You will be surprised to know that the person who discovered wine was a very saintly person. His name was Dionysius. He was a Greek. He discovered wine. It is a strange thing that a saint should have discovered wine. Even today, wine is made in the Greek monastery named after Dionysius. Western thinkers don’t mention this, because it seems so strange to them that a saint should have discovered wine – but it appeals to me. Only a saint can discover wine, only one who has known the real thing can make a copy. You cannot make a copy unless you know the real thing. You cannot make counterfeit currency unless you have real money – otherwise how will you know what it looks like? It appeals to me. A saint must have discovered wine. He must have seen the real thing, and feeling pity for the poor people who were unlikely ever to know it, he made a copy of it for them. I have no difficulty with this, it seems very logical to me.

Only enlightened mystics can discover wine. A mystic who had tasted it must have thought that others should also taste it in one form or another. And it is true: today he will only know a copy, but tomorrow he may begin to search for the real. How long can a person drink false wine? One day he will begin to think about finding a wine that will intoxicate him forever. And on that day, his journey to the divine will have begun.No bliss is possible in this life without discovering the wine of the divine.

Somewhere in this darkness lurks unease,
Like me, the night cannot sleep.
So helpless, so sad,
There is no one else like me in this whole world.
Perhaps no one has ever missed life
The way I have.
Perhaps no one has ever washed laughter’s feet
With endless tears
The way I have.

But this is the state of everyone. Sometimes you may also have felt that no one is as sad as you are, no one is as wretched and dejected as you are. It isn’t just you, everyone is suffering. And everyone thinks no one else is as wretched as he is. But we cannot see the sorrow of the other; the wounds of his sorrows are hidden in his innermost being. We only see the outer decorations, not the inner wounds, not the inner sores. But we can see our own sores.

People laugh even though they have no reason for laughing. They smile. What else can they do? If they didn’t smile, they would have to cry the whole time. So somehow they impose a false smile on themselves.

Around 1920, Maxim Gorky, a great Russian thinker, went to America. Wherever he went in America, he was shown the ways America had discovered to amuse itself. No other country in the world had discovered so many ways. The person showing Gorky around thought that he would be greatly impressed, and indeed he did appear to be so. After showing him everything, the guide waited anxiously for Gorky to say something. Instead, tears came to Gorky’s eyes. The guide asked, “What is wrong? Why are you so sad?”

Gorky replied, “People who need so many things to amuse themselves in order to live must be very sad. How can they not be?”

The sad person goes to the cinema, the sad person goes to the pub, the sad person goes to the circus, the sad person watches the cricket match. They are all sad people. A sad person needs some way to distract himself. He calls it entertainment. His mind is weary, always on the run. A sad man discovers a thousand ways to laugh for a little while.