CURRICULUM OF THE SUFI ORDER

The teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Presented and paraphrased by Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Including parallels with the ancient Sufis

LESSON 17
LAUGH THERAPY:
The Smiling Forehead

What makes my feeling heart to laugh and to cry?

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Some Hindu sanyasins, Buddhist lamas and nuns, Christian monks and nuns, schedule half an hour or one hour a day to simply laugh for no apparent reason. Similarly, some updated doctors and psychotherapists have been convoking their patients for routine therapeutic laughter every morning.

Scientific research has demonstrated the physical effect of laughter on the hormones administered by the endocrine glands down the axis: pituitary, thyroid, cardiac, solar plexus, sub-renal and reproductive system glands. Our mind then has a choice in determining whether the outburst of energy thus catalyzed by our wit or realization will lead to action, help us deal with overstress, challenge ourselves to accept the unacceptable, and whether we are able to process this boost to both our psyche and body in exploring higher levels of thinking and realization.

?PRACTICE:

In order to relax - as a preparation for your morning meditation by dismissing afflicting or angry emotions - choose a different joke to read every day. There is a fair store of these in magazines like "Reader's Digest" (although all are not that funny!)

Norman Cousins gained remission of cancer, leaving the hospital and spending his time watching Laurel and Hardy and the like. (I cannot say they would amuse me.) But he died a few years later of a heart attack. Could it be owing to an overdose of laughter while denying psychological pain?

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

Should one laugh all the time? When there is a time proper to it, then you talk and chum and laugh and joke. And then there is another time, then you are in that attitude which is due to that time. (Sangatha II)

The Hassidim spark laughter in their witticisms. The Sufis in their Nazruddin tall stories (the subtlety of whose wit is mostly questionable) expose incongruity.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

One can know the grade of a person's evolution by knowing what causes him to laugh and what causes him to cry. Every person is tuned to a certain pitch, and that which causes a person to laugh or weep must be in some way in accordance with his pitch. Therefore, that which makes a silly person laugh does not always cause laughter in others, and what makes a simple person weep does not make the slightest effect upon the wise. (Sangatha I)

?PRACTICE:

Better still: try to invent a funny story yourself. For example, practice telling a hilarious bed-time story to your children (or grandchildren) by plunging into their thinking. The unconcerned joy of youth hands one the key to laugh therapy as one grows up, as concerns build up and thwart that youthful spontaneity.?

Many a jester is a sage who can reach into the minds of people that a guru could not reach and make a point digestible by spinning a riddle.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

?The person who has wit and a keen perception, who can express himself well, who understands quickly, that is the person who attracts others around him and is liked by everyone. (Healing and the Mind World.) Humor is the reflection of that divine life and sun which makes life like the day. And a person who reflects divine wisdom and divine joy, adds to the expression of his thought when he expresses his ideas with mirth. (Path of Initiation.) Humor is the sign of light; when the light from above touches the mind it tickles the mind, and it is the tickling of mind which produces humor. (Supplementary Papers.) The mentality of the witty person can be called a dancing mind, and to have a witty mind is a wonderful manifestation of nature; it is a great quality. A witty person can make words dance; his phrases can give us the joy of a symphony. (Philosophy, Psychology and Mysticism)

However one does not have to depend for one's joy on a joke, particularly as one rarely finds the joke (including one's own) particularly brilliant. But if one laughs for no reason then it does not matter if the joke is brilliant or not. In fact does one need to have a reason? It seems so stupid to laugh without reason that it is itself a banter upon one's ego, not taking oneself too seriously to laugh all the same.

?PRACTICE:

Try to practice laughing for a few moments every day without reason, however stupid it may seem - even deriding yourself at that very stupidity.

One can laugh in resonance with the laughter of another even though one does not find the thought funny.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

We sometimes laugh without reason seeing the intensity of another person's laughter. (Spiritual Liberty)

Sometimes the sheer unawareness in people's behavior, and more so, realizing one's own incongruities, stirs one's mirth.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

Once I saw a Madzub, a man who pretends to be insane, who though living in the world does not wish to be of the world, standing in the street of a large city, laughing. I stood there, feeling curious to know what made him laugh at that moment. And I understood that it was the sight of so many drunken men, each one having had his particular wine. (The Path of Initiation; Sufi Poetry.) Everything made him laugh, the rushing of the people, so absorbed and involved in their little fancies and interests in life, the great importance that every person gave to the little things of life which amount to very little in the end, and to see them so excited and so absorbed in their little fancies, that was enough for the Madzub to laugh and amuse himself. Anyone tuned to the pitch, seeing from there how it looks, before him it was a doll's play. (Sangatha III.)

Was it not laughable? Every person thinking his particular point of view to be the most important, pushing others away because he finds his action the most important!

