Unburden Yourself With Laughter

Jan 3, 2004, 12.00am IST


Gautama Buddha made a profound statement: "Be a light unto yourself". To this, Osho adds another: "Be a joke unto yourself". Osho would say: "I have to tell jokes because you are all religious people, you tend to be serious. I have to tickle you sometimes so that you forget your religiousness, your philosophies, theories, systems, and you fall down to earth".

Osho has seen that in spontaneous laughter the noise of the mind stops for a few precious moments, allowing us to experience mindlessness or meditation, however fleetingly.

The seriousness of 'religious' people, however, is heavy on the human heart. It creates guilt in people: when you laugh, you feel you are doing something wrong. Laughter is good in a movie hall, but not in a church or temple.

Osho said: "I declare laughter to be the highest religious quality. And if we can decide that every year, for one hour, at a certain date, at a certain time, the whole world will laugh (together), it will help to dispel darkness, violence and stupidities - because laughter is a unique human characteristic... It can relax you, it can make you feel light, it can make your world a beautiful experience. It can change everything in your life. Laughter can make life worth living, something to be grateful for."

"German thinker Count Keyserling wrote that health is unreligious. But an ill person is desireless not because he has become desireless but because he is weak. A healthy person will laugh, he would like to enjoy, be merry - he cannot be sad."

"But 'religious' persons tell you to go on a fast, suppress your body, torture yourself. Laughter comes out of health. It's an overflowing energy. That's why children can laugh and their laughter is total. Their whole body is involved in it when they laugh; you can see their toes laughing."

Laughter, according to Osho, is multi-dimensional. When you laugh, your body, mind and your being laugh in unison. Distinctions, divisions and the schizophre-nic personality disappears. That's why Osho introduced laughter to religion. Seriousness is of the ego whereas laughter is egolessness.

Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life. The serious person is handicapped: He creates barriers. He cannot dance, sing or celebrate. He becomes desert-like. And if you are a desert, you can go on thinking and pretending that you are religious but you are not.

You may be sectarian, but not religious. You believe in something, but you don't know anything. A man burdened by theories becomes serious. A man who is unburdened starts laughing.

The whole play of existence is so beautiful that laughter can be the only response to it. Only laughter can be the real prayer of gratitude. Osho talks about a great Zen master Hotei who was known in Japan as the 'Laughing Buddha'.

Osho said: "Hotei is tremendously significant... more people should be like Hotei; more temples should be full of laughter, dancing and singing. If seriousness is lost, nothing is lost -in fact, one becomes more healthy and whole. But if laughter is lost, everything is lost. Suddenly you lose the festivity of your being; you become colourless, monotonous, in a way, dead. Then your energy is not streaming any more".

But to understand Hotei you will have to be in that festive dimension. If you are too much burdened with theories, concepts, notions, ideologies, theologies, philo-sophies, you will not be able to realise the significance of Hotei.

Osho warned that taking man's laughter away from him is taking his very life away; it is a form of spiritual castration.

Swami Chaitanya Keerti

( January 1 was celebrated as World Laughter Day )