Of laughter and dance

Zarathustra is absolutely right when he says, WHAT HAS BEEN THE GREATEST SIN HERE ON EARTH? WAS IT NOT THE SAYING OF HIM WHO SAID: 'WOE TO THOSE WHO LAUGH!' But all your so-called saints are saying that, all your religions are saying that, all your so-called great men are saying that. And they are not saying it without any reason.

One of the most cruel things done to man is to make him sad and serious. This has to be done, because without making man sad and serious, it is impossible to make him a slave - a slave in all the dimensions of slavery: spiritually a slave to some fictitious God, to some fictitious heaven and hell; psychologically a slave, because sadness, seriousness are not natural, they have to be forced upon the mind and the mind falls into fragments, is shattered; and physically a slave also, because a man who cannot laugh, cannot be really healthy and whole.

Laughter is not one-dimensional; it has all the three dimensions of man's being. When you laugh your body joins it, your mind joins it, your being joins it. In laughter the distinctions disappear, the divisions disappear, the schizophrenic personality disappears. But it was against those who wanted to exploit man - the kings, the priests, the cunning politicians. Their whole effort was somehow to make man weaker, sick: make man miserable and he will never revolt.

Taking man's laughter away from him is taking his very life away. Taking laughter away from man is spiritual castration.

Have you watched the difference between bulls and bullocks? They were born the same, but the bullocks have been castrated. And unless they are castrated, you cannot use them as slaves to carry your burden, to draw your carts. You cannot put bulls ahead of your cart - the bull is so powerful, it is impossible to keep him in control; he has an individuality of his own. But the bullock is a very faraway echo of his real being, just a shadow. You have destroyed him.

To create slaves, man has been destroyed in the same way. Laughter has been condemned continually as childish, as insane; at the most you are allowed to smile. The difference between a smile and laughter is the same as between the bullock and the bull. Laughter is total. The smile is just an exercise of the lips; the smile is just a mannerism. Laughter knows no mannerism, no etiquette - it is wild, and its wildness has all the beauty.

But the vested interests, whether of money or of organized religions or of the rulers, all were agreed on one thing: man has to be weakened, made miserable, made afraid - has to be forced to live in a kind of paranoia. Only then will he kneel down on his knees before wooden or stone statues. Only then will he be ready to serve anybody who is powerful.

Laughter brings your energy back to you. Every fiber of your being becomes alive, and every cell of your being starts dancing. Zarathustra is right when he says that the greatest sin against man done on the earth is that he has been prohibited from laughing. The implications are deep, because when you are prohibited from laughing certainly you are prohibited from being joyous, you are prohibited from singing a song of celebration, you are prohibited from dancing just out of sheer blissfulness.

By prohibiting laughter, all that is beautiful in life, all that makes life livable and lovable, all that gives meaning to life is destroyed. It is the ugliest strategy used against man.

Seriousness is a sin. And remember, seriousness does not mean sincerity - sincerity is altogether a different phenomenon. A serious man cannot laugh, cannot dance, cannot play. He is always controlling himself; he has been brought up in such a way that he has become a jailer to himself.

The sincere man can laugh sincerely, can dance sincerely, can rejoice sincerely. Sincerity has nothing to do with seriousness.

Seriousness is simply sickness of the soul, and only sick souls can be converted into slaves. And all the vested interests need a humanity which is not rebellious, which is very willing, almost begging, to be slaves.

DID HE HIMSELF FIND ON EARTH NO REASON FOR LAUGHTER? IF SO, HE SOUGHT BADLY.

EVEN A CHILD COULD FIND REASONS.

In fact, only children are found to be giggling and laughing; and the grown-ups think that because they are ignorant children they can be forgiven - they are as yet uncivilized, as yet primitive. The whole effort of parents, of society, of teachers, of priests is how to civilize them, how to make them serious, how to make them behave like slaves, not like independent individuals.

You are not supposed to have your own opinions. You just have to be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan; you have to be a communist or a fascist or a socialist. You are not supposed to have your own opinions; you are not supposed to be yourself. You are allowed to be part of a crowd - and to be part of a crowd is nothing but becoming a cog in a wheel. You have committed suicide.

Zarathustra is asking, "Can't you find anything on the earth that makes you laugh, that makes you dance, that makes you rejoice? Even children can find reasons." But your mind has been filled with so many prejudices that your eyes are almost blind, your heart is almost dead; you have been turned into living corpses.

