Osho on Laughter

 

 

 

I don't want you to be serious. I am so against seriousness -- it is a spiritual sickness. Laughter is spiritual health. And laughter is very unburdening. While you laugh, you can put your mind aside very easily. For a man who cannot laugh the doors of the buddha are closed.

To me, laughter is one of the greatest values. No religion has ever thought about it. They have always been insisting on seriousness, and because of their insistence the whole world is psychologically sick.

 

-Osho, "The Language of Existence, #5, Q1"

 

 

 

On scientific grounds from many experiments it has been found that if you start laughing, your whole being vibrates with healing energy. It is still a mystery why it happens, but the same happens with crying.

 

Everybody knows from his own experience that after laughter, good laughter, a belly laugh, you almost feel that you have taken an ice-cold shower; a peace, a silence, a freshness...

 

The same is true about crying, but very few people know the secret of crying because it is more repressed than laughter.

 

-Osho, "Live Zen, #9"

 

 

 

You will have to make just a little effort. Be playful. And here everything is allowed. If you are standing by the side and just laughing, nobody is going to ask you why you are laughing. If somebody is interested, he may stand by your side and start laughing himself. What is the point of asking you?

 

Laughter is such a healthy exercise. Somebody is laughing -- that's perfectly good exercise, join him. Somebody is being playful -- if you have time, join him. Make every effort which goes against these habits. Never hesitate for anything.

 

-Osho, "The New Dawn, #25"

 

 

 

Anything that is known as spiritual becomes more impossible, the more tense you become. And remember the vicious circle: the more tense you are, the less you will be experiencing the joys and the depths and the heights of meditation. The less joyous, the more tense you will be; the more tense, joys will disappear completely.

 

Millions of people have tried meditation and dropped out of it because they took it very seriously. Religion has been thought to be a very serious affair -- it is not. One has to understand -- at least those who are with me -- that religion is a playfulness, a laughter. Take it easy; then things blossom without any tension. You are not taking it easy, you are making it difficult.

 

-Osho, "The New Dawn, #28"

 

 

 

Remember to laugh. Existence loves laughter. You may have observed, or not, that man is the only animal in the whole of existence who is capable of laughing. Laughter is the only distinguishing mark that you are not a buffalo, you are not a donkey; you are a human being. Laughter defines your humanity and your evolution. And the greatest laugh is at your own ridiculous things.

-Osho, "The New Dawn, #28"

 

 

 

I would like you to accept only one prayer, and that is laughter, because when you are totally laughing you are in the present. You cannot laugh in the future and you cannot laugh in the past. All those people who have created this retarded humanity have taken away all juice, all laughter, all smiles, and dragged everybody into being inauthentic. And if you are inauthentic, insincere, you can never grow the seed that has been given to you by this great compassionate universe.

 

-Osho, "Om Mani Padme Hum, #10"

 

 

 

This silence is immense... but I always like you, when I leave you, to be in as hilarious a mood as possible. I know the trees also understand the jokes, and I have a deep compassion for them because they cannot laugh. Man is the only being on the earth who has come to the understanding of laughter. Buffaloes don't laugh -- they are very saintly. Donkeys don't laugh -- they are too philosophic. Idiots don't laugh because they are afraid of being caught doing something that they don't understand.

 

The Englishman laughs only once, not to let anybody understand that he has not understood. The Frenchman laughs twice -- once to accompany other people out of courtesy and then, in the middle of the night when he gets it. Germans simply don't laugh. On the contrary, they are worried -- why are people laughing? They inquire of others -- what was the matter? Jews don't laugh; on the contrary they say, "Shut up, it is an old joke and moreover you are telling it all wrong."

 

But I want my people to understand that because only man is capable to laugh, that means laughter is the highest point of consciousness, the highest point of understanding, the highest point of evolution. That's why I have started calling laughter "the prayer time.“

 

-Osho, "Om Mani Padme Hum, #14"

 

 

 

Before we enter the source of our being... The clouds have come to listen for your laughter. This earth has become so dry -- nobody laughs, nobody even smiles. Even if they smile, it is just a painted smile, a lipstick smile. I want my people to laugh like a lion's roar. Then even laughter becomes a tremendous experience, because it is intelligence at its peak.

