Lighten to Enlighten
One of the few qualities unique to humans is laughter. We are perhaps the only species that can really laugh. We don’t come across a bird or a dog laughing; they may smile, but the privilege of laughter is given to humans alone. Because God created humans in his own image, perhaps it means that God laughs too, so we can assume that laughter is innately spiritual.
Maharaj Charan Singh clarifies the line between being humorous and being offensive:
Everybody wants to be happy in this world. When you have happiness within, you want to share it with others. And that is humour, nothing else. Humour doesn’t mean taunting anybody or making a fool of yourself. You see, enjoying a joke means that you enjoy it and the other person also enjoys it. You can’t enjoy a joke at the cost of another person; that is no humour at all. That is taunting or ridiculing the other person, which is wrong. Humour means the other person enjoys as much as you enjoy. And when you are happy within, you can’t help radiating happiness and sharing it with others. You go to a miserable person, he’ll make you miserable. You go to a happy person, he will automatically make you happy. He will relax you in two minutes.
Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III
Humour should predispose us towards positivity and untie us from our baser, more primitive tendencies. While fixing those raw spots in our personality, we forget to take our personality lightly (reinforcing the fear of exposing it). However, having a sense of humour helps us to laugh at ourselves, the situation and even have compassion for the pain it might be masking, eventually helping us to accept ourselves completely. Humour also helps us to relax and keep our balance, both of which are necessary for meditation.
Often the Buddha would make an analogy that was simple, concrete and undeniable to get his point across. A particularly impressive example of the Buddha’s use of examples from a disciple’s own everyday life is shown in his conversation with Shrona, who had been a musician, skilled at tuning an instrument called the vina.
Once upon a time, Ananda, one of the Buddha’s closest disciples, was teaching meditation to Shrona. Correct meditation would not come to Shrona because he was sometimes too tense and sometimes too loose. He went to see the Buddha, and the Buddha asked, “When you were a layman, you were a good vina-player, weren’t you?”
“Yes, I played very well.”
“Did your vina sound best when the strings were very slack or when they were very taut?”
“It sounded best when they were neither too taut nor too loose.”
“It is the same for your mind,” said the Buddha, and by practising with that advice Shrona attained his goal.
The Spiritual Guide, Vol. 2
Hazur Maharaj Ji tells us that “a sense of humour is a God-given gift.” Only when we are relaxed can we be humorous. If we are happy within, we naturally radiate happiness. Now, if humour is innately spiritual, then the way to cultivate it has to be spiritual.
In pain, O Nanak, creatures all remain
Yet happy they whom Nam doth e’er sustain.
Guru Nanak, as quoted in Discourses on Sant Mat, Vol. I
We are aware that meditation leads to true happiness, but often there is a misconception that meditation leads to seriousness.
Seriousness in what way? Doesn’t it lead to happiness?… Seriousness means you see that you are not taking life very lightly. You are serious about your destination, your path, your principles – of course you are serious about them. But if you are happy and travelling on the road, you are travelling happily.
Maharaj Charan Singh, Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. III
The lasting bliss we seek comes when we put our mind in touch with the light and sound – when we shift from being world-oriented to God-oriented. We embrace the spiritual life, seek a guru, follow his teachings and practise regular meditation. Consistent meditative practice trains us to withdraw our consciousness from the nine portals of the body where the insipid pleasures of the senses flow. By withdrawing our attention, we transcend the sensual pleasures and are able to rise above them by holding our attention at the eye centre. We begin to taste the ambrosia of real joy. With meditation, the inner self is realized, and so is the transitory nature of this illusive world. With gradual awakening, we understand that everything we go through is because of our karmas and is temporary.
The false are in love with the false,
and have forgotten their Creator;
whom to love and make one’s friend,
when the whole world is in a state of flux?
Guru Nanak, as quoted in Spiritual Discourses, Vol. II
Why worry about all the things or forms of this world when they are perishable and transitory? Why worry when we are aware that everything is regulated by divine will and will get resolved for our best interests anyway? Regular meditation trains our mind to accept things easily and to laugh them away, invariably learning to stay within God’s will.
It is a scientific fact that light things rise easily and resistance holds them back. Let us lighten ourselves with a sense of humour and instead of resisting the events of life, laugh them off so that we may ascend naturally beyond the domain of the material to realize the Truth and merge with the ultimate radiant reality.