According to Osho, yes: there are bodily counterparts—dynamic contact fields called chakras—where consciousness and the body meet. The happening itself is not inside the body, but enters through these whirling energy junctions. They are experiential, not anatomical; you can feel their movement with sensitivity, yet cannot dissect them. Understanding and harmonizing chakras accelerates transformation and prevents wasted effort.
Yes—chakras are like plug points where your inner light connects to your body; you can feel them but can’t find them with a knife.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete 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.…
There is just a field of contact.
Yes, a field of contact between the two. That is why, by cutting open the body, you cannot find where the chakras are—they won’t show up or function that way. These four or five or seven contact fields—if they all connect with each other, meaning the magnetic force that links them also links up within itself—then the experience of kundalini happens. The essential meaning of the kundalini experience is that the power that has accumulated at the places where these separate contacts occur—in the five, in the seven—comes to be joined. And there are methods for joining them. There are also methods for separating the five or the seven contacts. Through these methods the two bodies can be separated very easily. Once they separate, it becomes certain that not everything dies with the death of this body.
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…
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…