 

-Osho, "The Original Man, #9, Q1"

 

 

 

I want to be taken playfully, not seriously -- not with a long British face, but with beautiful laughter. Your laughter, your playfulness is the recognition that you have understood me. Your seriousness shows that you have misunderstood me, you have missed it -- because seriousness is nothing but sickness. It is another name of sadness; it is a shadow of death. And I am all for life. If it is needed for your laughter, your dance, even to reject me, then reject me -- but don't reject the dance and the song and the life, because that is my teaching.

 

Why should you take me seriously? And that's why I am not taking anybody seriously. Still you don't understand: I am not taking anybody seriously simply to make it clear that you are not supposed to take me seriously either. Laugh about me, enjoy me, rejoice in me -- but for God's sake, don't be serious! Seriousness has killed humanity. It has proved to be the very cancer of the soul.

 

My only contribution to human evolution is a sense of humor. No other religion, no other philosophy has accepted humor as something religious; it seems to them that it is something profane. To me, humor is the most sacred experience in life.

 

-Osho, "The Osho Upanishad, #39, Q2"

 

 

 

Laughter is in some way unique; when you laugh, you are also total in it. A laughter which is not total will be phony, a pretension, just a performance. So when you laugh, you also laugh totally. That is the only act you do totally -- so you know that laughter is total. If you see me laughing, it is a natural conclusion that it is a total act, because it corresponds with your experience.

 

You cannot laugh partially. Try, and you will fail. You can laugh only totally. That is a unique quality about laughter. That's why I had made a meditation of it -- because of its unique quality: in laughter you are total without anyone saying to you, "Be total."

 

You can cry without being total. Tears can come to your eyes without being total, but a full laugh... for a moment you forget to be partial. The laughter takes you completely, all over. It is not only that you are laughing, you become the laughter. Because of your own small experience, if I laugh you naturally can conclude that this act is total. Every act is total -- but that is not your experience, so you can only assume that it may be total; you cannot be absolutely certain of its totality.

 

Laughter certainly is very special. Your whole body laughs. Each atom, each cell of your body laughs, participates in it. I have always been against seriousness. I have never compared them, but you can see why I am against seriousness. Seriousness can never be total. It is always partial, the very other extreme of laughter. It goes on becoming narrower and narrower and narrower. The more serious you are, the more narrow you become. The more you go towards laughter, the more wide and the more open, the more vulnerable, the more total, you become.

 

Laughter has something religious.

Seriousness is sick and irreligious.

 

So remember that whenever you feel something in me, try to find out... There must be some parallel in your experience; that's why you are coming to a certain conclusion. If people could laugh totally every day for at least one hour, without any reason, they would not need any other meditation. That would be enough, because while you are laughing you cannot think. While you are laughing you cannot be in the past, you cannot be in the future: you have to be here now. Laughter can open a door to the ultimate.

 

-Osho, "The Path of the Mystic, #32, Q2"

 

 

 

You go on thinking that humor, laughter, is somehow irreligious, because you have been conditioned that way. Churches have become humorless. When you come to me, you come with all your ideas of how a Buddha should be. But your ideas of a Buddha are not really of a Buddha. Those are the ideas that you have gathered seeing a Catholic priest, or a Hindu swami, or a Jaina muni. You don't know anything about Buddhas, you don't know anything about Bodhidharma, you don't know anything about the real people of God. In their the earth and sky are not separate, and the profane and the sacred are not separate. It is all one. The humor and the prayer are two aspects of the same spectrum.

 

Laughter is not irreligious. Laughter is one of the most evolved phenomena in human life. No other animal can laugh, it is only man; it is only man who can laugh.

 

You have to transform your laughter into prayer. Only YOU can transform. Certainly there is no other animal who is bored either. No other animal feels boredom. So these are the two specific things a human being can do: either he can feel bored, or he can feel laughter. The old religions have chosen boredom. I choose laughter. And I don't think that God should be very happy with your churches; they are creating such boredom. God must have more humor than your churches, otherwise He would not have created man at all. And He created man and told Adam, "Don't eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge," and then created a snake to seduce Adam, and created Eve, and created trouble.... He must have some humor. This world is a great comedy. It is ridiculous!

