A Fool for Heaven’s Sake - September 2021
The guru said, “How can you smile when the world is so full of suffering?” And the disciple answered, “Will me being miserable make the world a better place?” And the guru smiled! In the smile the corners of the mouth rise upwards lifting one’s spirit above the turmoil of human living with its interweaving tapestry of happiness and tragedy, and this both symbolically and literally. Humour is one of the universal characteristics of the human condition. It transcends all cultures, civilisations – and time itself. In fact the human being has been called ‘the laughing animal’. Perhaps this makes us wonder if Blavatsky’s description of man as ‘an animal plus a living god’ is telling us that humour and laughter can indicate the presence of the divine in us all.
It is so interesting to ponder on humour. For most of humanity, humour – the act of smiling and laughing – is an emotional release, severing us from the error of personal self-importance. Humour, in its bawdy aspect, links us (via unmentionable bodily functions) to all other people and the frailties of human nature. It is the great leveller. It is why almost the most important person in the court of kings and emperors was the jester or fool, who was the paid stand-up comedian of their day. Only the jester could speak truth to power and get away with it (usually!).
Like everything else in the universe, humour is evolving. In the period of self-centred personality, the tendency of humour is to laugh AT someone else or another group, thereby attempting to enhance one’s own sense of self-worth and prestige at the expense and denigration of the other, and in the process magnifying the sense of separateness. We can all think of the myriad (and tired) jokes that exemplify this. But humour changes as we evolve and start to touch the soul. Then the only people we laugh at are ourselves. Others we laugh WITH. This inspires a wonderful togetherness that is, more seriously, called right relationships. In fact it is interesting to note how the Tibetan teacher who inspired the Triangles movement sometimes enjoys a subtle sense of humour as illustrated by his punning comment on treading the noble eightfold path, that it “involves the reaching of a right mental altitude. Yes, I said altitude, my brothers, and not attitude”.
Humour is indeed one of the rungs on the ladder towards the soul. The misery of the isolated self evaporates in the presence of laughter. Perhaps this is the message for us all to be ‘fools for Christ’s sake’. For it is the fool who becomes “wise in Christ” 1.
1 The Bible, Corinthians 1, 4:10