The fifth question:

Question 5

WHY DO YOU TELL JOKES? AND WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH AT YOUR OWN JOKES?

FIRST: Religion is a complicated joke. If you don't laugh at all you have missed the point; if you only laugh you have missed the point again. It is a very complicated joke. And the whole of life is a great cosmic joke. It is not a serious phenomenon -- take it seriously and you will go on missing it. It is understood only through laughter.

Have you not observed that man is the only animal who laughs? Aristotle says man is the rational animal. That may not be true -- because ants are very rational and bees are very rational. In fact, compared to ants, man looks almost irrational. And a computer is very rational -- compared to a computer, man is very irrational.

My definition of man is that man is the laughing animal. No computer laughs, no ant laughs, no bee laughs. If you come across a dog laughing you will be so scared! Or a buffalo suddenly laughs: you may have a heart attack. It is only man who can laugh, it is the highest peak of growth. And it is through laughter that you will reach to God -- because it is only through the highest that is in you that you can reach the ultimate. Laughter has to become the bridge.

Laugh your way to God. I don't say pray your way to God, I say laugh your way.to God. If you can laugh you will be able to love. If you can laugh you will be able to relax. Laughter relaxes like nothing else.

So all jokes to me are prayers -- that's why I tell them.

And you ask: WHY DON'T YOU LAUGH AT YOUR OWN JOKES?

Because I have heard them before.