Humor and spirituality
Humor is an integral part of spiritual life. If it becomes heavy, it is a sign that something is wrong. Note that, even in physical terms, the closer one gets to the center of the Earth, the less there is of "gravity." Why should it not be the same with this center of the Universe that is there, within us?
[Douglas Harding]
This luminous quote by Douglas Harding offers us an enlightening understanding, a path of reflection on the links that unite humor and spirituality. It is true that sometimes, the austerities of certain religious paths can mislead us about the relationship to the joy of living, to cheerfulness and laughter. Likewise, certain people who use egotistical humor in order to disrespect others have also diverted the primary objective of humor. The harp string breaks with the austerity of a life of suffering, and it emits no sound in the experience of the ego’s laughter, which seeks to protect itself from its existential anxiety. As the Buddha rightly said in his time: “To resonate best, it must be in the Middle.”
In the face of these extremes, there is therefore a middle path, followed by all authentic mystics around the world, and this for centuries. In many civilizations, laughter had its god, such as the god Hathor in Egypt. In the path of Hinduism, one of the "rasas" (aesthetic pleasure specific to the perception of works of art) is called "hasya," which means comic. In Africa too, laughter is a way of life; this proverb deserves to be revisited twice: "the white man has a watch, but he has no time." In many traditions and cultures, humor remains today a very practiced "sport." The mystics of Islam, the Sufis, joyfully use farcical stories about a character called Mulla Nasrudin, and in the Jewish Hassidic tradition, his equivalent is called Chra. Jewish humor needs no proof: "man thinks, God laughs." In the East, Buddhism abounds with stories and parables that allow disciples not to sink into gloom. Zen has in fact specialized in short parables called Koans, whose purpose is to destabilize the disciple's Ego and lead them toward awakening.
After this little tour of the world of spiritual humor, we will try to understand more deeply the “bio-psycho-spiritual” process that gives humor all its transcendent value.
1/ How does humor work on us?
From a physiological standpoint, laughter induced by humor first stimulates our muscular system, specifically the zygomatic muscles of the face, the thoracic cage, and the abdomen. Then, the cardiac and visceral muscles contract and relax, producing an internal massage effect and reducing any neuromuscular tension. From a respiratory perspective, laughter facilitates exhalation by engaging the expiratory muscles, and inhalation becomes deeper after laughing. Furthermore, laughter triggers the production of a hormone called endorphin, which has the property of reducing the effects of stress on the body.
On the psychic level, laughter activates certain areas of the brain located in the right hemisphere, the seat of creative intuition and, more generally, of spiritual tendencies. The left hemisphere of the brain, the seat of reasoning and the mental, cannot perceive the nuances of humor, because humor cannot be analyzed to reproduce its effects. Humor is spontaneous; it triggers all at once, like a psychic flash. The mind cannot grasp the whole; it requires a dual, binary mode of operation to apprehend it. Humor is a parasitization of the mind; it imposes a shift between the perception of an appearance and information that could be intelligible to the mind. Humor is a paradox; it has no formal logic. It is the mind that, in trying to understand something, neutralizes itself and faces an illogical response that triggers laughter.
They say that only ten people in the world understood Einstein.
No one understands me. Am I a genius?
Here is an example of a paradox necessary to produce a mental parasitism, a technique skillfully used by Zen masters. In the same spirit:
What happens to your fist when you open your hand?
The seemingly absurd appearance of Koans is intended to provoke a jolt in the mind of the one who reads them. To conceive the unconceivable, to imagine the impossible, such is the feat and the meaning of the Koan. At the moment you read a Koan, a bridge is created between your rationality and the spiritual part that resides within you. Some disciples are said to have attained enlightenment upon reading certain Koans. They shed light on our deep contradictions and illuminate our primal fears. When you read a Koan, for an instant you gain access to the understanding of the mind, through the metaphor of your confusion.
When an ordinary man attains knowledge, he is wise.
When a sage attains understanding, he is an ordinary man.
We will now see how humor, when well used, can serve as a springboard toward the awakening of the inner being. We will try to understand the subtle mechanisms it sets in motion, in order to lead us toward understanding…
2/ Humor, a springboard to awakening
When asked what his favorite hobby is, the Dalai Lama replies: “Laughter!”
Who has never known or seen these accomplished beings, with wide, childlike eyes, brimming with energy, sparkling with joy of life despite their advanced age, smiling, ready to bite into life, to fully enjoy the present moment? In their presence, these beings strip our minds of all preconceived notions and of all sufferances that are sometimes mere complaints of the Ego. They urge us to put our petty worries in perspective, to laugh at ourselves, to cultivate self-deprecation, and not to take ourselves too seriously. Their humor is never cutting; if they hurt us sometimes, it is because they aim at our chains, that prison we call the Ego.
At some point in our personal journey, we are confronted head-on with our Ego. This entity that constitutes our individuality sometimes takes on tyrannical forms, often inherited from our childhood wounds and emotional deprivations. It is not a matter of destroying the Ego; rather, it is crucial to establish an understanding of it. As Arnaud Desjardins said: “Before being nothing, one must first have been something.” Before transcending the ego stage, one must have experienced a solid Self, free from deficits, frustrations, and repressions. The Self is not merely an illusion to be eliminated at all costs, but rather a psychic instance that must be expanded in its exchange and participation with the vastness of the Soul (the instance of the fulfilled being). A “foundational” Self of the complete being, a conscious Self, that fully lives its individuation and allows the human being to access the next stage of their spiritual evolution, their total expansion.
Having reached this stage of understanding our childhood wounds, the Ego remains a trial to be endured. Humor comes here to refine the daily spiritual work. The humor used here has nothing to do with degrading jokes or aggressive, crude humor aimed at belittling others, all of which is nothing but a sad mask for egotistical frustration. No, spiritual humor is light and gentle; it shows us our shortcomings without harshness, it teaches through humility and allows us to access it. The primary technique to use is self-deprecation: it is an ability that consists of perceiving the remnants of our Ego within ourselves and, without following them, laughing at our momentary confusion. This laughter is a liberating letting go; the Ego falls silent and makes way for humility, which will allow compassion to emerge for this turbulent Self that acts without awareness. Self-deprecation is also not self-disrespect or the heightened cynicism of the depressed. One must once again exercise discernment and feel where the middle path lies.
Humor is also a means of teaching others. Thus, it can defuse a situation in which the Ego, frightened by the fear of dissolution, loses its footing and amplifies reality. Humor gives us the strength to reassure our loved ones about our situation and to reduce the stress caused by their worries about us. Humor is also a social asset that fosters connection between people: it serves to break the ice (as they say), an ice made up of the fear of the other, of the unknown.
Humor is therefore a precious tool for those who wish to progress on their spiritual path. The sincere practitioner cannot afford to overlook it; they must integrate this element into their being. Some practitioners remain sadly trapped in their spirituality, excluding themselves from the world in a nameless austerity, gradually withering until they are nothing but empty souls. They have been trapped by their Ego, which has found in the personality of a proselyte with rough skin a means of hegemonic survival. They are tarnished by dogma, which is often an egotistical bulwark against unresolved pulsional anxieties. They have confused the accessory with the essential, allowing themselves to be mystified by form at the expense of substance. It is this accessory form that is found in the intolerance of all forms of extremism, in exacerbated identity-based belonging, and in the obsessive cult of laws. The essential substance, however, remains that ineffable freshness of the accomplished being, which shows us not through its words but through its actions that having a sense of humor can be a beautiful proof of love.
published in the journal 3rd Millennium No. 76 NameBright - Coming Soon
