Five Centers Plus Two Bridges

This is the framework of Patanjali’s system. Remember it is arbitrary. It has to be used as a tool, not discussed as a dogma. It is not a doctrine in any theology. It is just a utilitarian map. You go to some territory, to some strange country, unknown, and you take a map with you. The map does not really represent the territory; how can the map represent the territory? The map is so small, the territory is so big. On the map cities are just points.

How can those points correspond to big cities? On the map roads are just lines. How can roads be just lines? Mountains are just marked, rivers are just marked – and small ones are left out. Only big ones are marked. This is a map; it is not a doctrine.

There are not only five bodies, there are many bodies, because between two bodies there is another to join it, and so on and so forth. You are like an onion, layers upon layers, but these five will do. Hmm?… These are – the main bodies, the chief bodies. So don’t be too much; worried about it, hmm? Because; Buddhists say there are seven bodies and Jains say there are nine: bodies. Nothing wrong and there is no contradiction because these are just maps. If you are studying the whole world’s map, then even big cities disappear, even big rivers disappear. If you are studying a map of a nation, then many new things appear which were not on the world map. And if you are studying the map of a province, then many more things appear. And if you are studying the map of a district, of course many more. And if just one city, then many more. And if just one house, then of course….

Things go on appearing; it depends.

Jains say nine, Buddha says seven, Patanjali says five. There are schools which say – only three. And they all are true because they are not discussing any argument. They are just giving you a few tools to work with.

And I think five is almost the perfect amount. Because more than five is too much, less than five is too few. Five seems almost perfect. And; Patanjali is a very balanced thinker.

Now a few things about these chakras. The first chakra, the first dynamic center, is sex – muladhar. It joins you with nature, it joins you with the past, it joins you with the future.

You were born out of two persons’ sexual play. Your parents’ sexual play became the cause of your birth. You are related to your parents through the sex center, and to your parents’ parents and so on and so forth. To the whole past you are related through the sex center; the thread runs through the sex center. And if you give birth to some child, you will be related to the future.

Jesus insists many times, in a very rude way, “If you don’t hate your mother and your father, you cannot come and follow me.” It looks almost hard, almost unbelievable that a man like Jesus – why should he use such hard words? And he is compassion incarnate, and he is love. Why does he say, “Hate your mother, hate your father if you want to follow me?” The meaning is: drop out of the sexual context. What he is saying symbolically is: go beyond the sex center. Then immediately you are no longer related with the past, no longer related with the future.

It is sex that makes you part of time. Once you go beyond sex, you become part of eternity, not of time. Then suddenly only the present exists. You are the present, but if you see yourself through the sex center, you are the past also because your eyes will have the color of your mother and your father and your body will have atoms and cells from millions of generations. Your whole structure, biostructure, is part of a long continuum.

You are part of a big chain.

In India they say your debt to your parents cannot be fulfilled unless you give birth to children. If you want that your debt should be fulfilled with the past, you have to create a future. If you really want to repay, there is no other way. Your mother loved you, your father loved you – what can you do now, they are gone? You can become a mother, a father, to children and repay it to nature, to the same reservoir from where your parents came, you came, your children will come.

Sex is the great chain. It is the whole chain of the world – samsar; and it is the link with others. Have you watched it? The moment you feel sexual you start thinking of the other.

When you are not feeling sexual you never think of the other. A person who is beyond sex is beyond others. He may live in the society, but he is not in the society. He may be walking in the crowd, but he walks alone. And a man who is sexual, he may be sitting on the top of Everest, alone, but he will think of the other. He may be sent to the moon to meditate, but he will meditate about the other.

Sex is the bridge with the others. Once sex disappears the chain is broken. For the first time you become an individual. That’s why people may be too obsessed with sex, but they are never happy with it – because it is double-edged. It links you with others; it does not allow you to be individual. It does not allow you to be yourself It forces you into patterns, into slaveries, bondages. But if you don’t know how to transcend it, that’s the only way, how to use your energy. It becomes a safety valve.

People who live at the first center, muladhara, live only for a very foolish reason. They go on creating energy, and then they are too burdened with it; then they go on throwing it.

They eat, they work, they sleep, they do many things to create energy. Then they say, “What to do with it? It is very heavy.” Then they throw it. Seems a very vicious circle.

