The fifth question:

Question 5

WHY AM I SHOCKED VERY MUCH BY YOUR JOKES?

Now that's what I was saying just now -- you can make mountains out of molehills. You want to be shocked by something or other, and I am giving you so many shocks. Now you have to find something so that you can pinpoint, "This is why I am shocked." Your real reasons for being shocked may be different, but you cannot accept those.

For example, you may be a very, very orthodox Christian or Hindu or Mohammedan, but you cannot accept -- your ego does not allow that you are an orthodox Hindu. You are such a progressive man, such a revolutionary man. So when I say something against Hinduism you feel hurt. But you cannot say that you are feeling hurt, because you are such a progressive, revolutionary man. So you start searching -- something else has to be found as a scapegoat, as an excuse. Just look inside yourself

Jokes are just innocent. But there are other reasons also: you may be hearing in jokes something which is not there. You can go on listening to something which is not there. You can go on interpreting something which is not there.

Just listen to this joke.

Zacharias Werner, a romantic poet turned priest, and a former notorious transgressor, packed Vienna's churches in 1809 with his fiery sermons on carnal sin. One Sunday, he preached to a huge congregation a sermon on 'that tiny piece of flesh, that most dangerous appurtenance of a man's body'. Gentleman blanched, ladies blushed, as he elaborated on all the horrendous consequences of its misuse, his piercing eyes shooting sparks as he expounded graphically on and on.

Toward the end of his sermon, he leaned over the pulpit to scream at his listeners, "Shall I name you that tiny piece of flesh?" There was paralyzed silence. Smelling salts were extracted from the ladies' handbags. He leaned out farther, and his voice rose to a hoarse shout, "Shall I show you that tiny piece of flesh?" Horrified silence. Not a whisper or a rustle of a prayer book could be heard. Werner's voice dropped and a sly smile slid over his face. "Ladies and gentlemen, behold the source of our sins" -- and he stuck out his tongue.

You can go on thinking and thinking about something which is not there. It is your mind. No joke is dirty; there are only dirty minds. How can a joke be dirty? A joke is simply a joke. But there are dirty minds. Or... you may be just a middle-class bourgeoise.

"Dai, did you hear the news? Megan Evans is getting married."

"Indeed now! I did not even know she was pregnant!"

"Steady there Dai, Megan Evans is not pregnant."

"What! Getting married and not even pregnant? Bloody middle-class snobbery, that's what that is!"

It may be just bloody middle-class snobbery that you feel shocked. And you cannot connect religion with humor -- that is the problem. And you don't know that God loves jokes. I tell it to you from very reliable sources.... Whenever somebody becomes a Buddha and dies and goes to God, He says, "Now, please tell me some joke. What is happening there on the earth? How are things going?" And if you cannot tell a beautiful joke, you will feel very embarrassed.

You go on thinking that humor, laughter, is somehow irreligious, because you have been conditioned that way. Churches have become humorless. When you come to me, you come with all your ideas of how a Buddha should be. But your ideas of a Buddha are not really of a Buddha. Those are the ideas that you have gathered seeing a Catholic priest, or a Hindu swami, or a Jaina muni. You don't know anything about Buddhas, you don't know anything about Bodhidharma, you don't know anything about the real people of God. In their life experience the earth and sky are not separate, and the profane and the sacred are not separate. It is all one. The humor and the prayer are two aspects of the same spectrum.

Laughter is not irreligious. Laughter is one of the most evolved phenomena in human life. No other animal can laugh, it is only man; it is only man who can laugh.

You have to transform your laughter into prayer. Only YOU can transform. Certainly there is no other animal who is bored either. No other animal feels boredom. So these are the two specific things a human being can do: either he can feel bored, or he can feel laughter. The old religions have chosen boredom. I choose laughter. And I don't think that God should be very happy with your churches; they are creating such boredom. God must have more humor than your churches, otherwise He would not have created man at all. And He created man and told Adam, "Don't eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge," and then created a snake to seduce Adam, and created Eve, and created trouble.... He must have some humor.

This world is a great comedy. It is ridiculous!

Just listen to this joke.

A parish priest was having a game of golf with one of his parishioners one day. The priest teed-off first and sent his ball flying down the fairway.

"Good shot, Father," said the parishioner, who felt rather nervous as he was new to the game. He placed his ball on the tee, raised his club, swung and missed the ball.

"Jesus Christ, I missed!" he exclaimed.

"Don't blaspheme," said the priest. But the parishioner took several more swings at his ball and missed each time. And each time he exclaimed, "Jesus Christ, I missed!"

"Such blasphemous language is unforgivable," said the priest indignantly, "especially in front of a man of God. The next time you speak like that I will pray to God to strike you down."

The parishioner was fuming. He raised his club, swung wildly at the ball and missed it. He jumped up and down, threw his club on the ground and in a mad rage shouted, "Jesus Christ, I missed!" The priest looked up to heaven, joined his hands and started praying.

Suddenly, thunder roared, clouds rolled, and a large bolt of lightning came down and struck the priest, killing him. There was a moment's silence and then a voice boomed from the sky, "Jesus Christ, I missed!"