Question – Beloved Osho, It is for the first time I have been so close to you. When I am sitting here with you I feel my heart in tune with your heart, I feel a deep love for you. But i also feel my outer seriousness. Why is laughter so difficult for me?
Osho – 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. There are ten percent of people who are colorblind — it is a big percentage, but they are not aware that they are colorblind.
George Bernard Shaw was colorblind, and he came to know it when he was sixty years old. On his birthday somebody sent a present, a beautiful suit, a coat, but the person forgot to send a tie. So Bernard Shaw went with his secretary to find a matching tie. He liked the suit very much. He looked at ties and he chose one, and the secretary was surprised; she could not believe it — because the suit was yellow and the tie was green. She said, “What are you doing? This will look very strange.”
He said, “Why will it look strange? It is the same color.”
The manager, the salesman… they all gathered, and they tried in many ways to find out…. He could not distinguish between yellow and green; they both appeared the same to him. He was colorblind. But for sixty years he was not aware of it. And there are ten percent of people in the world who are colorblind. Some color they are missing, or maybe they are mixing it up with some other color. The constant repression of laughter has made you laughter blind.
Situations are happening everywhere, but you cannot see that there is any reason to laugh. If your laughter is freed from its bondage, the whole world will be full of laughter. It needs to be full of laughter; it will change almost everything in human life.
You will not be as miserable as you are. In fact, you are not as miserable as you look — it is misery plus seriousness that makes you look so miserable. Just misery plus laughter, and you will not look so miserable!
In one apartment house… And modern apartments have such thin walls that whether you want to or not, you have to hear what is going on on the other side of the wall. In a way, it is very human. The whole apartment house was puzzled about one thing…. Every couple was fighting, throwing pillows, throwing things, breaking cups and saucers, shouting at each other, husbands beating wives, wives screaming — and they don’t need any loudspeaker systems or anything, and the whole apartment house enjoyed.
The only problem was with one sardarji. From his flat they never heard any fight; on the contrary, they always heard laughter. The whole crowd was puzzled: “What is the matter? These people never fight. There is always laughter — and both are laughing so loudly that the whole building can hear it!”
One day they decided that it had to be looked into: “We are missing so much, and they are enjoying so much. What is their secret?”
So they caught hold of the sardarji as he was coming from the market, carrying vegetables and other things. They all caught hold of him and they said, “First you have to tell us that what the secret is — why do you laugh when everybody fights?”
The sardar said, “Don’t force me, because the secret is very embarrassing.”
They said, “Embarrassing? But we thought you are doing great. We always hear laughter — either you laugh or your wife laughs… no fight.”
The sardar said, “What happens is, she throws things at me. If she misses, then I laugh; if she hits me then she laughs. The same things are going on, but it is just that we have made a different arrangement — what is the point? So I have learned how to dodge her, and she is learning how to….”
After twenty years the same sardar wanted to divorce his wife. The magistrate had heard about them, that this was the only couple in the whole city who had never been known to fight. They simply laugh — the whole city knows them as the laughing couple.
The magistrate said, “What has gone wrong? You are so famous.”
The sardar said, “Forget all about that — just give us permission to divorce.”
But the magistrate said, “I have to know the reason.”
He said, “The reason is very clear — she hits me. And it is too much; I have been getting those hits for years.”
The magistrate asked, “How long have you been married?”
He said, “Almost thirty years.”
The magistrate said, “If you have been able to cope with the woman for thirty years, then just ten, twenty years more….”
He said, “That is not the point. At first I used to dodge, but now she has become such a good… there is no way that I can dodge! So only she laughs, I have not laughed for ten years. This is unbearable. In the beginning it was perfect; it was almost fifty-fifty, there was no problem. I was laughing, she was also laughing. But now a hundred percent of the time she laughs, and a hundred percent I am just standing there, looking like a fool. No, I cannot tolerate it any more.”
Just look around at life and try to see the humorous side of things. Every event that is happening has its own humorous side, you just need a sense of humor. No religion has accepted the sense of humor as a quality. I want a sense of humor to be a fundamental quality of a good man, of a moral man, of a religious man. And it does not need much looking; you just try to see it, and everywhere….
Once I was traveling in a bus when I was a student. The bus conductor was in trouble because there were thirty-one passengers and he had money only for thirty tickets. So he was asking, “Who is the fellow who has not given his money?”
Nobody would speak.
He said, “This is strange; now how am I going to find out?”
I said to him, “Do one thing: tell the driver to stop the bus, and tell the people that unless the person who has not given the money confesses, the bus will not move.”
He said, “That’s right.”
The bus was stopped. Everybody looked at each other, now what to do? Nobody knew who the person was….
Finally one man stood up and said, “Forgive me, I am the person who has not given the money. Here it is.”
The bus conductor asked, “What is your name?”
He said, “My name is Achchelal.” Achchelal means “a good man.”
And I was surprised that out of thirty people, nobody laughed! When he said “Achchelal” I could not believe it — a “good man” doing such a thing… and nobody seemed to see the humor in it.
Seriousness has become almost part of our bones and blood. You will have to make some effort to get rid of seriousness, and you will have to be on the lookout — wherever you can find something humorous happening, don’t miss the opportunity.
Everywhere there are people who are slipping on banana peels — just nobody is looking at them. In fact, it is thought to be ungentlemanly. It is not, because only bananas slip on banana peels.
Laughter needs a great learning, and laughter is a great medicine. It can cure many of your tensions, anxieties, worries; the whole energy can flow into laughter. And there is no need that there should be some occasion, some cause.
In my meditation camps I used to have a laughing meditation: for no reason, people would sit and just start laughing. At first they would feel a little awkward that there was no reason — but when everybody is doing it… they would also start. Soon, everybody was in such a great laughter, people were rolling on the ground. They were laughing at the very fact that so many people were laughing for no reason at all; there was nothing, not even a joke had been told. And it went on like waves. So there is no harm… even just sitting in your room, close the doors and have one hour of simple laughter. Laugh at yourself. But learn to laugh.
Seriousness is a sin, and it is a disease. Laughter has tremendous beauty, a lightness. It will bring lightness to you, and it will give you wings to fly. And life is so full of opportunities. You just need the sensitivity. And create chances for other people to laugh. Laughter should be one of the most valued, cherished qualities of human beings — because only man can laugh, no animals are capable of it. Because it is human, it must be of the highest order. To repress it is to destroy a human quality.
