Spiritual Forum

”This is worth considering. It is significant. The first thing to understand is that except for man, no animal is capable of laughter. So laughter shows a very high peak in the evolution of life. If you go out on the street and see a buffalo laughing, you will be scared to death. And if you report it, then nobody will believe that it can happen.

”Laughter is needed for you to exist. Otherwise, you will commit suicide.

”Now try to understand the mechanism of laughter and how it happens. If I tell a joke, why do you laugh? What makes you laugh. What happens? What is the inner mechanism? If I tell a joke expectation is created. You start expecting. Your mind starts searching for what the end will be. And you cannot conceive the end.

”A joke moves in two dimensions. First it moves in a logical dimension. You can conceive it. If the joke goes on logically to the very end, it will cease to be a joke; there will be no laughter. So suddenly the joke takes a turn and becomes so illogical that you cannot conceive it. And when the joke takes a turn and the result becomes illogical; then the expectation, the tension that was created in you, suddenly explodes. You relax. Laughter comes out.

”Laughter is the relaxation. But tension is first needed. A story creates expectation, suspense and tension. You start feeling the crescendo. Now the crescendo will come. Something is going to happen. Your backbone is straight like that of a yogi. You have no more thoughts in the mind. The whole being is just waiting. All the energy is moving toward the conclusion. Suddenly something happens which the mind could not think of. Something absurd happens – something illogical, irrational. The end is such that it was impossible for logic to think about it. And you explode.

The whole energy that had become tense inside you suddenly gets relaxed.

Laughter comes out through this relaxation.

”The higher the intelligence, the greater is boredom. The lower intelligence is not bored so much. That’s why primitives are happier. You will find people in the primi-tive societies are happier than those in civilized ones. ”Man is bored. Hence he needs laughter. The more bored, the more laughter he will need. Otherwise, he cannot exist.

”Thirdly, it has to be understood that there are three types of laughter. The first is when you laugh at someone else. This is the meanest, the lowest, the most ordinary and vulgar when you laugh at the expense of somebody else. This is the violent, the aggressive, the insulting type Deep down this laughter there is always a feeling of revenge.

”The second type of laughter is when you laugh at yourself. This is worth achieving. This is cultured.

And this man is valuable who can laugh at himself. He has risen above vulgarity. He has risen above lowly instincts – hatred, aggression, violence.

”And the third is the last – the highest. This is not about anybody – neither the other nor oneself. The third is just Cosmic. You laugh at the whole situation as it is. The whole situation, as it is, is absurd– no purpose in the future, no beginning in the beginning. The whole situation of Existence is such that if you can see the Whole – such a great infinite vastness moving toward no fixed purpose, no goal – laughter will arise. So much is going on without leading anywhere; nobody is there in the past to create it; nobody is there in the end to finish it. Such is whole Cosmos – moving so beautifully, so systematically, so rationally. If you can see this whole Cosmos, then a laughter is inevitable.

”I have heard about three monks. No names are mentioned, because they never disclosed their names to anybody. They never answered anything. In China, they are simply known as the three laughing monks. And they did only one thing: they would enter a village, stand in the market place and start laughing. They would laugh with their whole being and suddenly people would become aware. Then others would also get the infection and a crowd would gather. The whole crowd would start laughing just because of them. What was happening? The whole town would get involved. They were simply laughing as if they had understood the Cosmic joke.

”There is a Cosmic laughter which comes into being when the whole joke of this Cosmos is understood. But if you can laugh the second type of laughter, that is also worth trying. Avoid the first. Don’t laugh at anyone’s expense. That is ugly and violent. If you want to laugh, then laugh at yourself.

”If you can learn the second, then the third will not be far ahead. Soon you will reach the third. But leave the first type. That laughter is degrading. But almost ninety-nine percent of your laughter is of the first type. Much courage is needed to laugh at oneself. Much confidence is needed to laugh at oneself.

Mulla Nasrudin.

1.Mulla Nasrudin went to the psychiatrist and asked if the good doctor couldn’t split his personality.

”Split your personality?” asked the doctor. ”Why in heaven’s name do you want me to do a thing like that?” ”BECAUSE,” said Nasrudin! ”I AM SO LONESOME.”

 2. ”What’s the idea of coming in here late every morning, Mulla?” asked the boss. ”IT’S YOUR FAULT, SIR,” said Mulla Nasrudin. ”YOU HAVE TRAINED ME SO THOROUGHLY NOT TO WATCH THE CLOCK IN THE OFFICE, NOW I AM IN THE HABIT OF NOT LOOKING AT IT AT HOME.”

 3. ”What’s the idea,” asked the boss of his new employee, Mulla Nasrudin, ”of telling me you had five years’ experience, when now I find you never had a job before?” ”WELL,” said Nasrudin, ”DIDN’T YOU ADVERTISE FOR A MAN WITH IMAGINATION?”

4. Applicants for a job on a dam had to take a written examination, the first question of which was, ”What does hydrodynamics mean?” Mulla Nasrudin, one of the applicants for the job, looked at this, then wrote against it: ”IT MEANS I DON’T GET JOB.”

 5. The young doctor stood gravely at the bedside, looking down at the sick Mulla Nasrudin, and said to him: ”I am sorry to tell you, but you have scarlet fever. This is an extremely contagious disease.”

Mulla Nasrudin turned to his wife and said, ”My dear, if any of my creditors call, tell them I AM AT LAST IN A POSITION TO GIVE THEM SOMETHING.”

6. Mulla Nasrudin was telling a friend that he was starting a business in partnership with another fellow. ”How much capital are you putting in it, Mulla?” the friend asked.

”None. The other man is putting up the capital, and I am putting in the experience,” said the Mulla.

”So, it’s a fifty-fifty agreement.” ”Yes, that’s the way we are starting out,” said Nasrudin, ”BUT I FIGURE IN ABOUT FIVE YEARS I WILL HAVE THE CAPITAL AND HE WILL HAVE THE EXPERIENCE.”