Laugh and Lighten Up

CHAITANYA KEERTI





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.“ Because, 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 heart. It creates guilt in people: when you laugh, you feel you are doing something wrong.Laughter, according to Osho, is multidimensional. When you laugh, your body , mind and your being laugh in unison. Distinctions, divisions and the schizophrenic personality disappears.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 keep thinking and pretending that you're religious but you're not.
A man burdened by theories becomes serious. An unburdened man starts laughing. The 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 warned that taking man's laughter away from him is taking his very life away; it is a form of spiritual castration.