Our humor is titillated when our minds grasp the absurdity of a situation, ridiculous inappropriateness or pertinent violation of congruity that is normally taken for granted, for example, in a pun where similarities prove to be incompatible and the mind is trying to force itself to reconcile ideas whose congruence is misleadingly spurious. An example would be mixed metaphors: trying to make a fact fit into a fictitious metaphysical framework.

One could say that laughter is spotting and debunking contradictions, ridiculing flaws in consistency in which people fool others or themselves. It is unmasking the hoax that is precisely what is meant by maya. Its magic is in revealing the truth that we had concealed or failed to grasp. That magical moment is described as the instant when the penny drops. In fact it is this that defines awakening. The password is "aha;" that is the mantram of the future.

?PRACTICE:

Try to espy the contradictions in what a person says and does. This will put you on the spurs of incongruities that try to escape detection. If you are able to dismiss your ego sufficiently to flash the beam of your insight into unavowed reaches or your own unconscious, you may uncover covert, concealed contradictions undiscovered so far. No sooner you have reconnoitered them, you will exult in a most wonderful sense of freedom from something that had been bugging you up to this crucial moment of truth. You are enjoying a foretaste of awakening.

What is more serious is that a large percentage of jokes are satires: deriding others. Some people pride themselves in scoffing at others and their inconsistencies and naivety. It is unkind to wreak derision in a smirk on fellow beings awkwardly trying to validate themselves in a way that verges on the ridiculous. Moreover, beware of slipping into frivolity or facetiousness. An example given in Nazruddin Sufi stories is cutting the branch of a tree on which one is sitting, or lying on a branch the whole night whereas the ground is only a few feet underneath one. Sneering at others for one's own ego-satisfaction is not the most savory humor. It is called cynicism; in fact it is sadism, insidious cruelty.

Laughter is a physiological response to a strong emotion triggered by judgment. However, if one laughs and still respects one's fellow beings, one can be aware of their inconsistencies without being judgmental because one recognizes the selfsame incongruities in oneself.

?PRACTICE:

This is really important to do every day as a meditation theme. Recognize the flaws and inconsistencies of people around you without being judgmental of them.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

This does not mean that the sage becomes critical, that he sneers at life. No, he sees the funny side of things because the sneering world is always ready to laugh at what it does not understand. (Social Gathekas.) Then he becomes as a little child, eager to play, ready to laugh, happy among children; he shows in his personality childlike traits, especially that look one sees in children. (The Way of Illumination.) If we do not attach ourselves seriously to things then those things laugh at us. (Healing and the Mind World)

It is difficult to enjoy carefree joy while being aware of the sufferings of thousands of people in the world being incarcerated and tortured today in concentration camps, sometimes owing to a miscarriage of justice, or considering the plight of refugees, millions suffering from starvation, misery, or mental aberrations, or hearing of women and children abused or murdered for lust - unbelievable barbaric brutality in atrocities beyond the pale.

Most people carry a wound in their heart, some more painful, some less, perhaps together with a modicum of joy. Some are in despair for having to put up with unbearable situations from which there is no escape. Some are tormented because they feel that they have failed to fulfill the purpose of their lives. There are numerous causes for the wounds of the heart.

I keep on continually thinking of that beautiful, noble, idealistic being, Noor, my sister, our little mother when my mother was ill. She played the harp, wrote children's stories, and planned to create a magazine called "Nouvel Age" (New Age) shortly before we heard Hitler's voice on the radio saying, "My patience is exhausted. I am declaring war."

Can you imagine how terrified you would be finding a Nazi hiding in your room, waiting to arrest you, drag you away with manacles, trap you in prison in chains - alienated from your friends, starved, without heating, then tortured to death - all of this because you had compassion for the Jews who were subjected to outrageous atrocities?

As I get older, I increasingly put myself in Noor's place and relive more details of her ordeal. If I am hungry I can eat; I imagine her being given a bowl of soup a day made of potato peel that burnt her stomach. When I walk, I imagine her trying to walk dragging her chains. If I have pain, I can take a painkiller; she could not. I can have a warm bath, she had a cold faucet and no heating in the cold winter. I can communicate with people, loved ones; she was isolated in a cell. In the concentration camp at Dachau, she had to sleep lying on the concrete floor in the cold without cover. The Gauleiter kept on kicking her with his boots. Then she was shot in the head and was still moving when she was thrown in the furnace.

Today there are many political prisoners subjected to like cruelty.

I have been reasoned with many times: she is now liberated and exulting in a world of light. But the unconscious does not fit into reason when one carries a wound in one's heart.

