Can someone become enlightened while listening to a joke?

Osho: has anyone ever become enlightened while listening to a joke? Maybe there is hope for me yet!

Listen to these jokes and give it a try. Who knows? Enlightenment is always unpredictable -- it may happen today. But don't expect it. These are the problems with enlightenment: if you expect, you miss. Such strange conditions are attached to enlightenment: if you expect you miss, if you desire you miss. So don't expect that it is going to happen; just sit relaxed and listen to the joke. It may happen, it may not. The marriage between the elderly farmer and his young wife was not working out too well, so the farmer consulted his doctor for advice. "The next time you are down in the field plowing and feel a yearning for your wife," said the doctor, "don't wait until lunchtime or the end of the day, but quit what you are doing and go to the house!" "I tried that," said the farmer, "but by the time…

Osho, I love you. I also love your jokes. I am very serious these days. This whole enlightenment game is too heavy. Please tell more jokes.

My own experience is that only an enlightened person can tell jokes. What else is left? He has seen the greatest joke of it all: he has seen the whole absurdity of searching for enlightenment. One finds enlightenment not by searching, but by one day coming to such a point of desperation that one drops all effort. In that very moment one becomes aware of it. When searching stops, desiring disappears, you are left alone with your being; nowhere to go, you are in. The inward journey is not really a journey. When all journeys disappear -- nowhere to go, no interest in going, you have searched in every direction and every direction has failed you -- in UTTER desperation you simply stop, you collapse, but that very collapse is the moment of the transformation. Nowhere-going, you are in. Not seeking anything, only the seeker is left. Not trying to…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY DOES EVERYBODY THINK ENLIGHTENMENT IS A JOKE? Sarito, it is! But only a child can ask such a beautiful question -- Sarito is only twelve years of age. Enlightenment is a joke because it is not something that you have to achieve, yet you have to make all possible efforts to achieve it. It is already the case: you are born enlightened. The word "enlightenment" is beautiful. We come from the source, the ultimate source of light. We are small rays of that sun, and howsoever far away we may have gone, our nature remains the same. Nobody can go against his real nature: you can forget about it, but you cannot lose it. Hence attaining it is not the right expression; it is not attained, it is only remembered. That's why Buddha called his method SAMMASATI.

Osho, when serious, sad people become enlightened, do they remain serious and sad or do they become funny like you?

The enlightened person is always joyous, but the tradition, the convention cannot be joyous. The whole structure of a tradition is basically political; it is there to dominate, it is there to oppress, it is there to exploit. And you cannot exploit people playfully, you have to be very serious. You have to make them so sad, so afraid of life itself, you have to create so much trembling in their being, that out of that fear they fall into your hands; they become objects of your manipulation. A man like me cannot exploit you, because this whole place is more like a tavern than a temple. It is more playful than serious. We are engaged in a beautiful game! The moment you think of it as a game, all seriousness disappears, things become lighter. You can walk in a dancing way; there is no weight on you. But the…

Beloved master, to become enlightened, do you need to be jewish or does it just help?

My effort here, Amitabh, is just the opposite. I want you to learn as much from Buddha, as much from Lao Tzu, as much from Krishna, as much from Chuang Tzu as possible. I would like you to absorb all the great experiences that have happened in the past, so that a higher synthesis becomes possible. In that higher synthesis laughter is going to be one of the most essential qualities. With truth, courage and virtue, laughter also has its own place. In that sense Jews are beautiful people. They have the greatest sense of laughter in the whole world. They are on the one extreme; on the other extreme are the British people. So many letters I have received, angry: "Beloved Master, you don't understand the British." Who cares to understand? And why should I understand the British, for what? Is nothing else left to understand? I have been…