:: LAUGHTER ::

A SENSE OF HUMOR BEYOND THE MIND 
It is true that the sense of humor is a part of the mind. But, says Osho, that’s not the end of it. There is a sense of humor which even the body feels, there is a sense of humor that the mind feels, and there is a sense of humor that is only felt when one is beyond the mind. They all differ in qualities.

Osho brings out the difference with the help of a simple example that a small child whose mind has not grown at all, will burst out giggling if someone simply touched his sensitive, humorous parts of the body, for example his belly. Osho shares, “The body has its own giggling points -- "G-points." Mind always laughs at others. No-mind only laughs at one's own ridiculousness. But the sense of humor is spread over your whole being, from body, mind, and soul.”

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“Your body is the wall; your mind is the wall. Behind your body and mind there is your real home ... your very source of life.

When somebody finds it, he has a good laugh: "I was unnecessarily standing on my head, distorting my body doing yoga exercises, fasting, going on holy pilgrimages, torturing myself in the mountains, in the deserts -- and all the time I was carrying my truth within myself." Whenever somebody finds it, can you think he will not laugh -- laugh at himself? Mind laughs at others.

Beyond the mind there is only one laughter, but it resounds for centuries. The place where Bodhidharma became enlightened ... I have been to that place. He became enlightened fourteen hundred years ago and people have made a temple in his memory, in the place where he laughed for the first time. And the story is that if you sit silently in the temple, you will still hear the laughter.

There is a statue of Bodhidharma. He was a very strange man. If he meets you in the night, you will never go out of your house in the night again. He had such big eyes that, if he looked into you once, that was enough for enlightenment! And his laughter must have been a great laughter because he has a very good, big belly. Even in the statue the belly has ripples.

I had not time to sit there in the temple, but I know that if you sit there in the temple in the silence of the forest, perhaps you may hear the laughter. Perhaps the mountains, the trees, the rocks around the temple are still vibrating with that great man. I have looked into the lives of many great people, but Bodhidharma stands apart ... very strange and very unique.

It is possible that his laughter was so infectious that the trees started laughing and the mountains started laughing. Although Bodhidharma is dead, they are still laughing; they cannot stop it. If you go with the whole idea, perhaps you may really hear it -- or you may imagine it. But I have come across people who have heard it, because they have told me.

I had gone there, but I had not time enough to stay in the temple, because the right time is in the middle of the night -- when he had become enlightened. And particularly on a full-moon night in a certain month, if you stay in the temple, in the middle of the night there is every possibility that either you will hear the laughter or you will start laughing. That's what I am doing ... Just the very idea that you are such an idiot: a man who has died fourteen hundred years ago, you are sitting, waiting to hear his laughter now!

The body has its own giggling points -- "G-points." Mind always laughs at others. No-mind only laughs at one's own ridiculousness. But the sense of humor is spread over your whole being, from body, mind, and soul.

In fact, everything that you have has counterparts in the body, in the mind, in the soul. The purest will be in the soul and the crudest will be in the body. The mind is just in the middle of the two; it will be half primitive, half cultured.

That's how all these three layers of your body function in harmony. And once in a while you may find something which is happening in all the three layers simultaneously. For example, when Bodhidharma laughed, it cannot have been only a no-mind laughter. It must have got down into the mind, created ripples in the mind; it must have got down into the body, created ripples in the body.

We are an organic unity. Anything that happens anywhere has its echoes all over our being; hence my emphasis on the sense of humor. I am the first man in the whole of history who is trying to make the sense of humor a sacred quality, a spiritual quality.
All your so-called religions are too serious. To me seriousness is sickening. Laughter has a health, a beauty, a quality of grace and dance. I am in absolute favor of laughter and against sadness.

Sadness is sickness and is very close to death. Laughter is life and is very close to the universal life, to the very God that is spread all over.”

THE NEW DAWN
#23, EXISTENCE IS VERY SHY
Q-2


LAUGHTER TIME WITH OSHO

1.

Wilbur Wallace II, a yuppie Wall Street broker, falls in love with a young actress.

He thinks he wants to marry her, but he decides that before proposing, he should get a private investigating agency to check out her background and activities.

"After all," thinks Wilbur to himself, "I have a growing fortune and a Wall Street reputation to protect."

Using a false name to conceal his identity, Wilbur employs Mr. E.T. Pickle from "Pickle and Pepper Private Investigators," and a couple of weeks later, receives a confidential report on the girl.

The report states that she has a flawless reputation, and friends and family of the best nature.

"The only shadow," adds the report, "is that currently she is often seen in the company of a third-rate Wall Street broker."


2.

It is three o'clock in the morning and Paddy and Seamus are absolutely drunk, trying to find their way home. But the street is dark and completely lined with trees. They keep hitting one tree after another, staggering on, trying to pass their whiskey bottle back and forth.

It seems impossible to walk as they knock into this tree, bump into each other, and knock into that tree.

This goes on for twenty minutes when Paddy, totally exhausted and bruised, stops and turns to Seamus. "I think maybe we should stop drinking so much," groans Paddy, "and wait for this goddam parade to finish!"


3.

Mulla Nasrudin and his wife were sitting on a bench in the park one evening just at dusk. Without knowing that they were close by, a young man and his girl friend sat down at a bench on the other side of a hedge.

Almost immediately, the young man began to talk in the most loving manner imaginable.

"He does not know we are sitting here," Mulla Nasrudin's wife whispered to her husband.

"It sounds like he is going to propose to her. I think you should cough or something and warn him."

"WHY SHOULD I WARN HIM?" asked Nasrudin. "NOBODY WARNED ME."


4.

It was after the intermission at the theater, and Mulla Nasrudin and his wife were returning to their seats.

"Did I step on your feet as I went out?" the Mulla asked a man at the end of the row.

"You certainly did," said the man awaiting an apology.

Mulla Nasrudin turned to his wife, "IT'S ALL RIGHT, DARLING," he said. "THIS IS OUR ROW."


5

"Mulla," said a friend, "I have been reading all those reports about cigarettes. Do you really think that cigarette smoking will shorten your days?"

"I CERTAINLY DO," said Mulla Nasrudin. I TRIED TO STOP SMOKING LAST SUMMER AND EACH OF MY DAYS SEEMED AS LONG AS A MONTH."