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Thursday, 22 November 2007 |
 It has to be understood that there are three types of laughter. The first is when you laugh at someone else. This is the meanest, the lowest, the most ordinary and vulgar when you laugh at the expense of somebody else. This is the violent, the aggressive, the insulting type. Deep down this laughter there is always a feeling of revenge.
"The second type of laughter is when you laugh at yourself. This is worth achieving. This is cultured. And this man is valuable who can laugh at himself. He has risen above vulgarity. He has risen above lowly instincts -- hatred, aggression, violence.
"And the third is the last -- the highest. This is not about anybody -- neither the other nor oneself. The third is just Cosmic. You laugh at the whole situation as it is. The whole situation, as it is, is absurd -- no purpose in the future, no beginning in the beginning. The whole situation of Existence is such that if you can see the Whole -- such a great infinite vastness moving toward no fixed purpose, no goal -- laughter will arise. So much is going on without leading anywhere; nobody is there in the past to create it; nobody is there in the end to finish it. Such is whole Cosmos -- moving so beautifully, so systematically, so rationally. If you can see this whole Cosmos, then a laughter is inevitable.
"I have heard about three monks. No names are mentioned, because they never disclosed their names to anybody. They never answered anything. In China, they are simply known as the three laughing monks. And they did only one thing: they would enter a village, stand in the market place and start laughing. They would laugh with their whole being and suddenly people would become aware. Then others would also get the infection and a crowd would gather. The whole crowd would start laughing just because of them. What was happening? The whole town would get involved. Then they would move to another town.
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