Should one meditate on the navel?

Therefore, should one meditate on the navel?

Yes, meditating at the navel has great value. There is no better center in the body for meditation. For there the body and the soul are at their closest; one could call it the bridge—the juncture—from which the distances immediately begin.

If someone asks you where your consciousness is, your hand goes to the head. When consciousness is centered in thought, the head becomes the center. When it is centered in feeling and love, the heart becomes the center. So a lover will place his hand on his heart. A man working out a mathematical problem scratches his head, not his heart. His hand will not go to the heart. And if a lover, lost in love, were to place his hand on his head, it would seem absurd—love has nothing to do with the head. When consciousness is in feeling, the heart is the center. When it is in thought, the brain is the center. But the brain develops very late. The heart too begins beating only after nine months. Before even that, consciousness is centered elsewhere: at the navel. The child is connected to the mother through the navel.

You may not be aware that the whole day you breathe with your chest but at night your breathing starts coming from the navel. The whole day your chest goes up and down, but at night when you are asleep your belly starts moving up and down. You must have seen a small child breathing; the chest of a small child is not moving, it is his belly that is moving up and down. Small children are still very close to the navel. As a child starts growing, he starts breathing from the chest only, and the tremors of the breath no longer reach the navel. If you are going along a road, riding a bicycle or driving a car, and suddenly an accident happens, you will be surprised to notice that the first impact will be on the navel -- not on the brain or the heart.

Last night you said that with the dawn of enlightenment, the space between the two eyebrows, the third eye, becomes all inclusive. The other day you said that all enlightened ones are centered in their navel, and on still another day you have explained about the silver cord in the middle of the spine. Thus, we know about three basic things as the roots of man. Please explain the relative significance and relative functions of these three things: the navel center, the third eye and the silver cord.

If someone should come from space, from some other planet, and he should see you, he will not be able to conceive that you have any sex center. If he should listen to your talk, he will not be able to understand that there exists anything like sex. If he moves in your society, in the formal world, he will not know that anything like sex is happening. We have created a division. A barrier is there, and we have cut off the sex center from ourselves. Really, because of sex we have divided the body into two. The upper means "higher" in our minds and the lower means "lower" -- it is condemned. So "lower" is not just some information about the location of the bottom half, it is an evaluation also. You yourself do not think that the lower body is you. If someone asks you, "Where are…

Is the development of the navel center exclusively free and separate from the growth of the heart and head centers, or does the navel center develop simultaneously with the growth of the heart and the head? And also, please explain in which way the training and techniques for the navel center will differ from the training and techniques for the development of the heart and head centers.

One basic thing to be understood: the heart and head centers are to be developed, not the navel center. The navel center is just to be discovered; it is not to be developed. The navel center is already there. You have to uncover, or discover it. It is there fully developed, you are not to develop it. The heart center and the head center are developments. They are not there to be discovered, they have to be developed. Society, culture, education, conditioning help to develop them. But you are born with a navel center. Without the navel center you cannot be. You can be without the heart center, you can be without the head center. They are not necessities; it is good to have them, but you can be without them. It will be very inconvenient, but you can be without them. However, without the navel center you cannot be.…