According to Osho, the hara is the fundamental life center—two inches below the navel—from which your vitality flows; the chakras are energy vortices arrayed along the spine that are nourished by this source. When you settle awareness in the hara, energy stabilizes, fear drops, and kundalini can rise naturally, harmonizing and awakening the chakras; when disconnected from hara, chakras remain unbalanced, dominated by the head.
The hara is your main battery, and the chakras are lights—charge the battery and the lights glow in order.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, ELEVEN YEARS AGO, WHEN I FIRST SAT IN FRONT OF YOU, I WAS SO OVERWHELMED BY YOUR ENERGY, BY YOUR LOVE, BY YOU, THAT I COULD DO NOTHING BUT CRY AND BOW DOWN TO YOUR FEET IN SILENT EXPRESSION; AND YET I FELT VERY MUCH UNDERSTOOD BY YOU. AT THAT TIME YOU TOLD ME TO KEEP MY ENERGY INSIDE AND BRING IT TO MY HARA. SINCE THEN THIS SUGGESTION STAYS WITH ME, AND MY BELLY HAS BECOME MY BEST FRIEND, AND THE PLACE BELOW MY NAVEL A MIRROR OF MY FEELINGS. IN ALL THIS TIME TEARS AND LAUGHTER OF JOY AND GRATITUDE FOR BEING ABLE TO SPEND THIS LIFE WITH YOU HAVE KEPT BACK MOST OF MY WORDS. MY BELOVED MASTER, I FEEL THAT BEHIND THIS SMALL SUGGESTION OF YOURS LIES MORE THAN I CAN IMAGINE.
13. Or, imagine the five-colored circles of the peacock tail to be your five senses in illimitable space. Now let their beauty melt within. Similarly, at any point in space or on a wall -- until the point dissolves. Then your wish for another comes true.
14. PLACE YOUR WHOLE ATTENTION IN THE NERVE, DELICATE AS THE LOTUS THREAD, IN THE CENTER OF YOUR SPINAL COLUMN. IN SUCH BE TRANSFORMED. I was working with a seeker on this technique. I gave him a picture of the body structure to concentrate upon so that he would begin to feel how the spinal column can be visualized inside. Then he started. Within a week he came and said, "This is very strange. I tried to see the picture you gave me, but many times that picture disappeared and I saw a different spine. It is not exactly like the picture you gave to me." So I told him, "Now you are on the right path. Forget that picture completely, and go on seeing the spine that has become visible to you." Man can see his own body structure from within. We have not tried it because it is…
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…
A guru is a person whose individuality is lost. Only then can he look deeply into your individuality. If he himself is an individual, he can interpret you, but he will never be able to know you. For example, if I am here and I say something about you, it is I who am talking about you. It is not about you; rather, it is about me. I cannot help you because I cannot really know you at all. Whenever I know you, it is in a roundabout way, by knowing myself. This point of my being here must disappear. I must be just an absence. Only then can I go deep inside you without any interpretation; only then can I know you as you are, not according to me. And only then can I help. Hence, the secrecy. So it is good not to talk about kundalini and chakras.
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.…