According to Osho, the eighth sense—humor—is uniquely human and a sign of growing consciousness. As awareness deepens, humor ripens, dissolving heaviness and ego; at its peak, existence becomes a joyous carnival. Cultivating humor is spiritual practice here: it reveals life's absurdities, loosens control, and turns suffering into playfulness, sharpening insight while celebrating being.
Humor shows you’re waking up inside, helping you drop seriousness and enjoy life like a big happy festival.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
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: Maneesha has asked: OUR BELOVED MASTER, I AM SERIOUSLY CONCERNED: LAST NIGHT WHEN YOU WERE SPEAKING OF THE SENSES, AS TRADITIONALLY CLASSIFIED, YOU DID NOT MENTION THE EIGHTH SENSE, THE SENSE OF HUMOR. WHAT HAPPENED? The soldier looks at the general, then yells back, "Fuck you, you stupid bastard!" "You see, gentlemen?" replies Dogski, proudly. "Now, that is courage!" Nivedano... (Drumbeat) (Gibberish) Nivedano... (Drumbeat) Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel the body to be completely frozen. Look inwards... to the very roots of your being. Deeper... and deeper, as if you are digging a hole in the earth. To reach to the roots is to discover the buddha within you, the eternal principal of life. A little more... a little more... Sometimes one returns from only one step away -- if he had taken one step more, he would have found the roots.
Beloved Osho, it is for the first time I have been so close to you. When I am sitting here with you I feel my heart in tune with your heart, I feel a deep love for you. But I also feel my outer seriousness. Why is laughter so difficult for me?
The sardar said, "Don't force me, because the secret is very embarrassing." They said, "Embarrassing? But we thought you are doing great. We always hear laughter -- either you laugh or your wife laughs... no fight." The sardar said, "What happens is, she throws things at me. If she misses, then I laugh; if she hits me then she laughs. The same things are going on, but it is just that we have made a different arrangement -- what is the point? So I have learned how to dodge her, and she is learning how to...." After twenty years the same sardar wanted to divorce his wife. The magistrate had heard about them, that this was the only couple in the whole city who had never been known to fight. They simply laugh -- the whole city knows them as the laughing couple. The magistrate said, "What has gone wrong?…
Question: OSHO, HOW DO I OPEN MY SENSE OF HUMOR? Everybody is born with it. It is not a talent, it is intrinsic to human nature. But the society tries to destroy it; it is afraid even of the sense of humor. We teach children to be serious. Seriousness is praised, highly praised. In fact, seriousness is a kind of disease; it should be condemned. Every child brings a sense of humor in the world, but we destroy it, at least we repress it. We don't allow him to enjoy it; we don't allow him to share it with us. We don't encourage him to help it grow because we are afraid; if he becomes too non-serious then he will become dangerous to the serious society. Then he will start rebelling against many things, because a sense of humor is an essential part of intelligence.
Question: A friend has asked—Saty Niranjan has asked—Osho, recently I was reading the life story of the renowned Marathi author Acharya Atre. At one point he says: In this world, humor is the royal road to enduring suffering. Humor is the highest human dharma. For the welfare of humankind, many incarnate beings have founded different religions—some based on compassion, some on equality; some on truth, some on nonviolence. But till now there has been no founder who established a laughing, playful, blissful religion grounded in the Vedanta of humor. If only he were alive today, he would have had the good fortune to see such a religion take birth in your form. Osho, what is so special about humor? A pandit is solemn and pompous. He knows nothing of truth, has no experience of life. He has words, webs of logic—and he is a tycoon of words and arguments.