HE - DID NOT LOVE SUFFICIENTLY: OTHERWISE HE WOULD ALSO HAVE LOVED US, THE LAUGHERS! In fact, in society the man who laughs totally - a belly laugh - is not respected. You have to look serious; that shows that you are civilized and sane. Laughing is for children and for the insane, or for the primitive.

I cannot conceive that Jesus ever laughed in his life. Of course, he cannot laugh on the cross; for that, a far greater man is needed - perhaps a Zarathustra - because there have been people who have laughed on the cross. Just go into any church and see Jesus on the cross. Naturally he is serious, and his seriousness fills the whole church; to laugh there seems to be out of place. There is no mention anywhere that Jesus ever laughed in his life; it is obvious that the only begotten son of God has to be very serious. Nobody has ever heard that God has laughed either.

Jesus cannot laugh because he is full of expectations; and those expectations are going to turn into frustrations. Even on the cross he was waiting for a miracle - for a hand to come out of the clouds and take him down from the cross, and prove to the world, "I cannot watch my only begotten son being crucified. I sent him to save you, and you are misbehaving with my own son. Your behavior is unforgivable."

On the cross he shouted, looking at the sky when nothing was happening, "Father, have you forsaken me? Have you forgotten me?" Naturally, such a man cannot laugh. His life is going to be a life of continual frustrations. He expects too much.

Children can laugh because they don't expect anything. Because they don't expect anything, their eyes have a clarity to see things - and the world is full of so much absurdity, ridiculousness. There is so much slipping on banana peels, that a child cannot avoid seeing it! It is our expectations which function like curtains on our eyes.

Because all the religions are against life, they cannot be for laughter. Laughter is an essential part of life and love. Religions are against life, against love, against laughter, against joy; they are against everything that can make life a tremendous experience of benediction and blessings.

Because of their anti-life attitude, they have destroyed the whole of humanity. They have taken away all that is juicy in man; and their saints have become the examples for others to follow. Their saints are just dry bones - fasting, torturing themselves in many, many ways, finding new devices, new ways to torture their bodies. The more they have been torturing themselves, the higher they have risen in respectability. They have found a ladder, a way to become more and more respectable: just torture yourself, and people are going to worship you and remember you for centuries.

Self-torture is a psychological sickness. There is nothing to be worshiped in it; it is slow suicide. But we have supported this slow suicide for centuries, because the idea has become fixed in our minds that the body and the soul are enemies. The more you torture the body, the more spiritual you are; the more you allow the body to have pleasure, enjoyment, love, laughter, the less spiritual you are.

This dichotomy is the basic reason why laughter has disappeared from man.

HE - DID NOT LOVE SUFFICIENTLY: OTHERWISE HE WOULD ALSO HAVE LOVED US, THE LAUGHERS! BUT HE HATED AND JEERED AT US, HE PROMISED US WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH.

I have seen pictures of European churches in the Middle Ages... the preacher's function was to make people very much afraid of hellfire and the tortures that they would have to suffer there. Their descriptions were so vivid that many women used to faint in the churches. It was thought that the greatest preacher was the one who made the most people faint - that was a way to find out who was the greatest preacher.

The whole of religion is founded on a simple psychology: fear magnified in the name of hell, and greed magnified in the name of heaven. Those who are enjoying themselves on the earth are going to fall into hell. Naturally man becomes afraid - just for small pleasures, for only seventy years of life, he has to suffer in hell for eternity.

This was one of the reasons Bertrand Russell dropped out of Christianity and wrote a book, WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN. He said, "The first thing that made me decide was the absolutely unjustified idea that for my small sins I can be punished for eternity." He said, "If I count all the sins that I have committed according to the scriptures, and if I include the sins I have dreamt about - that I have not committed - the most strict judge cannot send me to jail for more than four and a half years. But for these small sins, I would not suffer for eternity. What kind of justice is this? There seems to be no relation between the crime and the punishment."

And then he started looking deeper into Christian theology. He was amazed to find so many things so absurd and ridiculous, that finally he decided that to remain a Christian is to show your cowardliness. He renounced Christianity and wrote the tremendously significant book, WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN.

Now it has been almost sixty or seventy years, and that book has not been replied to by any Christian theologian. In fact, there is no reply - how can you justify it? - because according to Christianity, man has only one life. If it was Hinduism, there may have been some justification - in millions of lives, so much sin can accumulate that perhaps one can visualize an eternal punishment. But for Christianity, or for Judaism, or for Mohammedanism, that idea is so ridiculous. And a man of the intelligence of Bertrand Russell.... And the popes and the great Christian theologians all over the world have simply remained silent.

