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  Opinion   Oped  04 Apr 2018  Mystic Mantra: Make laughter a meditation

Mystic Mantra: Make laughter a meditation

Amrit Sadhana is in the management team of Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune. She facilitates meditation workshops around the country and abroad.
Published : Apr 4, 2018, 6:36 am IST
Updated : Apr 4, 2018, 6:37 am IST

Laughter is therapeutic, it cleanses and rejuvenates. It’s a pity we have to create laughter classes to “teach” people how to laugh.

Laughter is a prerogative of humans; no other species can laugh. We have no idea what a great gift of nature laughter is. (Representational image)
 Laughter is a prerogative of humans; no other species can laugh. We have no idea what a great gift of nature laughter is. (Representational image)

Thinkers are worried about the computer taking over all the jobs done by man, but there is no need to worry, for there is one thing the machine can never achieve:

It cannot laugh while the man can.

Laughter is a prerogative of humans; no other species can laugh. We have no idea what a great gift of nature laughter is. And we are just wasting it by remaining serious and stressed; thus inviting all kinds of mental and physical diseases.

Laughter is therapeutic, it cleanses and rejuvenates. It’s a pity we have to create laughter classes to “teach” people how to laugh.

The more educated people are, the more humorless they become. It happened so that once a university lecturer went to see Osho and said that she feels stupid, closed, lost. Osho told her that these were all good indications.

First, there is nothing to know. It is just the ego that feeds on knowledge.The ignorant person is innocent. The ignorant person is childlike, liquid, mirror-like. Start enjoying small things in life,  live in the moment so that she didn’t miss them. He also designed a unique laughter meditation for her which is useful to everybody.

Those who cannot laugh heartily can try this meditation and feel the liberating ripples of energy throughout the body and mind. Laughter can just be a physical exercise; you don’t have to remember a joke or a funny incident for that.

Just sitting silently, create a giggle in the very guts of your being, as if your whole body is giggling, laughing. Start swaying with that laughter; let it spread from the belly to the whole of your body: hands laughing, feet laughing. Go crazily into it. For twenty minutes do the laughing. If it comes uproariously, loudly, allow it. If it comes silently, then sometimes silently, sometimes loudly, but twenty minutes laughing.

Then lie down on the earth or the floor; spread yourself on the floor, facing the floor. If it is warm and you can do it in the garden, on the soil, that will be far better. Make contact with the earth, the whole body lying down there on the earth, and just feel that the earth is the mother and you are the child.  Close your eyes and get dissolved in that feeling. Connecting to the earth’s natural energy is foundational for vibrant health. Disconnected from the earth, you feel fatigued. Lying down like this is a deep contact with the earth.

Breathe with the earth, feel one with it. We come from the earth, and one day we will be going back to it. After energizing yourself for twenty minutes get up and start dancing for another twenty minutes. This dancing will have a different quality to it because it has emerged out of your laughter and then from a deep energetic communion with the earth.This will transform the quality of your life.

Tags: meditation, laughter