 

-Osho, "The Wisdom of the Sands, Vol 2, #6"

 

 

 

To be serious is not only not to be alive, it is worse than death. Have you ever seen a dead person serious? Impossible! Seriousness is worse than death. Laughter is life, is love, is light. Laughter in its purest form is a dance of all your energies.

 

In a real deep laughter the mind disappears. It is not a part of mind or of the heart. When a real laughter happens -- a belly laughter, as it is called -- then it comes from your very core; from your very center ripples start spreading towards your circumference. Just as you throw a rock into a silent lake and ripples arise and they start moving towards the source, in the same way real laughter arises from your center and moves towards your circumference. It is almost like an earthquake! Each single cell of your body, each fiber dances in tune.

 

Laughter has never been used as a meditation. I may be the first person who is using laughter as a meditation. Jokes have never been used as part of a spiritual transformation -- I may be the first person! -- but they can be used; they are tremendously refreshing.

 

-Osho, "The Wild Geese and the Water, #8"

 

 

 

Laughter is a great medicine. It is a tremendously powerful therapy. If you can laugh at your own unconscious, the unconscious loses its force. In your very laughter your guilt, your wounds, disappear.

 

-Osho, "YAA-HOO! The Mystic Rose, #4"

 

 

 

My own experience says to me that if you can laugh rightly, in the right moment, it will bring you out of unconsciousness into the open sky, from the darkness to the light. I am introducing laughter as a meditation because nothing makes you so total as laughter; nothing makes you stop your thinking as laughter does. Just for a moment you are no more a mind. Just for a moment you are no more in time. Just for a moment you have entered into another space where you are total and whole and healed.

 

-Osho, "YAA-HOO! The Mystic Rose, #21"

 

 

 

Laughter is beautiful when it comes out of understanding, out of innocence. But when it is hysterical it is insane and stupid.

 

I was not angry, I cannot be angry. I was simply sad to see that a few people are still here whom I continue to call my people, but they are not yet alert enough to be given that much dignity. There is no question of forgiving you, because I have not been angry. It is just that I have been feeling that perhaps my love has not reached a few people.

 

I allow you more laughter than has ever been allowed; I have loved you as no master has ever loved his disciples. Gautam Buddha would not have loved you at all. Yes, he was compassionate, but being compassionate is not the same as loving. Compassion is dry, compassion is a distance; one is higher and one is very far down in the darkness.

 

-Osho, "YAA-HOO! The Mystic Rose, #21"

 

 

 

If you really want to laugh you will have to learn how to weep. If you cannot weep and if you are not capable of tears, you will become incapable of laughter. A man of laughter is also a man of tears -- then a man is balanced. A man of bliss is also a man of silence. A man who is ecstatic is also a man who is centered. They both go together. And out of this togetherness of polarities a balanced being is born. And that is what the goal is.

 

-Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #2"

 

 

 

Laughter is the very essence of religion. Seriousness is never religious, cannot be religious. Seriousness is of the ego, part of the very disease. Laughter is egolessness. Yes, there is a difference between when you laugh and when a religious man laughs. The difference is that you laugh always about others -- the religious man laughs at himself, or at the whole ridiculousness of man's being.

 

Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life. And the serious person becomes handicapped: he creates barriers. He cannot dance, he cannot sing, he cannot celebrate. The very dimension of celebration disappears from his life. 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 a sectarian, but not religious. You can be a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Jain, a Mohammedan, but you cannot be religious. You believe in something, but you don't know anything. You believe in theories. A man too much burdened by theories becomes serious. A man who is unburdened, has no burden of theories over his being, 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, gratitude.

 

-Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #9"

 

 

 

Laughter is a mystery. It is better to experience it than to hear someone talk about it. But one becomes curious, "What is laughter?" Laughter is the most intelligent factor in you. Buffaloes don't laugh, and if you meet a buffalo laughing you will go mad! Then it will be impossible to bring you to sanity. No animal laughs. Laughter needs a very sensitive intelligence. It means that you can understand the ridiculousness of a certain situation. 