They have condemned Bertrand Russell, saying that he will go to hell. But that is not an argument.

If there really are a hell and a heaven, hell will be a far more healthy place than heaven - because in heaven you will find all the dry bones, ugly creatures who have been called saints, torturing themselves. It is not a place worth visiting.

In hell you will find all the poets, all the painters, all the sculptors, all the mystics, all those people whose company is going to be a blessing. You will find Socrates there, and you will find Gautam Buddha there - Hindus have thrown him into hell because he did not believe in the VEDAS, upon which the whole Hindu religion is based. You will find Mahavira, because he did not believe in the Hindu caste system; he condemned it. You will find Bodhidharma, Chuang Tzu, Lao Tzu. You will find all the great people who have contributed to life - all the great scientists and artists who have made this earth a little more beautiful.

What have your saints contributed? They are the most futile people, the most unfertile. They have been just a burden, and they have been parasites; they have been sucking the blood of poor human beings. They were torturing themselves and teaching others to torture themselves; they were spreading psychological sickness.

If this earth looks so sick, if humanity looks so sad, the whole credit goes to your saints. In heaven you will meet all those ugly creatures, all those condemners who don't know how to love, who don't know how to laugh, who don't know how to sing, who don't know how to dance - who cannot allow humanity to have any pleasures, howsoever small. Pain seems to be spiritual, and pleasure seems to be materialistic.

Now modern psychiatry knows perfectly well that these saints were schizophrenic. They need not be worshiped. If you can find them somewhere, immediately take them to a psychiatric hospital - they need treatment. They are not healthy; their very existence is nauseous. But they have been the leaders of mankind, and they have made the whole of mankind feel a kind of nausea; they have created an atmosphere of nausea.

DOES ONE THEN STRAIGHTWAY HAVE TO CURSE WHERE ONE DOES NOT LOVE? THAT - SEEMS TO ME BAD TASTE. BUT THAT IS WHAT HE DID, THIS UNCOMPROMISING MAN. HE SPRANG FROM THE MOB. And these saints were absolutely uncompromising. They were not even ready to listen. They were afraid to listen, because deep down they knew their own doubts about their lives, about their religion.

I cannot conceive that Jesus must not have, somewhere deep in his mind, a doubt: Is he really the only begotten son of God? It is impossible for me to conceive.... In fact, the more he repeats it, the more it becomes certain that his repetition is nothing but repressing his doubt. If he does not repeat it, there is fear - his doubt may surface. It is not to convince you; basically it is to convince himself.

It is a vicious circle: people convince others in order to be convinced themselves. When Jesus sees that a few people are convinced that he is the only begotten son of God, then his own doubt is repressed more deeply. He is convinced by other people's conviction. And he has to continually repeat it, because to allow any long interval is dangerous - in that interval the doubt can arise.

Even your so-called great believers in God have deep doubts about God. In fact, belief is needed only to repress the doubt; there is no other function of the belief. You don't believe in the sun - or do you? You never shout from housetops, "I believe in the sun," or "I believe in roseflowers," or "I believe in the moon."

People will say, "Just get down and do some useful work. Why are you wasting your time? We also believe in the sun, we also believe in the roseflower... there is no problem. Nobody needs the conviction."

But Jesus says to his followers, "Shout from the housetops that the prophet you have been waiting for has come. Convince people that your master is the only begotten son of God, that he has brought a direct message from God. Go to the far corners of the earth and convince people." Only when there is doubt, suspicion, their conviction is needed, belief is needed, faith is needed. I am a faithless man, because whatever is needs no faith. Whatever is needs knowing, not believing.

All believers are deceiving themselves. The atheist is better than the believers, but not very much, because his atheism is also a kind of belief - a negative belief. He has not known that God does not exist - just as the believers have not known that God exists. They have chosen positive belief.

Somebody has a negative mind, he has chosen the negative belief. But nobody seems to see the simple fact that a man who is honest cannot have any kind of belief.

If there is doubt it is healthy, because that doubt will trigger in you a pilgrimage of search. That doubt is a question, it is an enquiry. It will take you to the truth. And the moment you know, the question of belief does not arise. You simply know it. But the so-called saints, theologians, priests have been very uncompromising. Their uncompromising attitude has gone to the very logical extreme - they don't even want to listen to anything that goes against their beliefs.

There are scriptures in Jainism and in Hinduism saying the same kind of thing. One wonders, "What kind of religious people were these?" In Jainism there are scriptures telling the Jainas: "Even if you find a mad elephant chasing you, and death is certain, even if you can save your life by entering a Hindu temple which is just nearby, it is better to die, better to be killed by the mad elephant, than to take shelter in a Hindu temple." Such an uncompromising attitude!

