Laughter Is Meditative

Question to Osho – IF MULLA NASRUDIN CAME TO THE ASHRAM, WOULD YOU PUT HIM IN ONE OF THE GROUPS? OR WOULD YOU TELL HIM TO RUN A GROUP OF HIS OWN? IF SO, WHAT KIND OF GROUP WOULD BE?

I have done it before. It didn’t work. Mulla Nasrudin is a leader of leaders. He cannot be put in a group as a participant; his ego won’t allow it. I had asked him. He said, “Okay, you can make me a leader.” I gave him an opportunity, a three-day group; and all the fools and all the wise guys gathered to participate. Because Mulla Nasrudin has appeal for both. Those who are fools, they think him a fool. Those who are wise, they think him a wise man. He is tricky, or his is just a border case – he stands on both the sides. He can be interpreted as a foolish man; he can be interpreted as one of the most wise ever.

He stood before the group and he said, “Do you know what I am going to teach you?”

Of course everybody said, “How can we know? We don’t know.”

He said, “If you don’t even know that, that much, I am not going to teach, because you are not worth it.”

He left. The next day I persuaded him again. He again went there and asked the participants, “Do you know what I am going to teach?”

Now they had learned a little, so they said, “Yes, we know.”

He said, “Then what is the point? If you know, you know,” and he left.

I persuaded him the third day again. He stood there; he asked, “Do you know what I am going to teach?”

Now the people had learned a little more; they said, “Yes. Half of us know and half of us don’t know.”

He said, “Perfectly good. So those who know, tell those who don’t know. What is the point of my being here?”

Mulla Nasrudin is a very, very old Sufi device. Whether this man ever existed or not is not certain. He may have existed, he may not have existed. There are many countries who claim him. Kan claims him; they have a tomb in Iran of Mulla Nasrudin. Soviet Russia also claims him. There are other countries, they also claim. Almost the whole Middle East claims that he belonged to us. And there are many places where they say his body is buried here.

He may have existed, may not have existed, but his impact has been tremendous.

Whatsoever he has done, or whatsoever is depicted as done by him is very, very meaningful even in this anecdote, in which he asks, “Do you know what I am going to say to you?” Everybody said, “No,” but nobody was silent. “No” comes easily; to be an atheist is very easy. But it is difficult if you have a no attitude, then it is difficult to teach you. The next day everybody said, “Yes,” because they were too greedy to listen to what he wanted to say. Their yes, was out of greed, and greed can never be satisfied. And Mulla said, “If you know already, then what is the point?” The third day they tried to prove more cunning and clever. They said we have tried two alternatives, now try the third, the only remaining one: “Half of us know and half of us don’t know.” Now they were trying to fix Mulla in his place, but you cannot fix him. He is almost like mercury; he slips out of your hands. He said, “Perfectly good. When half of you know and half don’t, then those who know can tell those who don’t know. But what is the need of me here? Why waste my time?”

First they said no, nobody was silent; then they said yes, but nobody was silent; then they said yes and no both, but nobody was silent.

He came back to me and he said, “These people cannot be taught because only people who are silent can be taught.”

Silence is disciplehood. If you come here already knowing, you cannot be taught. If you come here with a no attitude, an atheistic attitude, with doubt and skepticism, you cannot be taught. Or if you say that a little I know and a little I don’t know, then too you cannot be taught. You are being clever. Because these three attitudes – of the no sayer, of the yes sayer, and of one who is trying to travel on both the boats, who is trying to eat the cake and have it also, the cunning – these are the three types of persons in the world which are incapable of understanding.

Only one who is silent, one who answers by his silence and open heart can be taught.

This is the meaning of this anecdote.

Read Mulla Nasrudin as much as you can and try to understand him. He can be a great blessing to you because he teaches through humor. Each of his anecdotes is pregnant with tremendous meaning, but you will have to uncover it. That’s why I say there are people who think him a fool. They simply read an anecdote and they laugh and they are finished.

They think it is just a joke. It is not. No joke is just a joke. If you are wise you will look into it, exactly what is happening. And once you catch the glimpse of the inside meaning of it, you will be tremendously happy. You will become alert to a new dimension.

Mulla Nasrudin is now read in the Western countries also, but people are missing. They think these are just jokes. They are not. They are a device to teach you the sacred-most through humor. And it can be taught only through humor – only through humor because only humor can relax you, and God can be known only in deep relaxation. When you laugh you disappear as an ego. When the laughter is really authentic, a belly laughter, when your whole body throbs with his orgasmic energy, when the laughter spreads on all of your being, when you are simply lost in it, you are open to God.

Serious people have never reached God. They cannot. God won’t take that risk.

Hmm?… they will bore him to death.

A small child was brought to the church for the first time. He looked at people’s faces – long, sad, serious. The whole thing looked as if somebody had died. Back home the mother asked, “How did you feel?”

