Wednesday January 31, we mark the anniversary of Mother’s Mahasamadhi. While it is certainly a solemn occasion to observe the time of Mother consciously leaving the body, and we certainly recognize the tremendous contribution Mother has made to our lives, what stands out to me in this moment is Mother’s sense of humor and fun—Mother’s laugh. The streets of Mother’s joy and wisdom often met at the intersection of laughter—using humor in her work as God’s minister, and purely in comical appreciation for the general human condition.
On one occasion Mother said,
“As many of you who see more of me perhaps than others do, you know that I have a tremendous sense of humor, and that I do a lot of wisecracking, and sometimes it seems to get out of control. This evening I was reading briefly out of a book called The Master Said, which told about incidents in my own Guru’s life. He said that when he was a boy, he used to laugh a lot, and that the saints he went to see just loved his laughter. I was thinking the other day that when I get up to the pearly gates, because I’ve laughed and joked so much and sometimes taken God along with me, that I might be in a little trouble with Him. Either He was going to say, “Well, here is this terrible person that didn’t hang her head in shame and think of all the sins she had committed and what not,” or He’s going to say, “Well, here comes this individual who doesn’t think she has to wear sackcloth and ashes all the time and starve the body and what not,” and maybe He’ll just welcome me into His arms. So this story reminded me of that. Master told about his going to all these saints and how they loved his laughter, but one saint said to him, “You know, I understand your laughter. But sometimes when you laugh like that so wholeheartedly, you annoy the other devotees.” And Master said to him, “But it is God who laughs.” And the saint said, “Yes, that is true. You may laugh if you wish.” [chuckles] So I take that.
Mother, Master and Papa all had a tremendous sense of fun—they could laugh at themselves as well as the recurring absurdities of life. Sri Yukteswarji also had a wonderful, sometimes wry sense of humor. After Sri Yukteswar was recovering from a serious illness, Master wrote:
“When I ventured a few words of sympathy over his emaciated figure, my guru said gaily: “It has its good points; I am able now to get into some small ganjis (undershirts) that I haven’t worn in years!”
Listening to Master’s jovial laugh, I remembered the words of St. Francis de Sales: “A saint that is sad is a sad saint!”
From a talk Mother gave, it shows her way of using humor to make a salient point with everyday imagery:
But, you know, there are a lot of people who just love to borrow trouble, so I brought along a little recipe for misery. (laughter) I thought I’d like to share it with you. If you’d like to take it down—if you have paper and pencil . . .. (laughter) It calls for one cup of guilt, one cup of dwelling on the past, one-half cup of plain “poor me”, a pinch of sarcasm, one tablespoon of criticism, one-fourth cup of blaming on others. Blend and let it set until the ego rises to double its size. (tremendous laughter) Divide it in equal portions and bake in a hot oven of judgment. (laughter) I think that’s beautiful.
As we know, Jesus was a master story-teller who made his points while giving memorable images to his listeners. Mother could also use funny stories to a wonderful, even to a devastating effect, as she did in telling this story….
“When you have final God realization, you see, one thing is like another to you. You cannot see any difference because there is God equally present everywhere. But our egos are so great, and we think that if we have accomplished a little something, that it is we who have done it. In truth, we have done nothing. It is God who has done all of it.
There was a very capable man, one day, who was a good businessman. He had talked to a great number of people, and his talk had been extremely successful. He was lauded as a wonderful orator, and everybody said what a wonderful speech he had given. The praise that was given to him was beyond description.
The next morning, he got up and he dressed. He was before the mirror shaving and combing his hair, when he really looked in the mirror. He said to his wife, “How many great men do you really think there are in the world?
His wife looked at him, and she said, “Well, I don’t know, but I can tell you one thing. There is one less than you think.”
I think that is a wonderful, wonderful story.”
While the path can be tough, keeping a sense of humor about our human condition helps ease us along the way, it makes us not take ourselves too seriously, and it can make a point to the other fellow in a way that may be of help—and do it with a laugh. You do not need to be the saint who goes around being sad, thinking that by doing so you are pleasing God, for that, indeed, would make you a sad saint. With love in our hearts, we strive to be more like our dear Mother, delightful Master and joyous Papa—we can clap our hands and ask, “What’s the fun?”