The same is repeated in Hindu scriptures. Exactly the same, word for word: "It is better to die, to be killed by the mad elephant, but don't enter a Jaina temple to save your life."

What kind of religious people are these? What kind of religious scriptures are these? What harm can the Jaina temple do to the Hindu? Or what harm can the Hindu temple do to the Jaina? The harm is that you might hear something that goes against your faith, that can disturb your belief. It is better to die... but not to be disturbed in your faith. And to me, a faith that can be disturbed is not of any worth. Every faith will be disturbed unless it is your own knowing - but then it cannot be called "faith."

... THIS UNCOMPROMISING MAN. HE SPRANG FROM THE MOB. The mob lives at the lowest level of intelligence.

Just the other day I received an arrest warrant from Kanpur. Ten Christian associations have filed a lawsuit against me because I have said that there are pornographic statements in THE HOLY BIBLE.

Rather than looking in THE HOLY BIBLE - ten Christian associations together, that means all the Christians of Kanpur.... I cannot believe that man has passed beyond his primitiveness; or is he still primitive? Those statements are not mine! There are five hundred pages of pornography in THE HOLY BIBLE. I don't have to argue in the court; I just have to read THE HOLY BIBLE.

If they had any sense they would have demanded that those five hundred pages from THE BIBLE be removed. If any intelligence was there.... But intelligence seems to be very rare. This is the mob - retarded, unintelligent.

Just a few days ago there was a statement of Zarathustra that, "At the great noontide, at the highest peak of evolution of man, when the superman arrives, almost like a god, he will be ashamed of his clothes; he will be ashamed of hiding things. He would like to be an open book." If you meet Zarathustra somewhere, just tell him, "Don't let your god come to Poona! - because the police commissioner of Poona will not allow your god to be ashamed of his clothes."

These pygmies, with no intelligence at all, go on trying to dominate the whole of mankind. And it is not only THE HOLY BIBLE - there are Hindu scriptures full of pornography, and no Hindu will raise the question. Not only in the scriptures is there pornography, in the temples of Khajuraho, in the temples of Puri, in the temples of Konarak, you will see such pornographic sculpture that it is almost unbelievable. What kind of people, what kind of mind, how repressed...? Whole temples, thousands of statues, so ugly - you may not have even dreamt of such pornography.

People are allowed to dream; at least there is still freedom of dreaming! Freedom of expression does not exist anywhere. But if you go to Khajuraho, or Puri or Konarak you cannot believe it. What kind of sick minds must have made these temple statues? All kinds of group sex, all kinds of orgies are sculpted. It must have taken hundreds of years to make those temples. But nobody objects. And if you object, you are hurting somebody's religious feeling - immediately an arrest warrant appears in the court.

If what I have said is wrong, those people could have issued a statement, or written articles in the magazines, or challenged me to a discussion, saying, "We don't find anything pornographic in THE BIBLE." But rushing to the court simply shows weakness, simply shows they are taking support from the powers of the government.

Just the other day I was informed that there was another case.... For thirty years I have been in so many cases. In not a single case have they been able to prove anything against me, because whatever I have said was in their scriptures.

If they want to put a case against anybody, it should be against those scriptures, their publishers.

Those scriptures should be burnt.

In Simla the other day, the high court judge - he must be an intelligent man, because he said to the person who was saying that the whole of Himachal Pradesh, all the Hindus living in that state, are feeling very hurt by my statements - the judge said, "I am also living in Himachal Pradesh, and I am also a Hindu, and I don't feel at all hurt by his statements. So don't talk about all the Hindus of Himachal Pradesh. You simply talk about you. You are not the representative of the whole state. I also live here, I am not hurt. And the book was published twenty years ago. Where have you been for twenty years?"

It has gone into many editions in almost all the languages of the world.

And the judge looked at the book. There was the seal of the public library of Simla, so he asked the man, "Are you a member of the public library of Simla?" And he replied, "No." Then the judge said, "Then how could you get this book? Have you stolen it? This is not your book." And the man was silent. He must have stolen that book!

Great Hindus, great religious people! And my whole book is concerned with how to transform sexual energy into spiritual energy. I don't think any religious person can be offended by it. He should be happy.

The judge asked him... because the man was continually saying, "Our religious feelings are hurt because this man is saying that through sex you can reach to samadhi"... the judge asked, "Have you tried it? And if you have not tried it, on what grounds are you saying that this man is wrong?