When they throw it they again feel empty. They fill up with new fuel, with new food, with new work, and again when the energy is there they are “feeling too full,” they say.

Somewhere it has to be released. And sex becomes just a release: a vicious circle of accumulating energy, throwing energy, accumulating energy, throwing energy. It looks almost absurd.

Unless you know that there are higher centers within you which can take that energy, use it in a creative way, you will remain confirmed to the sexual vicious circle. That’s why all the religions insist on some sort of sexual control. It can become repressive, it can become dangerous. If new centers are not opening and you go on damming energy, condemning, forcing, repressing, then you are on a volcano. Any day you will explode; you will become neurotic. You are going to be mad. Then it is better to relieve it. But there are centers which can absorb the energy, and greater beings and greater possibilities can be revealed to you.

Remember, we have been saying in the past few days that the second center, near the sex center, is hara, the center of death. That’s why people are afraid to move beyond sex because the moment the energy moves beyond sex it touches the – hara center and one becomes afraid. That’s why people are even afraid to move deep in love because when you move deep in love the sex center creates such ripples that the ripples enter in the hara center and fear arises.

So many people come to me and they say, “Why do we feel so much afraid of the other sex?” – of men or women “Why do we feel so much afraid of other sex?” It is not the fear of the other sex. It is the fear of sex itself because if you go deep in sex, then the center becomes more dynamic, creates bigger energy fields, and those energy fields start overlapping the hara center. Have you watched it? In a sexual orgasm something starts moving just below your navel, throbbing. That throb is the overlapping of the sex center with the hara. That’s why people become afraid of sex also. Particularly people become afraid of deep intimacy, of orgasm itself.

But that second center has to be entered, penetrated, opened. That’s the meaning when Jesus says unless you are ready to die you cannot be reborn.

Just two, three days before Easter, somebody asked Osho a question, “Today is Easter. Osho, do you have something to say?” I have only one thing to say, that each day is Easter, because Easter is the day of Jesus’ resurrection – his crucifiction and resurrection, his death and his being reborn. Each day is Easter if you are ready to move into the hara center. You will be crucified first – the cross is there within your hara center. You are already carrying it; you just have to move to it and you have to die through it, and then there is resurrection.

Once you die in the hara center, death disappears; then for the first time you become aware of a new world, a new dimension. Then you can see the higher center than hara; that is the navel center. And the navel center becomes the resurrection, because the navel center is the most energy-conserving center. It is the very reservoir of energy.

And once you know that you have moved from the sex center to the hara, now you know that there is a possibility of moving inwards. You have opened one door. Now you cannot rest unless you have opened all the doors. Now you cannot remain on the porch; you have entered the palace. Then you can open another door and another door.

Just in the middle is the center of heart. The heart center divides the lower and the higher.

First is the sex center, then the hara, then the navel, and then comes the heart center.

Three centers are below it, three centers are above it. The heart is exactly in the middle.

You must have seen Solomon’s seal. In Judaism, particularly in Kabbalistic thinking; that Solomon’s seal is one of the most important symbols. That Solomon’s seal is the symbol of the heart center. Sex moves downwards, so sex is like a triangle pointed downwards. Sahasrar moves upwards, So Sahasrar is a triangle pointed upwards. And heart is just in the middle, where the sex triangle comes to meet the Sahasrar triangle.

Both triangles meet, merge into each other, and it becomes a six-pointed star, that is the seal of Solomon. The heart is the seal of Solomon.

Once you have opened the heart, then you are available for the highest possibilities.

Below the heart you remain man; beyond the heart you have become superman.

After the heart center there is the throat center, then there is the third-eye center, and then Sahasrar.

Heart is feeling love. Heart is absorbing love, becoming love. Throat is expression, communication, sharing, giving it to others. And if you give love to others, then the third-eye center starts functioning. Once you start giving, you go higher and higher. A person who goes on taking; goes lower and lower and lower. A person who goes on giving goes higher and higher and higher. A miser is the worst possibility a man can fall into, and a sharer is the greatest possibility that a man can become available to.

Five bodies, five mahabhutas, and five centers plus two bridges. This is the framework, the map. Behind this framework is the whole effort of the yogin, of bringing SAMYAMA to every nook and comer, so one becomes enlightened, full of light.