Sense Of Humor
It’s as if the universe has a sense of humor, since at a deep level it’s impossible not to lead a spiritual life…The universe is living through you at this moment. With or without belief in god, the chain of events leading from silent awareness to physical reality remains intact.
A Sense Of Humor Beyond The Mind:
It is true that the sense of humor is part of the mind – but that does not mean that that is the end of it. There is a sense of humor which even your body feels, there is a sense of humor that your mind feels, and there is a sense of humor that is only felt when you are beyond the mind. They all differ in qualities.
For example, a small child whose mind has not grown at all – you can just make him giggle by touching his belly. And he will enjoy it so immensely that in your whole life you will never enjoy like that. Now, there is nothing of the mind involved in it. You have simply touched his sensitive, humorous parts of the body.
Ordinarily, most humor is because of misunderstandings-real or imagined – which have their roots in the mind. Most jokes create humor because of a sudden turning, unexpected. The whole science of the joke is that it takes you toward a certain height of expectation, step by step, and then suddenly there is such a turn that you had never expected. Your whole tension that was gathering explodes into laughter.
It is true that most of the humor in life grows out of the mind – finding itself in a situation which is unexpected. It is possible for laughter to arise out of no-mind, out of meditation, but that will be a totally different quality of laughter. It will be laughter about oneself.
For example, when Bodhidharma became enlightened, entered for the first time into the world of no-mind, he started laughing – and he never stopped till he died. Many people asked him, ‘Why do you go on laughing?’ He said, ‘I go on laughing because what I have been searching for was always within me. I was such an idiot; I cannot believe that for so many lives I have been searching for something which was already within me. In fact, the searcher was the sought, the seeker was the goal. There was no other goal except myself to be found.’
So there is a certain laughter, but that is not about others; it is about your own ridiculous search. The moment you go beyond the mind, you suddenly become aware: ‘My God, this place has been always within me and I have looked into the far corners of the earth. I have gone to the Himalayas, I have gone to the saints; I have disciplined myself in arduous techniques; I have fasted, tortured myself. I have done everything and it is within me.’
