What is the correct understanding of discernment?

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, if you don’t mind, just one more question. In your talks you lay more emphasis on discernment, truth, and thought. So what do you say about the place of faith, devotion, and love in a person’s growth?

They have a great place—indeed, a very great place. But in my view their place is as a result. If someone lives life with discernment, one day he will come to faith. But that faith will not be opposed to discernment; it will arise from discernment. The faith you commonly call “faith” is anti-discernment—it comes beforehand, without discernment. I am against that. The faith that arrives without discernment, and in opposition to it—I am against it. That is blindness. My understanding is that if a person lives with discernment, faith will also arise in his life, but it will be the fruit of discernment, the outcome of his thinking. We talk so much about devotion, but the devotion that is blind and stands upon belief has no value for me. In my view, a person who inquires also attains to love in life; a thinking person can one day reach…

Osho, you said... then you will find that the devotee is God. The question arises: if one devotee prefers to be God and another wants to remain only a devotee, then which of the two is superior?

The one who wants to be God will not be able to be. And the one who wants to remain a devotee will become God. The question of superior or inferior does not arise, because only one of the two will happen. The one who does not want to be will be. The one who wants to be will be deprived. That very wanting is of the ego. But the matter is a little delicate. Sometimes humility too belongs to the ego. Beware that your humility may not be of the ego. Perhaps you are saying, “No, I don’t want to be,” because you know that those who refuse are the ones who attain. Then you are clever. Then your humility is adulterous. Your humility is not pure, not sacred, not virginal—it is like a prostitute. The one who wants to be God, whose ego says, “I must become God,”…

Osho, you say the same thing in countless ways. But when I listen to you, it feels as if I am hearing it for the first time. And I feel so much joy that I don’t feel like going back home. What should I do—what can I do—so that I can just keep listening to you!

You will feel as if you have been made to rise out of season, before time—as if you were not yet to go and yet had to go. And if you go in that way, your home will become even more desolate than before. I do not want to make your home desolate; I want to make your home a temple. I want that when you go home, your home’s new form is revealed. I do not want to tear you away from home, from the world, from family life. That is the newness of my sannyas: I do not want to sever you from the world; I want to join you to the world in such a way that your connection with the world becomes a connection with the Divine. Let the world no longer be a barrier between you and the Divine; let it become a means. If…

Osho, a friend asks: The shraddha (faith/trust) that Krishna speaks of—could that also become blind faith? Why did Krishna not use the word vivek (discernment), which seems far more meaningful than shraddha? Please clarify.

Vivek can wander; shraddha never wanders. Vivek can miss; shraddha is unfailing. For in the end, vivek is yours, while shraddha is not merely yours. Shraddha means: “By myself it will not happen. My hands do not reach so far as where truth is; my jump cannot span the abyss where the Divine is. By myself it will not be.” The moment this helplessness is truly felt—“I have a limit; by me it cannot happen”—in that very moment shraddha arises. Then we say: “Now you do it. I cannot do it; I cannot walk further—now you walk me; my hands do not work—hold my hand; my feet do not lift—lift them.” The moment a person is utterly exhausted, out of that very exhaustion the shraddha appears that unites one with the vast. Vivek is not a great word. Understand this: hidden within vivek is thought, very refined thought. Call it…