Charisma

Question 1
BELOVED 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.

Sudha, 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 phenomenon 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.

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 knowonly 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.

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.

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.

If you can laugh, you create ripples of laughter in existence. That is the real service.

Deep love creates deep fear. It looks like death because the I disappears, the you disappears — and it is a sort of death. And when you die, only then do you enter into the divine.
I have been continuously surprised by people who come to me and say they are afraid of love. What is the fear of love? It is because when you really love somebody your ego starts slipping and melting. You cannot love with the ego; the ego becomes a barrier. and when you want to drop the barrier the ego says, ‘This is going to be a death. Beware!’

This is the case with millions of people. They talk about love, they know all the poetries about love, but they have never loved. Or even if they thought they were in love, they were never in love. That too was a ‘heady’ thing, it was not of the heart. People live and go on missing life. It needs courage. It needs courage to be realistic, it needs courage to move with life wherever it leads, because the paths are uncharted, there exists no map. One has to go into the unknown.

Upaya!

I am not in favor of repressing the lower. The lower has to be raised to the heights, the lower has to be given wings. With insight, with understanding, it is possible. If you deny the lower you will never be able to reach the higher, because the lower rung is a necessary step. Yes, go beyond it, but you can go beyond it only if you don't reject it. Use it, but remember not to become obsessed with it. These two things have to be remembered: one is, not to be obsessed with it, not to stop at it, and the second is, not to reject and deny it but to use it as a stepping-stone.

Be skillful. Buddha's word is UPAYA -- skill. And when he says "upaya," he means be very artful in transforming your life. It is only a potential, a seed, but it can become a great tree and it can blossom in its own time. And when a tree blossoms, when thousands of flowers have arisen on the tree branches, there is great joy in the being of the tree, great ecstasy.

You are also a seed -- become a tree. The seed may be ugly -- seeds almost always are; the roots may be ugly, but remember, it is on the roots that the tree has to grow. The roots have to be used; without roots there will be no flowering. Without physiological attraction there will be no psychological growth. And without psychological love affairs with art, music, sculpture, there is no possibility of spiritual love. Poets and painters and dancers and musicians are a necessary step towards becoming a buddha.

- Osho