Yoga The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 6 Discourses on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Chapter #6, Mind: THE Stupidity Question 3

Question 3

SOMETIMES, NOW, YOU CHUCKLE IN THE DISCOURSE.

I must be becoming holier, godlier, because the more holy you are, the more you take life nonseriously. You chuckle, you laugh; then it is not a burden. Your whole life becomes a smile; it is not a serious affair then.

But religious people all over the world have been teaching people to be very serious -- long faces. This is illness, not health. Make laughter your prayer. Laugh more. Nothing releases your blocked energies as does laughter. Nothing makes you innocent as does laughter. Nothing makes you childlike as does laughter. Children chuckle and laugh and smile. Of course they cry also, but their crying is beautiful.

Cry and weep and laugh, and let these be your prayers. Go to the temple -- don't verbalize. Go to the church -- don't bother about the authorized version of the prayer. There is none; no version is authorized. Create your own prayer. If you feel like weeping, weep. Tears are more meaningful than any words; they bring your heart. They are more prayerful, more beautiful, more significant. Words are dead. Tears are alive, fresh -- coming from you, from your depth. Or laugh: have a good laugh with the god of the temple.

In the Talmud it is said.... And the Talmud is a rare book. The Geeta, the Bible, the Koran -- all look serious. The Talmud is simply unbelievably rare. In the Talmud it is said, "God loves those people who make others laugh." You cannot conceive a religious scripture saying this: "God loves those who make others laugh." Those are the real saints.

If you make people serious you are a sinner. The world is already much too burdened; please, don't burden it anymore. Give a little laughter. Create a ripple of laughter wherever you are. Smile a little more and help others to smile. If the whole world can laugh loudly, wars will disappear, because wars are managed by serious people. Courts will disappear, because courts are managed by serious people.

That's why if you laugh in any court it is a crime. No court allows it -- you are insulting the court. Everyone should be serious. Look at the judges sitting in the courts: how foolishly serious they look. A little laughter will help them to be more just, will help them to understand human beings more deeply. Their coldness cannot do justice, because coldness is inhuman. A little warmth....

But the judge is afraid. If the thief standing in the court starts laughing, and the judge also joins him, and the whole court laughs -- then the judge is afraid. Then it will become too human; and it will be difficult to throw this laughing thief into jail for three or four or five years. For nothing much -- he has stolen a few rupees. He has stolen a little maya, and the judge may be a Vedantin. He has stolen a little illusion -- rupees, diamonds -- and he has to be thrown: for dead diamonds an alive being is to be thrown for five years to rot. Or in deep anger, in a rage, in some mad moment he may have killed. Even the judges go on thinking sometimes to kill. It is difficult to find a human being who has not thought many times in his life to kill somebody. It seems human, the idea.

I'm not saying go and kill, and I'm not saying that judges should forgive those who are murderers, no. But a little laughter will help. One man has been murdered: if the judge can laugh a little and the court also can chuckle a little with the judge, it will be difficult for him to send this man to the gallows. Because that is again another murder; and how can you put things right when for one murder the court decides for another murder? Maybe this man needs psychoanalytical treatment. Maybe this man needs to be sent to a monastery to meditate for two years. But not death -- because death.... If it is bad to commit murder, to commit murder in the name of justice is also bad; it cannot become good.

But judges are very serious people, politicians are very serious people -- the whole burden of the world on their shoulders. They always go on thinking all over the world: "What after Mao Tse-tung?" As if there was no world before Mao Tse-tung. The world has been happy. In fact it will be happier if all Mao Tse-tungs disappear.

I was just reading a book, a very rare book. The man says India would have become independent sooner if Gandhi had not been there. I was a little surprised, but then I looked into his argument and I felt he is right. Gandhi created much trouble -- stubborn, all politicians are. He created much trouble: he wouldn't compromise for anything. He had his own ways, Jinnah had his own ways. They wouldn't compromise. They both were stubborn, stonelike. It seems the man has an insight who says that India would have become independent sooner if there had been no Gandhi and no Jinnah.

And if there were no churches India would never have been dependent. If politicians disappear from the world, the world will be free. There will be no need to fight for it: it will be simply free. If priests disappear and serious churches, which look more like death than life, disappear and temples arise to dance, to enjoy, to be blissful, to be ecstatic; the world will be more religious.

So when you say, "Sometimes, now, you chuckle in the discourse," I hope I must be becoming holier. Otherwise. there seems to be no other reason.

Chapter-6

THE YOGA SUTRAS OF PATANJALI

Mind: THE Stupidity

Third Question