 

What are jokes? They are a very clever arrangement. They take you in a direction logically, rationally, you start expecting that now this is going to happen, this is going to happen... and it goes on happening according to your expectations. Then comes a sudden turn and something happens which you could never have imagined. That brings laughter to you. It is a very internal process of your rational expectation. If what you were expecting happens, there will be no laugh. But if you see something that you could not have conceived and everything went well up to the end -- and then suddenly something happens that makes you immediately forget all your reason, logic, mind...

 

Laughter is the only ordinary experience when you are no longer a mind, and I use it to give you glimpses of no-mind, of meditation, of a transcendence of mind. Perhaps I am the first man in the whole history of mankind who has been using jokes as a preparation for meditation. Jesus would not laugh; Buddha will not laugh; Lao Tzu is not heard to have ever laughed... They were serious people, and they were doing serious work!

 

-Osho, "The Invitation, #27, Q3"

 

 

When you have a hearty laugh, mind stops, because mind cannot laugh. It is structured seriously, its function is to be serious, miserable, sick. The moment you laugh, it does not come from your mind, it comes from the beyond, from your very inner spirit. According to me, all the religions have missed one of the dimensions of the greatest importance, a sense of humor. And they have made the whole world serious. I want my people to fill the world with laughter, joy, songs, and dances. We are not seeking for any paradise -- we are seeking how to create the paradise, herenow, because we are not interested in things after death. If we can create a paradise herenow, certainly we will be able -- even if we meet in hell -- to create the paradise there. 

 

All my people are condemned by all the religions, so I hope we will be reaching hell. But they are to be warned, "Don't send my people to hell, because they will turn the hell into a far better paradise than you have with your old, dirty and dry saints who cannot even smile!" I trust absolutely that when a million sannyasins enter into hell with their guitars and songs and dances and jokes the whole quality and the whole atmosphere of hell is going to be changed -- I think even the devil will join you! He will become a sannyasin: Swami Anand Devil!

 

-Osho, "The Invitation, #27, Q3"

 

 

 

When you become a calm and cool observer of life you are going to laugh -- not ordinary laughter but a belly laughter like a lion's roar. And white lotuses will start showering on you. Life is neither serious nor nonserious. It is a tremendous play, playfulness. Yes, many times it is ridiculous, incredibly absurd, but in our minds those words have a very wrong connotation, something negative. When we say something is absurd we mean that it is something wrong. No, it is not so.

 

Absurd simply means beyond our logic. Absurd simply means beyond our expectations. Absurd simply means that there is always a surprise. Absurd simply means that life is unpredictable and cannot be reduced to cause-and-effect, that life is more than logic, more than language can contain, more than can be expressed. And it is tremendously humorous... because here you see gods pretending to be beggars. Yes, it is a pretense. Here you will see buddhas being miserable.

 

-Osho, "The White Lotus, #4"

 

 

 

Laughter brings some energy from your inner source to your surface. Energy starts flowing, follows laughter like a shadow. Have you watched it? When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together. They are diametrically opposite: either you can laugh or you can think. If you really laugh, thinking stops. If you are still thinking, laughter will be just so-so, it will be just so-so, lagging behind. It will be a crippled laughter.

 

When you really laugh, suddenly mind disappears. And the whole Zen methodology is how to get into no-mind -- laughter is one of the beautiful doors to get to it. As far as I know, dancing and laughter are the best, natural, easily approachable doors. If you really dance, thinking stops. You go on and on, you whirl and whirl, and you become a whirlpool -- all boundaries, all divisions are lost. You don't even know where your body ends and where the existence begins. You melt into existence and the existence melts into you; there is an overlapping of boundaries. And if you are really dancing -- not managing it but allowing it to manage you, allowing it to possess you -- if you are possessed by dance, thinking stops.

 

The same happens with laughter. If you are possessed by laughter, thinking stops. And if you know a few moments of no-mind, those glimpses will promise you many more rewards that are going to come. You just have to become more and more of the sort, of the quality, of no-mind. More and more, thinking has to be dropped. Laughter can be a beautiful introduction to a non-thinking state. And the beauty is.... There are methods -- for example, you can concentrate on a flame or on a black dot, or you can concentrate on a mantra, but the greater possibility is that by the time the mind is disappearing you will start feeling sleepy, you will fall asleep. Because before the mind disappears there open two alternatives: sleep -- sushupti -- and samadhi: sleep and satori.