He said, “I must say the truth. I felt, as God must have been feeling there.”

The mother said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “God must be bored, seeing those long faces. And, Mom, do those same people come every Sunday?”

“Hmm, of course, the same people. There are a few who have been coming there for forty, fifty years.”

The boy became very, very sad; he said, “Think of God. The same serious people every Sunday, the same faces. He must be bored to death.”

You reach God through laughter. I will teach you laughter. You reach God dancing, singing, in joy, in jubilation, celebration. Learn laughter.

And while you are laughing, watch what is happening inside you. Otherwise you will miss the whole beauty of it. While you are laughing see how suddenly the ego is not there. See how the mind has stopped for a single moment. For a split moment the mind is not there – there is no thought. When you laugh deeply there is no thought.

Laughter is meditative… and medicinal. For the physical body it is medicinal; for the spiritual it is “meditational.”

I would like Mulla Nasrudin to start a group, but it seems difficult. He is a difficult man.

Question to Osho – BELOVED OSHO, THE DIVINE MUSIC TOUCHED A DEEPER CORE IN MY BEING. WHEN I CAME FOR THE FIRST TIME I WAS FULLY PREPARED FOR SANNYAS. WHETHER MY SANNYAS WAS YOUR BENEDICTION OR MY SATYAGRAHA IS NOT CLEAR TO ME. YOU SAY, “COME, FOLLOW ME,” BUT HOW TO FOLLOW YOU, BECAUSE I DO NOT KNOW YOU? SOMETIMES YOUR FRAGRANCE I FEEL AND SOMETIMES IT IS LOST.

When I say come, follow me, I am not saying to come and follow my knowledge. When I say come, follow me, I am saying to you come and follow me in the sense of my nonknowledge. When I say come, follow me, I am asking you to come towards the unknown. I am inviting you to come to the unknowable. When I say come, follow me, I am not saying come, follow me – because I am not. I am inviting you into a tremendous emptiness.

Once you enter the door, you will neither find me nor you. You will find something totally different. That’s what people have called God.

And I know sometimes you will be able to feel my fragrance and sometimes it will be lost because there are moods when you will be close to me and there are moods when you will be far, far away. When you are close you will have the fragrance; when you are far away you will miss it. So try to feel those moods when you feel close to me, and remain in those moods more and more, relax in those moods more and more.

It is not a question of physical space between me and you. It is a question of spiritual space. If while laughing you feel close to me and the fragrance suddenly fills your nostrils and your being, then learn to laugh more. If you feel the fragrance is felt only when you are here, just looking at me, and with no stirring of thoughts, then learn to drop thoughts more and more. Whatsoever your feeling, become more and more available to that certain mood, and my fragrance will become your fragrance. Because it is neither mine nor yours. It is God’s.

Question to Osho – OSHO, FIVE MONTHS OF DRINKING FROM THE SOURCE MADE ME FEEL MORE THIRSTY, NOT LESS. THERE MUST BE SOMETHING STRANGE ABOUT YOUR WATER. IN THE MEDITATION THIS SENTENCE CAME TO ME: A SMALL SWEET-WATER LAKE, HIDDEN IN THE BLACK FOREST, IS THE SOURCE OF THE OCEAN.

OSHO, YOU ARE SWEET AND SALTY, AND IN THE MOMENT VERY SALTY. I FEEL SAD BECAUSE OF LEAVING. I WANT TO COME BACK TO THIS SOURCE, DRINKING UNTIL I AM SO FULL THAT I WILL FALL INTO THE SOURCE.

It is from Anand Urmila.

It is true, it is so. The more you will drink me, the more thirsty you will become. Because I am not going to make you content. I am going to make you more and more discontent because if you become content with me, then you will never reach God.

I am here to create more thirst. I am here to make you more hungry. So one day you are just – thirst, just hunger, pure hunger. In that moment you explode and disappear and God is found. If you become content with me I will be your enemy not your friend, because then you will cling to me and my answers.

I am at the most a door. Pass through me; don’t cling to me. The journey starts with me; it doesn’t end with me.

And I know you must be feeling sad, but become alert to your sadness and don’t get identified with it. It is there, hanging around you, but it is not you. Use that opportunity also to become more aware, more a witness. And if you can become a witness of your sadness, the sadness will disappear. And if you can become aware of your sadness and you can help it to disappear through awareness, wherever you go I will be coming with you.

There may not be any need to come back to the source because in your witnessing you will remain close to me wherever you are. You will be close to the source.

The source is not something outside you. And when you really listen to me it is not listening to somebody who is outside you. It is listening to somebody who is inside you.

It is listening to your own inner voice. When you fall in love with me, in fact what has happened is you have fallen in love with yourself for the first time.