If the idea of enlightenment is the last joke the mind plays on itself, who has the last laugh?

Beloved Osho, if the idea of enlightenment is the last joke the mind plays on itself, who has the last laugh?

The more miserable you are, the more you will find things to laugh at. It is not incidental that Jews have the best jokes in the world because they have suffered the most. Since that unfortunate moment when Moses took them out of Egypt until today, they have been suffering and suffering -- in different nations, among different races, in different ways. They have suffered so much that they had to invent something so that they could forget suffering at least for a moment. They have created the best jokes. I was amazed by the fact that in India we don't have any jokes. All the jokes that people in India use are borrowed; none is of Indian origin, they are all from other countries. Not a single joke have I been able to find which is authentically Indian -- because India has had a very peaceful, silent past. Just…

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…

Beloved Osho, is there a sense of humor beyond the mind? To me meditation has a sense of seriousness in it, and in my experience a sense of humor arises from misunderstandings -- real or imagined -- which have their root in the mind. Is it possible for laughter to arise with no-mind?

I have heard about an American seeker. He was a super-rich man, and having everything, he got fed up. The more you have, the more you become aware that it is not going to satisfy you. The poor man is in a better mental condition, because he can hope that tomorrow he will have a better house, a better job, more salary, a better car. There are millions of hopes around him which will never be fulfilled, and it is good that they will not be fulfilled. The super-rich finds himself in a very strange position: all hopes are fulfilled and his hands are empty, his being is empty; nothing has been found. Life has befooled him. Those hopes have proved to be all mirages. So the man started looking for some wise man who can show him the path to find the real, the ultimate, the absolute truth. And…

Question: BELOVED OSHO, WHY DOES EVERYBODY THINK ENLIGHTENMENT IS A JOKE? Sarito, you must have heard this comment amongst the small sannyasins in the ashram: "Why does everybody think enlightenment is a joke?" This must be coming from the small boys and girls; they must be thinking, "Enlightenment must be a joke. What is the need for enlightenment?" You need a teddy bear -- you can understand that. You need a tricycle -- that you can understand. You need a toy gun -- that you can understand. Just a few days ago a new visitor was seen carrying a big gun. The guards became a little bit concerned; he was continuously carrying it and even trying to hide it, but it was too big to hide. Then one woman sannyasin saw him also carrying the gun in the marketplace. The visitor was asked, "Why do you carry this gun?

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…