According to Osho, Mahavira’s ‘discernment’ (vivek) is an inner, wakeful intelligence that makes external policing, rules, and imposed morality unnecessary. When awareness flowers, people naturally keep to their ‘side of the road’; when it is absent, society substitutes policemen and commandments. True culture arises only when each person’s awakened discernment guides action, not fear, conformity, or mechanical obedience.
Real wisdom grows inside you so you choose what’s right without needing someone to force you.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Someone asked Saint Augustine: “What should I do so that sin does not happen; what should I do so that virtue happens?” Augustine said, “If I begin to enumerate duties, it will turn into an endless list: do this, don’t do that. Even if I detail each duty, the list will never end. And no matter how long it is, you will still find a way, a loophole, to do what you want.”
As awareness grows, you begin to see in every being the same flame that shines within you. As unconsciousness grows, you cannot even glimpse your own soul, let alone another’s. If I don’t know it within me, how can I know it within another? What I know within, that alone I can recognize without. The first step of knowing happens within; then its rays fall on others. If I don’t even know that there is a soul within me—so unconscious that what is inside is invisible, the eyes fogged, drugged, filled with smoke—how will I see the other? I have heard: it is raining hard. Nasruddin is driving with his wife. The rain is so heavy and he hasn’t turned on the wipers. His wife says, “Turn on the wipers; we can’t see.” Nasruddin says, “No point—I forgot my glasses at home; I can’t see the wipers. Whether they run…
Osho, is it necessary to qualify awakening with the adjective “discernment” (vivek), or not? Because perhaps there could be an undiscerning awakening as well.
No, an undiscerning awakening is not possible. Awakening is intrinsically discerning. In fact, awakening and vivek mean the same. Just as we cannot speak of a living corpse, we cannot speak of an undiscerning awakening; they are opposing terms. Vivek means awakening. What commonly comes to mind with the word vivek is discrimination—hence your question: the idea of sorting out, “this is wrong and this is right.” But so long as you are making such discriminations—so long as you are saying, “let me take this as right and that as wrong”—you do not yet have vivek. Up to that point you have merely picked up what the truly discerning have lived as right and what they have regarded as wrong. The day real vivek dawns, there is no need to decide, “this is wrong, this is right.” What is right simply happens; what is wrong does not happen. From one…
Osho, as you said yesterday, Mahavira’s twelve years of sadhana in this life were a search for an expression through which what he had attained up to the ultimate state in his previous life could benefit all the planes of the world. Then what, in his previous lives, were the practices or austerities by which his bonds were severed and he attained the truth?
We do many things in sleep, but even when we are “awake,” we live in a subtle sleep. Mahavira called it pramad—heedlessness. Even while moving about awake, even with eyes open, inside us there is a fine web of drowsiness spread. Someone shoves you and you flare up with anger. Have you ever considered whether this anger was something you did knowingly, or whether it simply happened? Like pressing a switch and the fan begins to run—you cannot say the fan is running; it is being run. Someone pushes your button and anger starts whirring; you cannot say “I am doing anger.” At most you can say: someone pressed a button and anger started. The person who can truly say, “I am doing anger,” will never be able to do anger—for if he is the master, he will not do it. Only one who is not the master can do…
How will we keep remembrance? How will tapas continue? How shall we forget that we are the body and know the truth that we are Atman? I have said: by continuous remembrance. Mahavira called this vivek. Mahavira said: a sadhu should live by vivek. There are some who think vivek only means watching while walking so as not to tread upon insects; or while turning in bed lest some tiny creature be hurt; or drinking only filtered water. These are extremely petty meanings of vivek. The deeper, essential meaning is another. Vivek means: while walking, the sadhu must know—I am not walking. Not for even a moment should this attitude slip, not for a moment should the illusion arise that I am walking. Let there be remembrance: the body walks, I see. Desire moves, I see. I am the witness. The mind moves, I am the seer.
Now think — if this gentleman of Swaminarayan meets Mahavira, he will be frightened — this man stands naked! Immoral, obscene, indecent! And indeed it happened so. Mahavira was chased away from villages, beaten — because his nakedness became painful to others. Mahavira did not intend pain for anyone. He became naked to be natural — to be spontaneous. Man is born naked, he departs naked — in between, what is the point of covering? Therefore Mahavira became naked. His nakedness is as innocent as that of a small child. But the observer sees what is filled in his own eyes. He sees something is wrong — this man will break society, make it lax. The very pillar upon which society could have been established forever appeared immoral to people. They removed him from their villages. Remember: what is within you is what you see.