Ludwig Wittgenstein has said: Nothing should be said if the experience is inexpressible – if it cannot be said then it should not be said. But that too is a problem. The mystic cannot agree, I cannot agree. It cannot be said, yet efforts have to be made. No effort is going to do justice to the experience – all those who have known have been perfectly aware – but still efforts have been made, efforts not really to describe it but efforts to create a longing in you.

And the real longing arises not because of the master’s words, but because of the master himself, his presence. If you are in love with the master then his presence starts opening some unknown doors in you. Once in a while a window suddenly opens and you have a glimpse. Once in a while you are transported into other worlds, into other dimensions. The master’s presence has to be tasted – that is the taste of enlightenment. The master’s presence has to be allowed to sink deep into you; that is the only way to know something of it.

Jesus says: Eat me. The last night, when he is saying good-bye to his disciples, he breaks the bread and says, “This is me. Eat me, digest me. And whenever you eat, and whenever you break bread, remember.” And then he offers wine to his disciples and says, “This is my blood – drink me, and whenever you drink wine, remember me.”

Yes, it is a nourishment of the soul, hence the bread; and yes, it is wine, because it intoxicates you with the divine.

Come closer to me, Geetam! Drop your armor, drop your defenses. Drop your mind. Forget yourself more and more so that you can come closer and closer. In that intimacy something is bound to transpire.

The second question:

Osho,
I have tried my whole life to live a religious life, but then why am I still miserable?

The religious life cannot be tried. Whatsoever you have been doing in the name of religion must have been something else. Religion is not an effort, it is a consciousness. It is not a practice, it is awareness. It is not a cultivation; you cannot cultivate it – religious life has nothing to do with character.

Character can be cultivated. Character is moral; even an irreligious person can cultivate it. In fact irreligious people have more character than the so-called religious, because the religious person goes on believing that he can bribe God, or at least he can bribe the priest of God, and he will find some way to enter into paradise. But the irreligious has to be responsible for his life himself, towards himself. There is no God, no priest, nobody that he is answerable to; he is answerable to himself only. He has more character.