True laughter in life

 

If you ever happen to meet God, do you know what you would tell him? “Oh, I have met you inside.” God will dance with you when the day dawns in laughter and love. True prayer is laughing in the morning. Don’t just be laughing outside but from deep inside. Laughter comes from the centre of our being, from the core of our heart. True laughter is true prayer.

When you laugh, the whole world laughs with you. It echoes and resounds and that is really the worth of life. When things go all right, everybody can laugh; but when everything falls apart, and then if you can laugh, that is evolution and growth. So, there is nothing in life that is more worthy than your laughter. Never lose it for anything, whatsoever. Events come and go. Some are a little pleasant, some are unpleasant; but there is some area deep in you that is left untouched. Hold on to that.

And anytime we don’t feel up to that untouched innocence, what do we do? You can attend to several layers of your own existence. First, the body – see if you have had good rest, proper food and some exercise. Then attend to the breath. Every mood of the mind has a definite rhythm in the breath. By attending to the rhythm in the breath, the mind and body can be elevated.

Observe the sensation and feeling in the body. Observing thoughts as thoughts, emotions as emotions, opens us to our true self, the godliness within us. The very observation changes it. When you do this, all that is negative falls away. 

The nature of positive emotions is to grow. If you observe your emotions (anger) when you are angry, anger will fall away. And if you observe if there is love, love grows.

That is the best and only way. Observe that thoughts come, and they pass. We need to be able to see things as they are, objectively or totally subjectively. That essence in life, when it blooms from within, allows true laughter in life.

Miracles are happening every moment

Nothing is permanent in this world, everything is changing. When you think you are right, often you think others are wrong and you feel angry. If you feel others are right, often you think you are wrong and you feel guilty, sad and miserable. In both cases, you lose balance. The mind vacillates between this duality. The whole purpose of life is to get out of this duality. That is moksha. So swallow these incidents as bitter pills in life. 

In Rudram (a hymn dedicated to Rudra from the Yajurveda), it is said that in this world, there are all types of people. There are people who betray, people who are not faithful, people who don’t keep to their word etc. Sometimes your own mind goes up and down. There could be a million reasons for you to feel down on the planet. Anything can pull you down, because things are not happening the way you want them to. Using knowledge, just sail over it all.

When your heart is filled with love, and compassion, you are so powerful. Never underestimate yourself. Miracles are in abundance! Everyone has had some miracle or the other in life. We don’t look for it, they just happen. Ask, and it shall be given. Ask and ask with faith. Every moment there is a miracle happening; every moment, there is grace. Even if something appears to be not so good for the moment, in the long run, something good comes out of it.

When Sri Rama was building the bridge to Sri Lanka, a lot of monkeys were helping him. The monkeys wrote “Sri Rama” on the stones and placed them in the ocean and the stones would float. When Sri Rama saw this, he wanted to try it himself. He wrote Sri Rama on a stone and put it in the water. The stone sank! Sri Rama was surprised. 

One monkey started laughing and said to Sri Rama, ‘Those who you throw away from your hands, how will they float? They will only sink!’ This has a spiritual significance. When the name of the Lord is with you, you will float through the ocean of misery; you won’t sink in the world of misery. And second, that devotees are so much more powerful than the Lord himself; devotees can do so much more than the Lord himself.

So you don’t need to get stuck in material belief only. Physical laws are there, but there is something higher than them. There is something higher than the obviously seen physical creation of names and forms. The understanding of consciousness – mind over matter, and consciousness over physical reality, is what we need to attend to. So don’t underestimate your love, your faith and your strength. All that we need to do is to keep our heart clean.