Gautama Buddha made a profound statement: "Be a light unto yourself". To this, Osho adds another: "Be a joke unto yourself". Osho would say: "I have to tell jokes because you are all religious people, you tend to be serious. I have to tickle you sometimes so that you forget your religiousness, your philosophies, theories, systems, and you fall down to earth".
Laughter, according to Osho, is multi-dimensional. When you laugh, your body, mind and your being laugh in unison. Distinctions, divisions and the schizophrenic personality disappear. That's why Osho introduced laughter to religion. Seriousness is of the ego whereas laughter is egolessness.
Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life. The serious person is handicapped: He creates barriers. He cannot dance, sing or celebrate. He becomes desert-like. And if you are a desert, you can go on thinking and pretending that you are religious but you are not. A man burdened by theories becomes serious. A man who is unburdened starts laughing.
The whole play of existence is so beautiful that laughter can be the only response to it. Only laughter can be the real prayer of gratitude. Osho talks about a great Zen master Hotei who was known in Japan as the 'Laughing Buddha'.
Osho said: "Hotei is tremendously significant... more people should be like Hotei; more temples should be full of laughter, dancing and singing. If seriousness is lost, nothing is lost -in fact, one becomes more healthy and whole. But if laughter is lost, everything is lost. Suddenly you lose the festivity of your being; you become colorless, monotonous, in a way, dead. Then your energy is not streaming any more".
But to understand Hotei you will have to be in that festive dimension. If you are too much burdened with theories, concepts, notions, ideologies, theologies, philosophies, you will not be able to realize the significance of Hotei.
Osho warned that taking man's laughter away from him is taking his very life away; it is a form of spiritual castration.
