Religion has been missing one very fundamental quality: sense of humour. It has been unfortunate because it has made religion sick.

 

Sense of humour is an essential part of the wholeness of man. It keeps us healthy, young, and fresh. For centuries, sad people have dominated religion. They have expelled laughter — from churches, mosques, and from temples. The day laughter enters back into holy places, they will be really holy, because they will be whole. Laughter is the only quality that distinguishes us from other animals. Only humans can see the ridiculous, the absurd. Only we have the capacity and consciousness to be aware of the cosmic joke that existence is. Existence is a cosmic joke; it is not a serious affair.

 

Seriousness Is A Disease
Seriousness is a disease, but seriousness has been praised, respected, honoured. It was absolutely essential to be serious to be a saint; hence, only pathological people became interested in religion, people who were incapable of laughter.

 

And people who are incapable of laughter are subhuman, they are not human yet — what to say about their being Divine? That is impossible — they have not yet become human. And to be human is the bridge between the animal and the Divine. Hence, I have tremendous respect for the sense of humour, for laughter.

 

Laughter is far more sacred than prayer, because prayer can be done by any person; it does not require much intelligence. Laughter requires intelligence, it requires presence of mind, a quickness of seeing into things. A joke cannot be explained: either you understand it or you miss it. If it is explained, it loses the whole point; hence no joke can be explained. If you don’t get it immediately then you can try to find out the meaning of it; you will find out the meaning, but the joke will not be there. It was in the immediacy.

 

Humour needs presence, utter presence. It is not a question of analysis; it is a question of insight.

 

Glimpse Of Egolessness
To be able to laugh, you need to be like a child — egoless. And when you laugh, suddenly laughter is there, you are not. You come back when the laughter is gone. When the laughter is disappearing far away, when it is subsiding, you come back, the ego comes back. But in the very moment of laughter, you have a glimpse of egolessness.

 

There are only two activities in which you can feel egolessness easily. One is laughter, another is dancing. Dancing is a physiological method, a bodily method to feel egolessness. When the dancer is lost in his dance, he is no more — there is only dance.

 

Laughter is a little more subtle than dance, it is a little more inner, but it has also the same fragrance. When you laugh...it has to be belly laughter.
Laugh so that your whole body, your whole being becomes involved, and suddenly there will be a glimpse. For the moment the past disappears, the future disappears, the ego disappears, everything disappears — there is only laughter. And in that moment of laughter you will be able to see the whole existence laughing.

 

Lao Tzu’s Buffalo
Lao Tzu had a sense of humour. Maybe because of that he could not become the founder of a great religion. He used to ride on a buffalo. Now, couldn’t he find a horse? Anybody could have afforded at least a donkey — but a buffalo...? And that too, not in the right position, but sitting backwards! The buffalo is going one way and Lao Tzu is looking the other way. He must have created laughter wherever he passed. People must have gathered to see the scene. Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy.