Existence is very shy

Question 1:

Dhyan Sagar, nobody is born ecstatic. Everybody comes into the world exactly alike - innocent, with all the possibilities and all the dimensions. But society closes a few doors completely; they are dangerous. Such experiences as the one you had last night will be thought crazy.

They are not of any utilitarian use. And society is based fundamentally on utility, so it closes all those dimensions which can be called spiritual, religious. It keeps the mind one-pointedly focused on ambitions - for money, power, prestige. It allows a few people to move into traditional ways in the world of religion, but then too that world of religion remains very mundane.

For example, no Catholic pope has ever experienced anything like ecstasy, enlightenment. They are people of the market; their function is marketing God. They are part of the mundane, utilitarian society - which also wants to feel that it is not irreligious, that it is not unspiritual. So it creates pseudo religions, pseudo spiritualities, which are nothing but people like parrots repeating scriptures, the meaning of which is not their experience.

And unless there is experience to support them, those words are meaningless and dead. Have you ever heard of any pope who was enlightened? Have you heard of any shankaracharya who was enlightened? It is a strange phenomenon, but we go on taking it for granted that these people are religious heads - and they have not experienced any out-of-the-body phenomenon, they have not experienced the innermost being of themselves. They have not known any silence or peace. They are not men of wisdom.

So naturally, you must have become a little disturbed when you started feeling that you are "filling with air like a balloon and becoming mind-bogglingly enormous." It was as though your body was "just a skin of the finest elastic and had the capacity to stretch to eternity." It seemed as if your belly "was taking in the air and filling out every little crevice and crease" of your being. Although you had "no sensation of floating, the feeling was light and transparent."

It certainly must have been a very outlandish experience because you say, "I am a fairly ordinary sort of a person who has rarely been known to go wildly ecstatic, freak out, or have exotic spiritual experiences. Is my tide turning?" Dhyan Sagar, fortunately, yes. The tide is turning.

And now more and more experiences will be coming to you. But always remember: Life is not what we ordinarily experience it as. Life is much more, beyond our dreams, beyond our imaginations, beyond all our fantasies ... Life is a tremendous mystery.

In a sense it is ordinary, but in a very special sense: I call it extraordinarily ordinary. Only the superficial can think of it as ordinary; otherwise, behind this apparently ordinary existence there are so many mysteries, incalculable - you just have to be open to it.

The tide is turning but it will depend on you, whether you allow it to turn or you prevent it from turning.

The ordinary, normal life is not going to give you anything; it is just a burden, a drag from the cradle to the grave. Only if something of the spiritual starts happening do you start for the first time having some meaning, some significance, some blissfulness.

And as you become attuned to all these experiences, existence goes on opening new doors - doors upon doors, peaks upon peaks. And there is no end, the mystery is infinite.

On your part, all that is needed is a deep trust that wherever existence takes you, it is good. Go easily with it, without any reluctance, without any resistance, because a slight reluctance, a slight resistance immediately closes the doors.

Existence is very shy.

It never interferes in anybody"s life.

If last night something happened to you, you must have been so absorbed in listening that you forgot to close the doors of your being. You forgot your ordinary, normal psychology. You became so attuned with me, you fell in such a harmony, that things which were not possible for you before, suddenly started happening.

What has happened, happens to many meditators - an experience of expansion. It is not imagination; you really expand your consciousness. Your consciousness is not limited within your body; it has the capacity to expand to the very limits of existence - if there are any limits. The center will remain in you, but the periphery will go on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger.

In the beginning it is certainly scary. But once you have taken the step with courage, with trust, the very experience that was looking risky becomes the most beautiful experience of life. You will ask for it, you will pray for it. Each moment you will wait for it. And this is nothing, this is only a small fragment. There are so many experiences which you may not have even heard about.

But they are all possible. You have the potential capacity for them, it is just that the society does not allow all those experiences. And society has a reason for it. If people start becoming exotic, outlandish, freaking out, suddenly dancing in the middle of the street blocking the traffic ... the normal life will feel these people are disturbances.

It used to happen with Ramakrishna - and I take Ramakrishna as an example because he is not very ancient, so that nobody can say it is just a mythology. I have come in contact with people whose fathers or grandfathers have been eyewitnesses of these experiences.

The followers of Ramakrishna were very afraid to take him anywhere. And he was invited by the disciples if there was a marriage, just to bless ... and he would never say no to anybody. But to take him to that place was a great problem. The problem was that if anybody on the way, just casually, pronounced the name of God, that would trigger in him strange experiences.

He may stand in the middle of the road almost frozen, as if he has become a marble statue. The traffic will stop, the police will come, and the disciples will say, "We will take him but don't disturb him, don't touch him." In the marriage ceremony, if there is being sung a devotional song, he will start dancing. And the whole marriage ceremony will be disturbed, because everybody will forget about the bride and the bridegroom; he will become the center of the whole celebration.

And he was such a lovely and such a beautiful person, radiating so much joy ... he was not an ascetic - dry, desert-like. He was a garden full of flowers. And when he was dancing, by and by people would become infected, and others would start dancing. Sometimes it was found that the bride and the bridegroom were dancing also. In the center was Ramakrishna and he had disturbed the whole ceremony. And the priest who had come to perform the ritual of marriage was standing in the corner looking at the whole scene: "What to do? Who is going to be married with whom?"

The disciples used to say to people, "Never invite him. He is a continuous nuisance anywhere, and we cannot stop him because it is beyond his capacity to stop." He has fallen many times on the road in a trance. He will go absolutely inside ... in the middle of the road he is lying with his eyes closed, his disciples surrounding him, feeling very embarrassed: "What kind of master have you got? Wherever you go some trouble is bound to happen."

Once he remained for six days in such a coma. The doctors declared, "It is a coma," but his disciples said, "You are not able to understand a man like Ramakrishna. It is not a coma, he is in deep samadhi - and we will wait. If we have to wait our whole lives, we will wait and take care of his body."

And after six days he came back, opened his eyes, and with tears said, "Why have you awakened me? You don't know - what you thought was my unconsciousness was my purest consciousness, and what you think is my awakening is falling back again into the unconscious world."

What he was saying was exactly the definition made by Patanjali - who is the authority on samadhi, the ancientmost authority. Nobody has been able to go further than that. He has defined samadhi from all possible aspects. There has very rarely been such a case, when one single man has developed a whole science - the whole science of yoga is the contribution of a single man, Patanjali.

With all its far-reaching effects ... he has not left a single thing unmentioned.

About samadhi, he says in his yoga sutras, "It is just like a deep sleep without dreams. The being in the deepest core is fully awake; only the body is in a sleep-like state. Don't disturb. It is possible even breathing may slowly, slowly stop; heartbeats may slowly, slowly disappear; the pulse may not be found at all - but don't be worried, just wait. The man will come back. If he is a man of meditation, the possibility of falling into a coma is absolutely canceled."

Even the disciples became restless after the second day, third day. And more and more people became disturbed and restless and thought, "Perhaps he is in a coma." When the breathing disappeared, when the heartbeat stopped, when the doctors could not find any pulse ... and the doctors - the best doctors of Calcutta - unanimously said that he was dead. But his wife, Sharda, simply refused. She said, "You don't know anything about yoga or samadhi; you have never been a physician to an enlightened being. All that you know is not of any use. The functioning of the enlightened being differs totally from the ordinary human being." All the doctors proved wrong and the uneducated woman, Sharda, proved right. By the sixth day, Ramakrishna was back.

The doctors could not believe their eyes, and they all said to Ramakrishna, "It is due to your wife that you are saved; otherwise we were going to say that a funeral should be prepared. But your wife has certainly a deep insight."

Ramakrishna had so much respect for his wife that he used to call her "Mother." He never had any relationship with her the way a husband is related to the wife. Even from the very beginning, even before the marriage ... He was only thirteen years of age, and his family had taken him to see the girl. And as is the custom in India, when somebody comes to see the girl, when they are sitting for their breakfast or lunch, the girl comes to serve some sweets or something and that is the only time the boy can see her for a moment.

When the girl came near Ramakrishna to put a plate of sweets ... He had three rupees in his pocket that his mother had given him: "In case you need to purchase something; you are going to a big city from a very small village." He took out those three rupees, put those three rupees at her feet, touched her feet and said, "Mother, you certainly look beautiful."

Everybody was shocked - his family, his father, uncle and other friends. They were shocked, "This idiot is calling his own wife "Mother," touching her feet, offering three rupees ..." And the family of the girl was shocked also, "Is this boy crazy or what? Should we say yes to the marriage? He looks very silent, looks very graceful, but seems to be a little bit eccentric. What has he done?"

But the strangest thing happened. Even Sharda, who was only ten years old, said that if she will ever get married, this is the man. Otherwise she will not be ready to marry anybody else - only a man who can respect her just like a mother she cannot refuse.

Unwillingly the family agreed, and from the very first day Ramakrishna started every morning ...

instead of worshipping the mother goddess Kali in the temple, he started worshipping Sharda. He said, "It is useless to go to the temple to worship a stone statue while you are here, so beautiful, so living, so divine. You just sit and I will worship you here." After that he stopped going to the temple.

The whole village was angry, that this idiot ... because they thought, "This is idiotic, what he is doing.

Worshipping his own wife and calling her "mother goddess" ... and has stopped going to the temple, and he is the son of a priest!"

But this relationship remained his whole life. So he told the doctors, "She is not only my wife, she is my mother too. And if she cannot understand me, nobody else can understand me. So whenever something like this happens, never do anything against her will - because I will not be listening to you, but whatever she says is going to be right." And since that day, many times he fell into that trance state. His wife was the authority. No doctor was listened to, no disciple was listened to; whatever Sharda said was agreed upon.

The day he died, the doctors were at a loss what to do. According to them, every symptom of death ... but the disciples said, "The mother Sharda has gone to the Ganges to take a bath. Unless she comes, nothing can be decided. Keep your decision suspended."

As Sharda came, entered the room, she burst out crying. She said, "This is not a trance, he is dead."

And the people asked, "How can you make the distinction, because he has been exactly like this many times. Even for six days continuously he has been in this state, and this is only twenty or twenty-five minutes and you declare him dead?"

She said, "The very fragrance has changed around him; the aura has disappeared. I used to see an aura around him - it is not there. I cannot smell the fragrance that was always surrounding him."

Without even touching him, she said, "He is gone. You can prepare for the funeral."

Life has many, many mysteries.

As man has developed more and more his insight into objective reality, he has forgotten completely the inner world - which is far bigger, far more valuable - which is our real home.

Dhyan Sagar, certainly your tide is turning. Don't stop it, go with it singing and dancing and rejoicing.

Not for a single moment think about your past, that you were only "an ordinary sort of a person."

Everybody is an ordinary sort of a person and everybody is carrying the divine potential - it is only a question of discovering it. And sometimes it happens without your discovering it. That"s how it has happened to you.

God has knocked on your doors, although you were not waiting for him.

In India, we call God "the guest." But the word that we use for guest has a totally different significance, which the word "guest" does not have. The Hindustani word for guest is atiti. It means someone who comes suddenly, without informing his date, his time, without even informing that he is coming. Titi means date, day, time. Atiti means one who comes absolutely suddenly, without sending a telegram ahead of himself, "I am coming."

God is an atiti - that is one of the statements in the ancient scriptures. The other statement is also very significant: that every guest, every atiti is a god. You should treat him as a god, because one never knows - God comes in many forms. He may have come in the form of a guest, he may have come in the form of a stranger.

Just nearby, just a few hundred miles away, there was an authentic saint, Sai Baba. He is no relation of Satya Sai Baba - Satya Sai Baba is a fraud, and he has chosen the name Satya Sai Baba to deceive people that he is the reincarnation of Sai Baba.

But Sai Baba was really a man belonging to the category of buddhas. Nobody knew whether he was Hindu or Mohammedan; one day suddenly he appeared in a village. Nobody knew what his name was; Sai Baba is not a name. Sai means saint, and baba means grandfather - grandfatherly old man, and saintly. This was not his name, because whenever people asked him his name he laughed. He said, "Nobody is born with a name; I was also not born with a name."

"From where do you come?" - people wanted to know from where, which village, which state. And he always laughed and he said, "Nobody knows from where he comes - why do you unnecessarily insist on asking questions to me which nobody else can answer? From where do you come?" The truth is, nobody knows from where one comes.

He lived for almost sixty years in that village. I remembered him because of this word atiti. One of his disciples used to live three miles away from the village on his own farm and he used to bring Sai Baba"s food every day. He would prepare the food himself and bring it. Until Sai Baba had eaten the food he would remain fasting.

Sometimes the whole day there was such a crowd of visitors that there was no time for Sai Baba to take food - but the man would wait. For years he had not eaten until Sai Baba had taken the food.

Finally, because he was becoming very old, and coming from three miles away, going back again, and sometimes waiting the whole day, hungry ... Sai Baba said, "Why do you insist on coming here?

I can manage to come."

The man could not believe it. He said, "You never go anywhere ..."

He said, "Of course I will not come in the form I am, but I will come. Now it is up to you whether you recognize me or not. I will try in every possible way."

The next day the man took a bath, prepared delicious food - all that he knew Sai Baba liked. A beggar came and the man said, "It is not possible. Before Sai Baba has taken, I cannot give his food to anybody. If you want, you can come after Sai Baba has taken his food." The beggar left.

A dog came, and the man took his staff and ran after the dog. It was getting late, and finally he thought, "He must have joked." So in the evening he brought the food to the mosque where Sai Baba used to live. He was very angry. He said, "You deceived me."

Sai Baba said, "You should not use such words. I had come twice - once as a beggar, but you did not recognize me, and then as a dog, and you ran with a staff to beat me."

The ancient scriptures of this country say that God is a guest, and any guest has to be treated as a god. In fact, everybody has to be respected as divine, because that is his essential being. You are not ordinary, you are not normal - you are divine.

Once you become available to all such experiences, more and more will be coming to you. Just don't remain confined to the world of things and objects and money and power and sensuality. Try to become more and more a man of consciousness, awareness, sincerity and truthfulness.

Cathy came home with a brand new mink coat.

"Where did you get that?" asked her husband Edward.

"I won it in a lottery," she replied.

The next night Cathy walked in with a beautiful diamond bracelet.

"Where did you get that from?" asked Edward.

"I won it in a lottery," said Cathy. Then she added, "And dear, do me a favor. I"m going to enter another lottery tonight and I"m in a hurry. Would you run the bath for me?"

Edward did as instructed, but when Cathy came to take her bath, she found only half an inch of water in the tub.

"Edward," she said, "why did you not fill the tub?"

"Well, darling," he replied, "I did not want you to get your lottery ticket wet."

This is your normal world, where people are winning lotteries every night. Your normal world is not so normal as you think; it is utterly abnormal, insane. But because all the people are insane and everybody is running after lottery tickets, it appears that this insanity is normal.

The world will be really normal when everybody has a divine experience, and a divine presence, and a divine aura, and a divine fragrance. When the world is full of all kinds of unique individuals blossoming, releasing different fragrances - then the world will be normal.

When you will meet Gautam Buddha on every street, when you will meet Jesus in every house, wherever you will come across someone who will remind you that you are late, that you should do something: people have become lighted flames of fire with ecstasy, and you are still looking for lottery tickets! While people have become temples of God, you are running for election, or going to give an interview to the police commissioner! - and that too of a dead city, Poona.

We have chosen this city just to create a little oasis. In America we had chosen Oregon to create an oasis. We are oasis creators! We choose deserts and dead places, cemeteries, and try to bring people who are dead - who have been dead for a long time - back to life.

You should not think of yourself as ordinary, because once that settles in your mind it is dangerous.

It is almost a cancer of the soul.

Paddy, an Irish farmer, was on holiday in Dublin. He complained to the bellboy, "I"m not going to have this room. It is so small I can hardly turn around. It is no better than a pigsty. And I"m not going to sleep on that tiny folding bed. Don't think that because I"m from the country you can fool me!"

"Get in, Sir," said the boy. "This is the lift, not the room."

But a boy coming from the village knows nothing about the lift. The experience that you had yesterday was a lift. Just get in!

