Osho,
Why do you like to make us laugh so much? In those moments it feels as if we are all sharing a cup of divine champagne, and in this rejoicing we lose ourselves and come close to you. Thank you Osho.

Laughter has never been accepted by any religion of the world as a spiritual quality. As far as I am concerned, it is one of the most important spiritual qualities for the very simple reason that when you are in total laughter your ego disappears. The laughter is: you are not.

And if this is not being spiritual, then nothing else can be. It is because of this that when you laugh together, you melt into each other, and you melt with me.

Small egos disappear like dewdrops in the early morning sun.

The mind has never been able to laugh: it is basically serious; it is basically pathological. The moment you laugh, suddenly you are not functioning from the mind center anymore, you start functioning from the heart center. And if the laughter is really total you can even go deeper than the heart: you can reach to the very center of your being. It can give you a glimpse of truth, of beauty, of the celebrating existence. That’s why I love to see you laugh as much as possible.

And you are right: “In those moments it feels as if we are all sharing a cup of divine champagne.” It is not “as if”…you are really sharing a cup of divine champagne. “And in this rejoicing we lose ourselves and come close to you” – not only close, you can become one with me.

To be close is also to be distant; to be close is also to be separate. Love is never fulfilled by just closeness; it is fulfilled only when boundaries disappear, and merging and melting happens.

Prem Vishva, for you especially, I am telling this joke.

A very famous Zulu warrior went to the king of Zululand to ask for the hand of the King’s daughter in marriage. The King said, “No man can marry my daughter unless he can first carry out three tasks which I have set.”

The warrior said, “Just tell them, O King, and I will do them immediately.”

The king said, “I have set aside three tents. In the first tent is a large barrel of alcohol: you must drink it all in one breath. You must immediately go to the second tent, in which there is a seven-foot gorilla who is crazy with toothache; you must find his bad tooth and pull it out with your bare hands. In the third tent, which you must go to immediately after, is an English lady who has been specially trained not to have an orgasm. You must satisfy her totally!”

“Yes, my King,” said the warrior. He went inside the first tent and drank the full barrel of alcohol in one mighty effort. He staggered out and went immediately into the next tent containing the mad gorilla. There was a terrible fight, the tent shook and the air was rent with screams and howling, large pieces of fur came flying out of the door, and a human ear.