 

-Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #9"

 

 

 

In a few Zen monasteries, every monk has to start his morning with laughter, and has to end his night with laughter -- the first thing and the last thing! You try it. It is very beautiful. It will look a little crazy -- mm? -- because so many serious people are all around. They will not understand. If you are happy, they always ask why. The question is foolish! If you are sad, they never ask why. They take it for granted -- if you are sad, it's okay. Everybody is sad. What is new in it? Even if you want to tell them, they are not interested because they know all about it, they themselves are sad. So what is the point of telling a long story? -- cut it short!

 

But if you are laughing for no reason, then they become alert -- something has gone wrong. This man seems to be a little crazy because only crazy people enjoy laughter; only in madhouses will you find crazy people laughing. This is unfortunate, but this is so.

 

It will be difficult, if you are a husband or a wife it will be difficult for you to suddenly laugh early in the morning. But try it -- it pays tremendously. It is one of the most beautiful moods to get up with, to get out of the bed with. For no reason! because there is no reason. Simply, you are again there, still alive -- it is a miracle! It seems ridiculous! Why are you alive? And again the world is there. Your wife is still snoring, and the same room, and the same house. In this constantly changing world -- what Hindus call the 'maya' -- at least for one night nothing has changed? Everything is there: you can hear the milkman and the traffic has started, and the same noises -- it is worth laughing for!

 

-Osho, "A Sudden Clash of Thunder, #9"

 

 

 

This whole cosmos is a joke; Hindus call it LEELA. It is a joke, it is a play. And the day that you understand, you start laughing, and that laughing never stops. It goes on and on. It spreads all over the cosmos.

 

Laughter is prayer. If you can laugh you have learnt how to pray. Don't be serious; a serious person can never be religious. Only a person who can laugh, not only at others but at himself also, can be religious. A person who can laugh absolutely, who sees the whole ridiculousness and the whole game of life, becomes enlightened in that laughter.

 

-Osho, "The Art of Dying, #6"

 

 

 

If you become a little alert you will find love, light, laughter, everywhere! 

 

It is said that when Hotei attained enlightenment he started laughing. He lived at least thirty years afterwards; he continued laughing for thirty years. Even in sleep his disciples would hear him giggling. His whole message to the world was laughter; he would go from one town to another just laughing. He would stand in one marketplace, then in another, just laughing, and people would gather. His laughter had something of the beyond -- a Buddha's laughter. He is known in Japan as 'the laughing Buddha'. His laughter was so contagious that whosoever heard it would start laughing. Soon the whole marketplace would be laughing; crowds would gather and laugh and they would ask him, "Just give us a few instructions."

 

He would say, "Nothing more, this is enough. If you can laugh, if you can laugh totally, it is meditation."

 

Laughter was his device. It is said many people became enlightened through Hotei's laughter. That was his only meditation: to laugh and help people laugh. 

 

-Osho, "Be Still and Know, #5"

 

 

Laughter is one of the things most repressed by society all over the world, in all the ages. Society wants you to be serious. Parents want their children to be serious, teachers want their students to be serious, the bosses want their servants to be serious, the commanders want their armies to be serious. Seriousness is required of everybody.

 

Laughter is dangerous and rebellious. When the teacher is teaching you and you start laughing, it will be taken as an insult. Your parents are saying something to you and you start laughing -- it will be taken as an insult. Seriousness is thought to be honor, respect. Naturally laughter has been repressed so much that even though life all around is hilarious, nobody is laughing. If your laughter is freed from its chains, from its bondage, you will be surprised -- on each step there is something hilarious happening.

 

Life is not serious. Only graveyards are serious, death is serious. Life is love, life is laughter, life is dance, song. But we will have to give life a new orientation. The past has crippled life very badly, it has made you almost laughter blind, just like there are people who are colorblind.

 

-Osho, "Beyond Enlightenment, #27"