First try.

"What does it have to do with Hinduism? Whether you are Hindu or Christian or Mohammedan, sexual energy is sexual energy - it has nothing to do with any religion. And if somebody is saying that there is a way to transform it into spirituality, you should be happy about it - rather than being angry and asking that this man be immediately arrested."

But it is very difficult to find such an intelligent judge, because those judges also come from the mob.

And they also see that their judgment should not go against the crowd, it should not go against the political party in power.

AND HE HIMSELF DID NOT LOVE SUFFICIENTLY: OTHERWISE HE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SO ANGRY THAT HE WAS NOT LOVED. GREAT LOVE DOES NOT DESIRE LOVE - IT DESIRES MORE.

Great love does not desire love - there is no need. It is already great love. It desires something even more, even higher than love. And that's what prayer is, or meditation is.

Love is very close to meditation; but still, the other person is there, and there is a dependency on each other. Total freedom is not possible - conceivable, but not possible. Only in meditation, when you are alone and overflowing with love, is there freedom and is there tremendous love.

GREAT LOVE DOES NOT DESIRE LOVE - IT DESIRES SOMETHING MORE. It has known love, now it wants to transcend even love. It wants to go a step higher.

And love is the last step.

Beyond it begins the world of godliness.

AVOID ALL SUCH UNCOMPROMISING MEN! THEY ARE A POOR, SICK TYPE, A MOB TYPE:

THEY LOOK UPON THIS LIFE WITH AN ILL WILL, THEY HAVE AN EVIL EYE FOR THIS EARTH.

AVOID ALL SUCH UNCOMPROMISING MEN! THEY HAVE HEAVY FEET AND SULTRY HEARTS - THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO DANCE. HOW COULD THE EARTH BE LIGHT TO SUCH MEN!

The day man forgets to laugh, the day man forgets to be playful, the day man forgets to dance, he is no more man; he has fallen into a sub-human species. Playfulness makes him light; love makes him light; laughter gives him wings. Dancing with joy, he can touch the farthest stars, he can know the very secrets of life.

THIS LAUGHER'S CROWN, THIS ROSE-WREATH CROWN: I MYSELF HAVE SET THIS CROWN ON MY HEAD, I MYSELF HAVE CANONIZED MY LAUGHTER. I HAVE FOUND NO OTHER STRONG ENOUGH FOR IT TODAY. All the mystics have felt themselves very alone - their height makes them very alone. The mob lives in the dark caves down in the valley. They never comes out of their caves.

ZARATHUSTRA THE DANCER, ZARATHUSTRA THE LIGHT, WHO BECKONS WITH HIS WINGS, READY FOR FLIGHT, BECKONING TO ALL BIRDS, PREPARED AND READY, BLISSFULLY LIGHT-HEARTED:

ZARATHUSTRA THE PROPHET, ZARATHUSTRA THE LAUGHING PROPHET, NO IMPATIENT NOR UNCOMPROMISING MAN, ONE WHO LOVES JUMPING AND ESCAPADES; I MYSELF HAVE SET THIS CROWN ON MY HEAD!

YOU HIGHER MEN, THE WORST ABOUT YOU IS: NONE OF YOU HAS LEARNED TO DANCE AS A MAN OUGHT TO DANCE - TO DANCE BEYOND YOURSELVES! WHAT DOES IT MATTER THAT YOU ARE FAILURES!

It is better to be a failure in a great thing than to be victorious in a small thing - at least you tried!

Even the failure in transcending yourself is a great victory. The very effort, the very longing, brings a transformation to you.

DANCE BEYOND YOURSELVES - that is the essential teaching of Zarathustra. He declares himself as... THE LAUGHING PROPHET.

HOW MUCH IS STILL POSSIBLE! SO LEARN TO LAUGH BEYOND YOURSELVES! LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS, YOU FINE DANCERS, HIGH! HIGHER! AND DO NOT FORGET TO LAUGH WELL!

THIS LAUGHTER'S CROWN, THIS ROSE-WREATH CROWN: TO YOU, MY BROTHERS, DO I THROW THIS CROWN! I HAVE CANONIZED LAUGHTER; YOU HIGHER MEN, LEARN - TO LAUGH!

'THIS IS MY MORNING, MY DAY BEGINS: RISE UP NOW, RISE UP, GREAT NOONTIDE!'

... THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA AND LEFT HIS CAVE, GLOWING AND STRONG, LIKE A MORNING SUN EMERGING FROM BEHIND DARK MOUNTAINS.

Okay, Maneesha?