Question 2:

IS IT POSSIBLE FOR LAUGHTER TO ARISE WITH NO-MIND?

Vimal, 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 of the 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 will be better to tell you a joke ...

Danny discovered that his wife was cheating with another guy, so he went to the guy"s wife and told her about it.

"I know what we will do!" she said. "Let us take revenge on them." So they went to a motel and had revenge on them.

She said, "Let us have more revenge."

So they kept having revenge and more revenge. Finally Danny said, "That"s enough revenge. I don't have any more hard feelings."

If the end comes in such a way that you were not expecting - you could not have figured out that it will end in such a way - it brings a sudden laughter. It is a release of tension.

A recent survey of men"s sexual practices revealed that after intercourse, twenty percent rolled over and went to sleep; two percent had a shower; three percent went to the refrigerator for a snack; and seventy percent got up, got dressed and went home.

So it is true that most of the humor in life is out of the mind - finding itself in a situation which is unexpected.

Your question, Vimal, is, "Is it possible for laughter to arise out of no-mind?" Yes. 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.

"And when I see others are doing the same, I cannot stop laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole search, of the whole spirituality. It is yours and you are searching for it. It has never been lost and you are searching for it. There is no way to lose it and you are searching for it. Even if you want to lose it you cannot lose it, because you are it."

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."

I have heard about an American seeker. He was a super-rich man, and having everything, he got fed up. The more you have, the more you become aware that it is not going to satisfy you. The poor man is in a better mental condition, because he can hope that tomorrow he will have a better house, a better job, more salary, a better car. There are millions of hopes around him which will never be fulfilled, and it is good that they will not be fulfilled. The super-rich finds himself in a very strange position: all hopes are fulfilled and his hands are empty, his being is empty; nothing has been found.

Life has befooled him. Those hopes have proved to be all mirages.

So the man started looking for some wise man who can show him the path to find the real, the ultimate, the absolute truth. And he went around the world looking, getting tired. He came to this land and somebody told him, "In the plains you will not find such a wise man, you will have to go to the Himalayas. We have heard there is an old man - nobody knows how ancient, how old. If you can find him, perhaps your search will be fulfilled."

The man was adamant, stubborn. The journey was hard, difficult, but he managed. Tattered, tired, somehow he reached and he saw the old man sitting under a tree surrounded by eternal snow all around. He was so tired he could not even walk. He had to move on all fours towards the old man, and he fell at his feet and said, "I have found you after all. They said that it was very difficult to reach - it was more difficult than I thought. But God is graceful. So tell me how I can find peace, joy, wisdom."

The old man looked at him and said, "First things first. Have you got some American cigarettes on you?"

He could not believe it - is this the right type of question? But to argue with the old man was not good because he might get angry or anything. He said, "Yes," so he brought out his remaining few cigarettes and the lighter. The old man took them, started smoking, and the tired man was looking - what is happening? And he said, "What about me?"

The old man said, "Wait, let me finish the cigarette because I have been waiting for somebody to bring a cigarette. It has been years." The man said, "I am dying, tired, and you are smoking my cigarettes in front of me. And I was thinking you are an enlightened man!"

He said, "Everything is okay. I am enlightened, but enlightened does not mean that you cannot smoke a cigarette. Who told you that?"

He said, "Nobody told me, but I just figured out that cigarettes belong to the ordinary people."

He said, "You are wrong. You can see now in front of you; you are an eyewitness. You have seen an enlightened man smoking a cigarette."

He said, "I don't want to talk about it. You just tell me, because life is short and I"m so tired. You tell me what I have to do now."

He said, "Now you go back home, have a good rest and come back again. And next time, don't forget to bring a Havana cigar, because without a Havana cigar I never say the truth to anybody."

The man was shocked very much: "I have never heard ... I have read all the scriptures, listened to great sermons - I have never heard that a Havana cigar is needed before you can say anything about finding the truth."

He said, "Every enlightened man is unique; this is my condition. It is up to you - if you don't feel like coming, don't come, because I have sent many others who will be coming. How do you think I go on living here? You are not the only fool who has come in search of himself. Many others have come and many others will come, and I have a simple condition, bring a Havana cigar."

