Why am I still miserable after trying to live a religious life?

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

Nand Kishor, 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.…

My whole life bas been a hell. It seems something has gone wrong from the very beginning. I have tried hard to live an honest moral and religious life, but I have not even had a glimpse of what you call bliss. What is wrong with me?

You must have lived through the scriptures; that's why millions of people go on trying hard to live a moral, religious life, and still never know what bliss is. They are living according to books; they never try to listen to their own still small voice. They have betrayed themselves, they have betrayed their God. Clem bought a new bike for his ten-year-old son, Harvey, "Don't worry, Harvey," he assured him. "I will assemble the bike in a jiffy." Harvey waited impatiently as Clem removed the bicycle parts from a huge box. "Here are the directions," mumbled Clem. "Take wheel A and align it with holes X and Z. Then take bolt B and put it through hole Y." "Are you sure you can do it, Dad?" asked Harvey as he watched his father break out into a cold sweat. "I was not an army mechanic for nothing," retorted Clem.…

I believe very strongly in religion. I follow all the prescribed rules of morality. L have always lived a life of discipline -- then why am I always unhappy?

The moment you understand that you are part of God, then all immorality disappears. Not that you have to drop it, it is simply not found. And when there is no immorality, what is the need to follow moral rules? Only immoral people follow moral rules, only immoral people need to follow. A moral person has no rules to follow. His morality is innocent. He is good because he feels that being good brings more and more happiness. He is good because he is happy. Happiness brings more good to his life; more good brings more happiness to his life. You will be unhappy because really you want to be immoral. And you have to curb and cut and you have to always force yourself to be moral. You are not being natural. You will be unhappy. And these moral things will not satisfy you. They are false. They will…

What I mean by sannyas is a spiritual discipline so that one becomes a religious person, but it is not happening to me. What to do?

So don't go anywhere, don't renounce. Live it as totally as possible -- and live it as an integrated being. My emphasis is for an integrated being. You are not in the body: you ARE the body. Drop that nonsense of "I am in the body." Hmm? from the very beginning that nonsense makes a distinction, and then you are very far away from the body and a conflict arises. You start manipulating your body, you start controlling your body, you start doing things to your body. You become destructive, you become violent. Your so-called saints are all violent. Howsoever much they talk about nonviolence, howsoever much, it makes no difference. They are violent people. There are two types of violent people. The first type is violent with others; the other type is violent with himself. There are sadists and masochists. The sadists torture others; they become Adolf Hitler, Mussolini,…

Osho, I am worn out from practicing religion—vows, fasts, yama and niyama—I’ve tried them all and found nothing. What should I do now? I have come to your refuge to ask this.

So sometimes fasting is useful. But fasting is not a way of life. Otherwise you are choosing slow suicide; you begin enjoying torturing yourself; you turn perverse and violent toward yourself. Such fasting is abuse—self-abuse—and no one can protect you from it. And your mute body already suffers so much at your hands. Do not imagine this abuse will bring you religion. Yes, the body will dry and wither—but do not fall into the delusion that the lotus of the soul blooms because the body withers. There is no necessary connection. So all that you did—yamas and niyamas, vows and fasts—each has its own value in its own place. But when you take them as synonyms for religion, Dayanand, you go astray. They are not synonyms. Religion has only one synonym—meditation. Mahavira used an exact word for it: samayik. The Jains call the soul “samay”—the timeless time. Samayik means: abiding…