:: LAUGHTER ::

CRY AND WEEP AND LAUGH
 
Laughter and tears go together. They are not opposites but the two extremes of the same spectrum. If one is not capable of tears, he will be incapable of laughter too. Suppression of tears leads to suppression of laughter. Osho says, "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."
Sharing His insight, Osho says that tears and laughter can be more prayerful than words because they come deep down from the heart. 

"One should laugh and one should weep also. Laughter and weeping are two banks -- balance is needed. If you really laugh, you will also weep. And what is wrong with weeping? Tears are beautiful. If you have laughed, if you have laughed deeply, tears become very, very beautiful. They carry... they carry something of the laughter, because deep down the banks are one, they are not two. On one pole laughter, on another pole tears; one pole smiles, another pole cries, but deep down they are joined together. If you have laughed totally, you will weep totally, and both are beautiful. Totality is beautiful. But if you cling, then you can never be total. When you weep, you cling to the laughter; you try to smile, you try to force a smile because you don't want this weeping and crying. 'This is bad, this is ugly,' and you force a smile. Tears are in the eyes and you force a smile. This smile is false -- this is neurosis. When the body wants to weep and you are smiling, this is schizophrenia. This is how the split starts, how a person becomes two. Totality is lost. Then remember, when you laugh it can never be total.

If you cling to one pole, you become afraid of totality. You cannot weep totally, how can you laugh totally? That's why the belly laugh has simply disappeared from the world. You don't know what a belly laugh is -- when you not only laugh, but the belly laughs. The whole body vibrates, not only you, but from head to toe everything laughs. That laughter is mad because you are totally in it.

Look at the absurdity of the world: only a madman can be total. You are afraid, because you know well that you have suppressed tears so if you laugh deeply, tears may come. And it happens. You may have noticed many times, if you start laughing deeply immediately you feel tears are coming. You feel confused -- why are tears coming? Tears are coming because you have been suppressing them, and you have never allowed a totality. And now you laugh totally: the suppressed needs expression, the suppressed flows, the suppressed seeks a moment; the door is open -- it flows."

Osho - Returning to the source
#4, Suppose My Hands were always like that

Laughter time with Osho :

1. It was a very special day in Paddy's household and Maureen came down to breakfast with an air of expectancy.
"This is our tenth wedding anniversary," she whispered to Paddy, who was reading the newspaper, "so let's have a chicken from our own farm and celebrate."
Paddy looked up and said, "Why kill an innocent bird for what happened ten years ago?"

2. "Some young man is trying to get into my room through the window," screamed old Mrs. Kleinman into the telephone.
"Sorry, lady," came back the answer, "you've got the fire department. What you want is the police department."
"No, no," she pleaded, "I want the fire department. What he needs is a longer ladder!"

3. "My poor husband," said Mrs. Ginsberg to her psychoanalyst, dragging her husband behind her. "He's convinced he's a parking meter."
The analyst looked at the silent, morbid fellow and asked, "Why doesn't he say something for himself? Can't he talk?"
"How can he," said Mrs. Ginsberg, "with all those coins in his mouth?"

4. Mulla Nasrudin and his two friends were talking about their resemblances.
The first friend said, "My face resembles that of Winston Churchill. I have often been mistaken for him."
The second said, "In my case, people think I am President Nixon and ask me for my autograph."
Mulla said, "That's nothing. Well, in my case, I have been mistaken for God Himself."
The first and second asked together, "How?"
Mulla Nasrudin said, "Well, when I was convicted and sent to jail for the fourth time, on seeing me the jailer exclaimed, 'Oh God, you have come again!' "

5. The doctor was explaining to Paddy how nature makes up for a person's deficiencies.
"For example," he told Paddy, "if a man is deaf, he may have very good eyesight, and if a man is blind, he may have a very good sense of smell."
"I think I see what you mean," said Paddy. "I have often noticed that if a man has one short leg, then the other one is always a little bit longer."

6. Mulla Nasrudin was telling a friend his future through palmistry. He said, "You will be poor and unhappy and miserable until you are sixty."
"Then what?" asked the man hopefully.
"By that time," said Nasrudin, "you will be used to it."

7. A friend of Mulla Nasruddin was talking to him. He said,'My wife is an angel.'
Mulla said,'But mine is still alive.'