The man said, "Okay, I will go home and if I am still alive I will bring the Havana cigar. But promise me that you will not give another condition."

He said, "You should remember, enlightened people never promise anything, because who knows about tomorrow? I may change my mind. I may refuse your Havana cigar. You try your best, I will try my best, and then we will see what happens. But right now you get lost. I have enough cigarettes that you have brought, let me enjoy them."

The man was very much frustrated, but as he went back, by and by he started thinking, "Perhaps there is something in the message. He said, "Go home and have a good rest." Perhaps he was speaking allegorically - where is the home?" He had read in books that the real home is inside. And how can you find the home? Have a very relaxed, restful state of mind and you will find the home.

He said, "My God, he told it and I have not even thanked him. I will bring the Havana cigar just as a thankfulness."

I have loved that story. Whether that man came back or not I don't know; whether that old man meant what he figured out about the home and the rest, that too is not clear. But whatever the situation, the man got the message. He went back, relaxed, rested, and tried first to enter into his inner being - to find the home, because the walls of your house are not the home.

Your body is the wall; your mind is the wall. Behind your body and mind there is your real home ...

your very source of life.

When somebody finds it, he has a good laugh: "I was unnecessarily standing on my head, distorting my body doing yoga exercises, fasting, going on holy pilgrimages, torturing myself in the mountains, in the deserts - and all the time I was carrying my truth within myself." Whenever somebody finds it, can you think he will not laugh - laugh at himself? Mind laughs at others.

Beyond the mind there is only one laughter, but it resounds for centuries. The place where Bodhidharma became enlightened ... I have been to that place. He became enlightened fourteen hundred years ago and people have made a temple in his memory, in the place where he laughed for the first time. And the story is that if you sit silently in the temple, you will still hear the laughter.

There is a statue of Bodhidharma. He was a very strange man. If he meets you in the night, you will never go out of your house in the night again. He had such big eyes that, if he looked into you once, that was enough for enlightenment! And his laughter must have been a great laughter because he has a very good, big belly. Even in the statue the belly has ripples.

I had not time to sit there in the temple, but I know that if you sit there in the temple in the silence of the forest, perhaps you may hear the laughter. Perhaps the mountains, the trees, the rocks around the temple are still vibrating with that great man. I have looked into the lives of many great people, but Bodhidharma stands apart ... very strange and very unique.

It is possible that his laughter was so infectious that the trees started laughing and the mountains started laughing. Although Bodhidharma is dead, they are still laughing; they cannot stop it. If you go with the whole idea, perhaps you may really hear it - or you may imagine it. But I have come across people who have heard it, because they have told me.

I had gone there, but I had not time enough to stay in the temple, because the right time is in the middle of the night - when he had become enlightened. And particularly on a full-moon night in a certain month, if you stay in the temple, in the middle of the night there is every possibility that either you will hear the laughter or you will start laughing. That"s what I am doing ... Just the very idea that you are such an idiot: a man who has died fourteen hundred years ago, you are sitting, waiting to hear his laughter now!

The body has its own giggling points - "G-points." Mind always laughs at others. No-mind only laughs at one"s own ridiculousness. But the sense of humor is spread over your whole being, from body, mind, and soul.

In fact, everything that you have has counterparts in the body, in the mind, in the soul. The purest will be in the soul and the crudest will be in the body. The mind is just in the middle of the two; it will be half primitive, half cultured.

That"s how all these three layers of your body function in harmony. And once in a while you may find something which is happening in all the three layers simultaneously. For example, when Bodhidharma laughed, it cannot have been only a no-mind laughter. It must have got down into the mind, created ripples in the mind; it must have got down into the body, created ripples in the body.

We are an organic unity. Anything that happens anywhere has its echoes all over our being; hence my emphasis on the sense of humor. I am the first man in the whole of history who is trying to make the sense of humor a sacred quality, a spiritual quality.

All your so-called religions are too serious. To me seriousness is sickening. Laughter has a health, a beauty, a quality of grace and dance. I am in absolute favor of laughter and against sadness.

Sadness is sickness and is very close to death. Laughter is life and is very close to the universal life, to the very God that is spread all over.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.