The Master of Masters, Osho’s enlightenment day is celebrated each year by his Sannyasins world over. The OshoDham at Najafgarh has a three day program every year facilitated by Swami Chaitanya Keerti. Read the blog on Enlightenment – Your Very Being.
For me, Osho is the Master of Masters because he laughs, tells jokes and doesn’t let you take things seriously. The same reasons why I love Krishna … he is the only Avatar who enjoys life fully. Krishna fits into a board room as well as he fits into a disco. Osho similarly fits everywhere, he is never out of place !
Enlightenment and Laughter
A small excerpt from the book “Dogen, The Zen Master” to celebrate Osho’s enlightenment day.
“……I want you to understand: enlightenment is so light, so loving, so peaceful – just like laughter. The theologians have made it so heavy, so burdensome, that people ignore it. Enlightenment should also be entertainment at the same time.
It reminds me of J. Krishnamurti’s last sentence before he died, just a few months ago. He was a very serious person, and that was his only fault. He was enlightened, but he took enlightenment as a serious matter. He saw that he was enlightened and nobody else was enlightened. And he was trying hard to make people enlightened – obviously.
For seventy years – he died at the age of ninety – for seventy years, from the age of twenty, he had been working on people and not a single person had become enlightened. Obviously, you can understand him; his deep failure and sadness became more and more serious, almost a sickness.
The reason is clear from his last statement, “People don’t take enlightenment seriously, they think it is entertainment.” That is where I differ. Enlightenment cannot be anything other than entertainment – universal entertainment, a laughter that knows no bounds, no limits. You laugh, and the trees laugh, and the cuckoos laugh, and the clouds laugh, and the stars laugh, and the laughter goes on spreading because everybody is triggering everybody else. You need not actually trigger, just your laughter will be enough for somebody else to start laughing.
I love J. Krishnamurti, and I love his hard effort of seventy years continually, but I am absolutely against his attitude. He was making it a serious affair. That was the fault of all the old prophets. That’s why you will not find a statue of Mahavira laughing. What a miserable world; you don’t allow even Mahavira to laugh. You will not find a statue of Gautam Buddha laughing. Even if Gautam Buddha laughed, people would not believe their eyes or ears: “What is happening? Such a serious man…”
But you don’t understand that when the mind is gone, you are just like a small child. Laughter will arise without any effort on your part. At least I am a breakaway from the whole past, and in the future I want my people to be laughing buddhas. We have seen enough serious ones; they have not been able to transform humanity. Let us try another direction – of nonseriousness.
“One call invites one hundred comrades…” One buddha – just his presence – magnetically pulls a thousand buddhas, ten thousand buddhas. It is a question of how great your enlightenment is, how great your compassion and love is, and how nonseriously you have taken it. Nobody likes a serious person.
Have you ever thought about it, that all the saints are serious? It is perfectly good to go and touch their feet and be finished. Nobody wants their company. Just think, these people will be going to heaven. Remember it. Heaven is overcrowded with saints. If you want the right kind of people – the other place, where you will find poets, and you will find painters, and you will find dancers and musician…
I am going particularly to the other place. So remember, whoever is with me will have a great journey and a meeting of great people. No saint has been of any value – no creativity, no poetry, no painting. All the people who were creators, who have made this world a little beautiful, a little more livable, are gathered in the other place.
Friedrich Nietzsche said God is dead, but he did not say why he is dead. He has to be dead, surrounded by all these idiots, eternally stinking – because most of them don’t take a bath, don’t wash their mouths. Laughter is absolutely unknown in paradise; poor God could not survive.
I warn you, beware! If by chance you reach the gates of heaven, refuse. Don’t enter. Ask for the way to the other place. I will be waiting there for you. Ask for me, and that will do….”
Hahahahaha … I love the paragraph where Osho says God is dead because he is surrounded by all these idiots (saints) and that laughter is unknown in paradise. If we really think deeply, the saints and Gods that we relate to the most are all those who laugh and enjoy life.
Meera danced and sang, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu danced and sang, Kabir lived a “normal” life of a weaver…. not one of them was serious or sad or angry or vindictive. So have fun, live fully and stop moping around with a long face.
Life is a celebration.
Delight to read!
For seventy years – he died at the age of ninety –. The best part.
And relevant for most.. mujhe kya bura tha marna, agar ek baar hota..