Charisma

 

 

Question 1

Osho,

What is charisma? all sorts of people have it, both aware people and unaware people. its such an intangible quality, i can say when someone is charismatic but can't define what it is

 

 

Charisma is a mystery. It happens only to those people who have centered their being, concentrated their energies, who are no longer falling apart, who are consolidated, who have become one – the very meaning of the word, “individual.”

 

Every individual has charisma. But individual means that which is indivisible. You cannot divide that person into fragments; you cannot say to that person that "this part is wrong in you, this part is right in you." You cannot create a schizophrenic psychology in that person; he's one and whole. This very phenemonon of being one, centered and whole, creates a magnetic pull.

 

Now, you cannot see a magnetic pull. You can see the magnet, you can see the small pieces of metal which are moving towards the magnet, but you cannot see magnetism, you cannot see any power.

 

All power is invisible. All energy is invisible.

 

Charisma is the energy of the consciousness which is settled in itself -- at ease, at home -- which has arrived. Now there is nowhere to go. Utterly relaxed, with no tensions, with no anxieties, with no desires -- in short, with no bickering, torturing the mind -- one has arrived at the point called Being with a capital B. The moment you touch your Being, you are no more a separate entity from the universe -- you have become part and parcel of this tremendously alive existence.

 

But the problem arises... if you see it in a Gautam Buddha, there is no problem. You can understand -- the man has blossomed. You can see it. In his eyes you can see the depth; you can see in his gestures, the grace. You can see in his words an authority which can come only through experience, not through knowledge.

 

The problem arises when you find some charismatic qualities in an ordinary man who has never meditated, who has never gone inwards, who is as ordinary as everybody else. But sometimes it happens -- you feel a magnetic pull. And because you have not arrived at your own center, it is very difficult for you to make a distinction between the man who is centered -- hence, has a magnetic pull -- and the man who is not so centered and yet you still feel a certain pull. You cannot make the distinction, for the simple reason that you have not experienced it in your own being.

 

The ordinary man sometimes has something similar to charismatic power, but you will be surprised to know it is not charismatic power at all. It is something just the opposite -- it is overflowing sexual energy. In a charismatic experience, the energy in the person is at the highest center. It is at the seventh center, sahastrara, beyond which you enter into the infinite, beyond which you are no more and you are all. It is the same energy.

 

Man has seven centers, prominent centers. The energy is stored as a reservoir at the lowest center -- naturally, because of gravitation. Water goes downwards because of gravitation; it pulls somewhere, but it is always the lowest place. Water cannot go upwards unless some effort is made. Unless some device is created to cancel the effect of gravitation, water is bound to go down and down and down.

 

The sex center is the lowest point in your being. All energy accumulates at the sex center. The moment the child is born, he brings all his life energy, stored at the sex center. But the sad thing is that 99.9 percent of people also die in the same situation -- the energy is still at the sex center, although it is no more that overflowing energy of a child; it is the dying energy of an old man. But it is still at the lowest center.

 

The whole science of religion is nothing but an effort to create methods, devices, techniques to cancel the effect of gravitation and allow the energy a freedom to rise upwards. As the energy starts rising upwards, you will see changes happening on their own accord. Your behavior will change, your actions will change, your directions in life will change. You will be surprised, and others will be surprised, too. What has happened? -- they have seen your anger, they have seen your rage, they have seen your jealousy, they have seen your hate -- suddenly you are radiating love.

 

If the energy reaches to the heart center, which is the fourth, your whole life becomes so sweet, so fragrant, and so beautiful -- and you have only moved half way. If the energy moves still higher, and as the energy goes on moving higher, your charismatic power will become more and more apparent -- even to those who are deaf and cannot hear, even to those who are blind and cannot see, even to those who are heartless and cannot feel. But the charismatic energy is so powerful that the blind has to see it and the deaf has to hear it and the heartless has to feel it. It all depends how high the energy has reached.

 

After the heart center, the charisma will be felt by many but not by all.

 

The fifth center is in the throat. When the energy moves to the throat center, your words start having something of the charisma of your being because they arise out of your heart, they come from your interiority, they bring with them some fragrance from your innermost being.

