Osho - 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.
The whole play of existence is so beautiful that laughter can be the only response to it. Only laughter can be the real prayer, it is gratitude. If seriousness is lost, nothing is lost -- in fact, one becomes more healthy and whole. But if laughter is lost, everything is lost. Suddenly you lose the festivity of your being; you become colorless, monotonous, in a way dead. Then your energy is not streaming any more.
It is as if a man is just trying to live on a cookery book and has forgotten to cook food; just goes on studying books about food and how to prepare it and how not to prepare it, and argues this way and that -- and is all the time hungry, all the time dying, and has forgotten completely that one cannot live on books.
That's what has happened: people are living on Bibles, Korans, Dhammapadas, Gitas -- they have completely forgotten that religion has to be lived. It is something that has to be digested. It is something that has to circulate in your blood, become your bones, your very marrow. You cannot just think about it. Thinking is the most superficial part of your being. You have to absorb it!
Inside you you have everything, and you are searching everywhere. What else should a joke be? You are a king and acting like a beggar in the streets; not only acting, not only deceiving others, but deceiving yourself that you are a beggar. You have the source of all knowledge and are asking questions; you have the knowing self and think that you are ignorant; you have the deathless within you and are afraid and fearful of death and disease.
When one becomes enlightened, laughter is almost a natural by-product; spontaneously it comes -- for the simple reason that we have been searching and searching for lives for something which was already there inside. Our whole effort was ridiculous! Our whole effort was absurd. One laughs at the great cosmic joke. One laughs at the sense of humor that God must have or the existence: that we have it with us already and we are searching for it. One laughs at one's own ridiculous efforts, long long journeys, pilgrimages, for something which was never lost in the first place.
There is nothing more valuable than laughter. Laughter brings you closest to prayer. In fact only laughter is left in you when you are total. In everything else you remain partial, even in lovemaking you remain partial. But when you have a really heartfelt belly laugh, all the parts of your being -- the physiological, the psychological, the spiritual -- they all vibrate in one single tune, they all vibrate in harmony.
Hence, laughter relaxes. And relaxation is spiritual. Laughter brings you to the earth, brings you down from your stupid ideas of being holier-than-thou. Laughter brings you to reality as it is. The world is a play of God, a cosmic joke. And unless you understand it as a cosmic joke you will never be able to understand the ultimate mystery.
Everybody takes himself and others seriously. That's the way of the ego to exist. Start being a little more playful and you will see ego evaporating. Take life non seriously, as a joke -- yes, as a cosmic joke. Laugh a little more. Laughter is far more significant than prayer. Prayer may not destroy your ego; on the contrary, it may make it holy, pious, but laughter certainly destroys your ego. When you are really in a state of laughter, have you observed? -- the ego disappears for a moment. You are again a child, giggling. Again you have forgotten that you are special. You are no longer serious, for a moment you have removed your fixation with yourself.
Watch when you laugh: where is the ego? Suddenly you have melted, suddenly you are liquid, no more solid, but flowing. You are not old, experienced, knowledgeable. All buddhas have laughed when they awaken. Their laughter is like a lion's roar. They laugh, not at you, they laugh at the whole cosmic joke. This moment, this time we have is a celebration of our godliness, so let us laugh and merge our energies with the total, for that is the true religion
