202 (Jokes of Mulla Nasrudin)

CHAPTER 1

During his discourses on the AKSHYA UPANISHAD

”This is worth considering. It is significant. The first thing to understand is that except for man, no
animal is capable of laughter. So laughter shows a very high peak in the evolution of life. If you go
out on the street and see a buffalo laughing, you will be scared to death. And if you report it, then
nobody will believe that it can happen. It is impossible. Why don’t animals laugh? Why can’t trees
laugh?

There is a very deep cause for laughter. Only that animal can laugh which can get bored. Animals
and trees are not bored. Boredom and laughter are the polar dualities, these are the polar opposites.
They go together. And man is the only animal that is bored. Boredom is the symbol of humanity.
Look at dogs and cats; they are never bored. Man seems to be deep in boredom. Why aren’t other
animals bored? Why does man alone suffer boredom?

”The higher the intelligence, the greater is boredom. The lower intelligence is not bored so much.
That’s why primitives are happier. You will find people in the primi-tive societies are happier than
those in civilized ones. Bertrand Russel became jealous when for the first time, he came into contact
with some primitive tribes. He started feeling jealous. The aboriginals were so happy, they were not
bored at all. Life was a blessing to them. They were poor starved, almost naked. In every way, they
had noth-ing. But they were not bored with life. In Bombay, in New York, in London, everybody is
bored. The higher the level of intelligence and civilization, the greater the boredom.

”So the secret can be understood. The more you can think, the more you will be bored; because
through thinking you can compare time as past, future and present. Through thinking you can hope.
Through thinking you can ask for the meaning of it all. And the moment a person asks: ”What is
the meaning of it?” boredom enters, because there is no meaning in anything, really. If you ask the
question, ”What is the meaning of it?”, you will feel meaningless. And when meaninglessness is felt,
one will be bored. Animals are not bored. Trees are not bored. Rocks are not bored. They never ask what the meaning and purpose of life is. They never ask; so they never feel it is meaningless.

As they are, they accept it. As life is, it is accepted. There is no boredom. Man feels bored. And
laughter is the antidote. You cannot live without laughter; because you can negate your boredom
only through laughter. You cannot find a single joke in primitive societies. They don’t have any jokes.
Jews have the largest number of jokes. And they are the most bored people on the earth. They
must be bored; because they win more Nobel Prizes than any other community. During the whole
of the last century, all the great names are almost all Jews – Freud Einstein, Marx. And look at the
list of Nobel Prize winners. Almost half the Nobel Prize winners are Jews. They have the largest
number of jokes.

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