you said that false experiences of kundalini can be projected which you consider to be not spiritual but psychic. In your initial talk, however, you had said that kundalini is only psychic. This means, according to you, that there are two states of the kundalini -- psychic and spiritual. Kindly explain this.
Dreams are not false; they have their own reality. But dreams can be real as well as unreal. Real dreams are those which have been actually dreamed. The trouble also is that you cannot narrate your dream precisely upon waking. For this reason, in the old days any man who could narrate his dream clearly and precisely was held in high esteem. It is very, very difficult to report a dream correctly. The sequence of the dream is one thing when you dream it and just the opposite when you remember it. It is like a film. When we see a film the story unwinds from the beginning of the film. Similarly, the reel of the dream drama winds in one direction in sleep and begins to unwind in the opposite direction in the waking state, so we remember the last part of the dream first and go backwards in…