 

It was said about Jesus by his contemporaries.... Jesus was not educated, was not cultured -- he was a poor man, a carpenter's son. His father could not afford to educate him. But people were amazed: he could not read, he could not write, but when he spoke there was no comparison. Then the greatest rabbis of that day, the great scholars, great orators, great religious leaders, even the arch priest of the great Jewish temple of Jerusalem -- they were all pygmies before this young man. He was only thirty years of age when he started teaching and he was crucified when he was only thirty-three. He had not even reached the prime of his life. But whoever heard him, whether he agreed with him or not, had an absolute sense that when he speaks, you cannot disagree, at least in his presence. The idea of disagreeing does not arise. You cannot have doubts in his presence; something deeper convinces you. It is not logical. It is not his reason, it is his authority. It is the charisma that his words are carrying.

 

It was known all over Judea that no man had ever spoken like Jesus. It was said even by his enemies, that no man had ever spoken like Jesus. And he is saying nothing special -- but the way he is saying it is certainly special, the state in which he is saying it is certainly special.

 

I have come across thousands of articles around the world in different languages, written for and against me -- mostly against, but they all have recognized one thing which I was surprised that they all should recognize and yet not give a second thought to it.... And these are our intelligentsia. They all have mentioned -- almost without fail -- two things. One, that "You should not go to hear Osho. Because it does not matter what he's saying, when you are in his presence, it seems to be right. By the time you have reached home it may look suspicious, doubts may arise." A few have suggested: "You have been hypnotized." Only very few have suggested -- and none of them has heard me -- that the words have a charismatic influence.

 

I know only one thing -- that I am not a speaker, that I don't know the art of oratory. All that I know is that if I have experienced something, I can convey it to you with my total authority, with my whole being behind it. And if you are open and available, perhaps the word may reach to your innermost shrine of being. And it may reach there with something of a charismatic energy.

 

As the energy goes on moving, the sixth center is the third eye -- between the two eyebrows, exactly in the middle. It is when the energy is at the sixth center that the presence of the person... It is not just that he is here; it is not just a physical presence. There is no word for it, but we can manage... it is spiritual presence that you start feeling. His body becomes less important, his words become faraway echoes, but his presence, pure presence becomes such a tremendous pull that you know only one experience which can give you some idea of it, and that experience is falling in love -- irrationally. You cannot give any explanation, but you know. You cannot say but you feel.

 

And if the energy reaches the seventh, that is the point where one becomes awakened. The energy has come to the highest peak of evolution. Then that person is pure charisma.

 

Whatever he touches becomes gold.

Wherever he sits becomes a holy place.

 

Whatever he says becomes scripture. His actions take on a tremendous beauty. His inactions also open doors to the miraculous. He speaks the truth and even when he is silent, his silence also speaks. Those who can understand the language of silence rejoice, are blissful, know perfectly well that this is the man they have been searching for centuries, for many lives.

 

Charismatic power is the same sexual energy transformed, purified. It was poison at the lowest center; it has become nectar at the highest center. But at the lowest center also, it has a tremendous power. And you know that sometimes you feel a great attraction to an ordinary man. Remember, that attraction is sexual, and sexual attraction is blind. But ordinarily people only know that attraction, so when by chance they come across a man who has some charisma, they don't have any way to distinguish between the two.

 

That's why Sudha is asking why sometimes in people who are awakened, and sometimes in people who are not awakened, this power is felt. It is not the same power -- although it arises from the same energy. But from the lowest center it is crude, primitive, animal. Its influence will drag you into lower realms of being.

 

But if you find really a charismatic person, you are fortunate. Just to sit at his feet is enough, because he's showering his energy whether anybody is there or not. If you are receptive, open, available, just being close to a charismatic person is the first taste of religion. I am calling it taste; I am not calling it understanding, I am not calling it knowledge. It is actually a taste. Your whole being feels it. Each fiber feels it -- a nourishment, a nourishment which is divine.

 

Let us summarize:

The charismatic energy is divine nourishment flowing from those who have arrived home.

 

-Osho, “Sermons in Stones, #24, Q1”