Osho, why do you tell jokes?

OSHO QUESTIONS

Question: Why do you tell jokes? And why don’t you laugh at your own jokes?
Osho: First, Religion is a complicated joke. If you don’t laugh at all you have missed the point; if you only laugh you have missed the point again. It is a very complicated joke. And the whole of life is a great cosmic joke. It is not a serious phenomenon — take it seriously and you will go on missing it. It is understood only through laughter.

Have you not observed that man is the only animal who laughs? Aristotle says man is the rational animal. That may not be true — because ants are very rational and bees are very rational. In fact, compared to ants, man looks almost irrational. And a computer is very rational — compared to a computer, man is very irrational.

My definition of man is that man is the laughing animal. No computer laughs, no ant laughs, no bee laughs. If you come across a dog laughing you will be so scared! Or a buffalo suddenly laughs: you may have a heart attack. It is only man who can laugh, it is the highest peak of growth.

And it is through laughter that you will reach to God — because it is only through the highest that is in you that you can reach the ultimate. Laughter has to become the bridge. Laugh your way to God. I don’t say pray your way to God, I say laugh your way to God. If you can laugh you will be able to love. If you can laugh you will be able to relax. Laughter relaxes like nothing else.

So all jokes to me are prayers — that’s why I tell them. And you ask: WHY DON’T YOU LAUGH AT YOUR OWN JOKES? Because I have heard them before.

Source: from book “The Revolution” by Osho

Meditative powers of Laughter Question: Beloved Osho, Could you speak to us on laughter, its meditative powers, its chemistry on the brain, its power of transformation and healing...Its relation to silence, the gap, the clarity, vision...Its contagiousness, its relation to different emotions...on homo ridens -- The essential human condition on how to recognize true, authentic laughter from hysterical, exhibitionist, or hypocritical laughter, on how to be a channel of pure joy? Osho: Prem Nistal, I have just been talking about laughter, its meditative powers and its medicinal powers. It certainly changes your very chemistry; it changes your brain waves, it changes your intelligence -- you become more intelligent. The parts of your mind that have been asleep suddenly wake up. The laughter reaches to the innermost part of your brain, to your heart. A man of laughter cannot have a heart attack. A man of laughter cannot commit suicide. A man of laughter automatically comes to know the world of silence, because when laughter ceases suddenly there is silence. And each time laughter becomes deeper it is followed by deeper silence. It certainly clarifies you -- from the traditions, from the garbage of the past. It gives you a new vision of life. It makes you more alive and radiant, more creative. If you are a singer, your song becomes more celestial; if you are a musician your music starts going beyond sound, starts reaching silences. If you are a sculptor, then your sculpture will not be what Gurdjieff calls objective...
Topics:

Leave a Reply