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Osho on Sufi Mystic Mulla Nasruddin
Enlightenment
Question : Beloved Osho, Did
Mulla Nasruddin
become enlightened?
Osho : He must have -- because if he is not
enlightened then nobody can be.
Mulla Nasruddin is a Sufi figure, one of the oldest figures of Sufi
anecdotes, and he shows whatsoever I have been saying here: that the world
is a cosmic joke -- he represents that. He is a very serious joker, and if
you can penetrate him and understand him, then many mysteries will be
revealed to you.
Mulla Nasruddin illustrates that the world is not a
tragedy but a comedy. And the world is a place where if you can learn
how to laugh you have learned everything. If your prayer cannot become a
deep laughter which comes from all over your being, if your prayer is sad
and if you cannot joke with your god, then you are not really religious.
Christians, Jews and Mohammedans are very serious about their god; Hindus
are not, they have joked a lot. And that shows how much they believe --
because when you cannot joke with your god you don't believe in him. You
feel that through your humor, your joke, he will be insulted.
Your belief is shallow, it is not deep enough. Hindus say that the trust is
so much that they can laugh; the trust is so much that just by laughing it
cannot be broken.One Buddhist, Bodhidharma, one of the greatest followers of
Buddha, used to say to his disciples, "Whenever you take the name of Buddha
immediately rinse out your mouth, because this name is dangerous and it
makes the mouth impure."
Another Buddhist monk, Bokuju, used to tell his disciples, "While
meditating, if this fellow Gautam Buddha comes in kill him immediately,
because once you allow him then he will cling to you and it will be
difficult to be alone." And they were great followers, they loved Buddha --
but they could laugh.
Why? The love was so intimate, so close, that there was no danger that
something might be taken wrongly. But Christians have always been afraid, so
immediately anything becomes blasphemy -- anything. They cannot take
anything humorously, and if you cannot take anything humorously, if you
cannot laugh at yourself, at your god, then you are ill, you are not at
home, and your god is something to be feared.
In English we have a word, God-fearing, for religious people. A God-fearing
person can never be religious, because if you fear God you cannot love him.
Love and fear cannot exist together. With fear, hate can exist, love cannot;
with fear, anger can exist, love cannot; with fear you can bow down but you
cannot surrender; with fear there can be a relationship between a slave and
a master but there cannot be a love relationship.
Hindus, Buddhists have a totally different attitude, and that attitude is
different because they think the whole existence is a cosmic play, you can
be playful. Sufis are very playful; they created Mulla Nasruddin. And Mulla
Nasruddin is an alive figure, you can go on adding to him -- I go on adding.
If some day he meets me there is bound to be difficulty, because I go on
creating around him.
To me he is a constantly alive figure, in many ways symbolic -- symbolic of
human stupidity. But he knows it and he laughs at it, and whenever he
behaves like a stupid man he is just joking at you, at human beings at
large.
And he is subtle enough. He will not hit you directly, he hits himself; but
if you can penetrate him then you can look at the reality. And sometimes
even great scriptures cannot go as deep as a joke can go, because the joke
directly touches the heart.
A scripture goes into the head, into the intellect; a joke directly touches
the heart. Immediately something explodes within you and becomes your smile
and your laughter. Nasruddin must have attained enlightenment, or he is
already an enlightened figure, there is no need to attain. I go on using him
just to give you a feeling that to me religion is not serious. So I go on
mixing Mulla Nasruddin with Mahavira -- which is impossible, poles apart.
I go on mixing Mulla Nasruddin with the Upanishads,
because he gives a sweetness to the whole serious thing. And nothing
is serious, nothing should be serious. To me, to laugh wholeheartedly is the
greatest celebration that can happen to a man -- to laugh wholeheartedly, to
become the laughter. Then no meditation is needed, it is enough.
I will take one or two anecdotes from Nasruddin.
Once it happened that Nasruddin and his friend Sheikh Abdullah lost their
way in a forest. They tried and tried to find their way but then evening
came, the night was descending, so they had to wait for the whole night
under a tree. It was dangerous ground, there were many wild animals, and
they had to keep awake because any moment they could be killed.
They tried every way to keep awake, but Mulla was tired, yawning, feeling
sleepy, so he said to Sheikh Abdullah, "Invent something, because I am
feeling sleepy and it seems impossible now to stay awake. The whole day we
were traveling, and I am tired."
Sheikh Abdullah asked, "What should I do?"
Nasruddin said, "We should play a game, a game of guessing. You describe a
film actress -- just become the film actress and describe -- and I will
guess who this film actress is. Then I will do the same and you guess."
Even Abdullah became interested, it seemed to be a good game. So Abdullah
said, "Okay." He contemplated and then he said, "My eyes are like Noor Jahan,
my nose is like Cleopatra, my lips like Marilyn Monroe," and so on and so
forth.
Mulla Nasruddin became very excited, his blood pressure rose high. Even in
the dark you could have seen his eyes, they became so fiery. And then when
Sheikh Abdullah said, "Now the measurements of my body -- thirty-six,
twenty-four, thirty-six." Nasruddin jumped over to Sheikh Abdullah. Sheikh
Abdullah said, "Wait, guess!"
Nasruddin said, "Who is bothered about guessing? I don't care who you are.
Quick! Kiss me!"
The human mind is such -- imagination, desire, passion, projection. You
project, you imagine, and then you become the victim. And this is not a
joke, this is reality -- and this is about you.
Enough for today.
Source: from book "Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi" by Osho
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Osho - Why so many Jokes about Polacks
Osho Jokes on Mulla Nasruddin
Part 1,
Part2,
Part 3
What is the most
stupid thing Mulla Nasrudin ever did
Laughter is
very essence of religion. Seriousness is never Religious
Osho - My whole teaching is Celebration;
not worship but Celebration
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