Why are discourses, groups, and sannyas necessary if awareness is enough?

Beloved master, you tell us that awareness is enough. Then why discourses, groups, sannyas?

Rick Ferris, how did you come to know that awareness is enough? I have to tell it again and again -- that awareness is enough, that no discourse is needed. But even that has to be told to you: that nothing is needed. But you are so asleep, you won't come upon the truth by yourself and you won't come upon the truth even if repeated thousands of times. Now see the trick of your mind: it is not that you have understood that awareness is enough. On the contrary, you have understood that discourses are not needed, groups are not needed, sannyas is not needed. See the tricky mind, the cunning mind... who goes on creating new hells for you. You missed the point and you have misinterpreted the whole thing. Discourses are to tell you that words won't do, but even to tell that words won't do, words…

Part of a discourse given by Osho on june 2, 1971 in bombay, india, and based on an interview by ma ananda pratima.

So to ask for faith is to ask, "Have you worked in your past lives?" If you have worked, only then can you have faith; otherwise you cannot. And in today's world doubt seems much more prominent, easier. Faith is very difficult. The reason is not that the human mind has been changed, the reason is only this: that the old traditions are running narrow. Really, since Nanak there have been no new traditions. Now all the religions are old. They have been going on, the river is narrowing every day. With every new day, the tradition has fewer persons with it. Since Buddha there are now twenty-five centuries -- the tradition is so old that almost all who were connected with the living master are liberated! And all those persons who have remained are really very third rate. They have had twenty-five centuries of continuous work. All the traditions…

bibles, korans, gitas cannot give it to you -- they are all words, they are beautiful they were spoken by beautiful people but that does not make any difference even if buddha says the word rose it does not become a rose even if jesus says the word fire it does not become fire but beautiful people can be so hypnotic that you start believing in their words christians, hindus, mohammedans, buddhists are all doing the same they have all forgotten the reality and are clinging to the labels they are all clinging to the cages maybe they are golden cages but the bird, the alive bird, the singing bird is no more there the search of sannyas is for the alive, the singing bird man has two alternatives two possible orientations one is character, the other is consciousness character is imposed from the outside it is a political and…

If at this very moment I can become awakened or enlightened, why then do you allow all those chaotic brain-washing groups, group-leaders and therapists to happen at the ashram and what connection is there between them and my enlightenment?

No connection at all. But they destroy your 'if'. They are needed just to make you alert that nothing is needed. And you can become aware only the hard way; you cannot become easily aware. You have been asleep so long. Your slumber has been of centuries, of millennia. Those therapy groups simply hit hard on your head, they are a kind of hammering to destroy your 'if'. Going through all those hard arduous trips, one day you will realize that nothing is needed, that enlightenment has not to be searched. That you lose the desire for enlightenment -- that is their purpose. And the moment you don't desire enlightenment, it is there. It comes when the desire disappears.

Osho, for us who are asleep, perhaps the enlightened have only one proclamation: You’ve slept enough—wake up. But not everyone can wake up at once; at best, one among millions awakens. So the buddhas of the past also gave disciplines for the asleep, which have now become outdated. What discipline will you give them?

And don’t imagine that if Mahavira had forbidden raising the finger too, nothing could be done. The eyes can gesture as well—no need to lift a finger. Fix your gaze on the gulab jamun—matter settled! Buddha told his monks, “Do not ask for anything, because who knows whether the person has the means to give or not? If you ask and he is compelled to give, the whole thing becomes tasteless, ugly. So accept whatever comes.” One day a monk was returning with alms in his bowl when a kite flying overhead dropped a piece of meat, which fell into his bowl. Buddha had said, “Whatever falls into your bowl, accept it.” The monk wondered, “This meat has fallen into my bowl; I didn’t ask. Should I accept it?” But Buddha had said nothing about such a situation, so the monk thought it proper to ask. In the sangha he…