Admittedly, to relive those horrors seems like a counter-productive thought, while one can well imagine that she has overcome it. The wounds in one' psyche need to be dealt with painstakingly. Extreme grief is one of the causes of cancer. (I hope you will forgive me for bringing up something so acutely personal. I am talking from personal experience since my dealing with cancer is real, not pedantic theory, and may prove significant for others.)

Can laugh therapy heal in this case? Can one enjoy bliss when all around people are suffering?

Why have I been resisting laughter, particularly when it seems facetious? Actually I found that I could joke for the sake of giving joy to others but found it difficult to apply it to myself. The answer flung up: because it seemed to be disloyal to my mourning for Noor and my mother (and the tragedies of my own life).

Yet even the slightest flash of joy is a safety buoy from the darkness of despair.

Gandhi:

?Divine guidance often comes when the horizon is the blackest.

Suleiman Grosslight:

?Against the dark wrapping the finger-prints may appear luminous!

It is just like when a beam of sunshine breaks through the clouds. This is the message that came through in Dachau when, sharing with Ophiel, I was conducting the B-Minor Mass of Bach. The picture of Noor was right in front of me. I asked myself whether she is aware of what we are doing. In fact, the question whether one survives death was rife in the soul-searching of many minds. I thought, "If only you would give us a sign!" The effigy on the picture seemed to me to move into a Mona Lisa smile. I cautioned myself whether this could be wishful thinking. "Please give a more tangible sign irrespective of my personal bias so that everyone can witness it!" This was just as I was conducting the Resurrexit of the Mass. It was a grey day. All of a sudden a beam of light flashed through, breaking through the clouds, just for a short while.

The secret is to bring a glimpse of heaven in hell.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

It [the outlook on life] can turn hell into heaven, it can turn sorrow into joy. (Social and Religious Gathekas). The condition of the soul can turn any place into heaven. Not only the earth but even hell could be turned into heaven. (Spiritual Liberty)

Bringing heaven into hell happened when a priest celebrated mass in a concentration camp, was beaten up by the Nazis and, crawling back wounded, maimed, continued celebrating the mass with even more fervor. It is here that the helping hand - the therapy - is to be found.

Are there limits to suffering and distress? We may assume that we have reached limits in our own pain or suffering. But can we have any idea of the suffering of a person who is tortured in prison? Our thoughts are filled with horror. However, there is a threshold where suffering is released into ecstasy that one could only experience for having reached those excesses of horror and terror.

I met a lady who had met Noor during the resistance, and who was so badly battered by a Gauleiter - her skull trepanated - that she was thought dead and thrown in a morgue. Here she was smiling as she talked to me, the happiest person I have ever met in my life. She said: You look at your torturer from another dimension and think, how stupid you are that you think you can hurt me by torturing me. Islam says: They thought they killed Christ, but they only grabbed his body. One has turned the tables on despair and pain has sparked joy.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:?

Ecstasy is freedom from one's dependence upon one's bodiness, one's ordinary thinking, one's personal emotions and one's identity.

When I laugh then I cry. (Nirtan)

One might equally say: Joy is my saving grace when the sunshine of a smile erupts through my tears.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

A person who is able to cry and not able to laugh - that person does not know mastery. The mystic rises beyond the tears after shedding enough.

Pain may aver itself to be the catalyst that triggers off joy.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

The cry of agony which comes from the depth of the heart may be a sound of the greatest beauty.... There are moments of intense feeling when pain and joy meet, and one cannot distinguish where one ends and the other begins; they have their meeting place in the heart of man. Pain is like the herb in the hands of the great Transmuter, the divine Alchemist; falling on the melted silver of the heart it turns it into the purest gold, and renders the heart of man more fitting to be the altar of God. (Sufi Teachings; Spiritual Healing)

Do we realize that the beauty of the mountains is born out of dramatic convulsions, the heaving of the earth in its travail, and that the splendor of the galaxies is born out of incredible disturbances, collisions of galaxies, humongous space-ranges defying our mind. We are born out of the cosmic drama and often discover beauty emerging out of the pangs of childbirth. So it is with our psyche that can become beautiful through stress and unfavorable circumstances or could alternately become bitter if one does not realize the importance of stress and distress.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

?Death is my live, indeed, when I live, then I die. (Nirtan)

One could equally say, "When I die to my illusory self and when I unmask the illusion that causes my self-pity, that is when I live for the first time." When one has overcome one's self-pity, one has turned the tables on despair. Now one can laugh with abandon. Pain in sympathetic resonance with suffering of another purifies the heart. Self-pity can make one bitter, resentful, cantankerous.

?PRACTICE:

Cross-examine yourself. If you can judge that people are behaving badly, selfishly, unscrupulously, can you ascertain that no matter how they behave you handle things beautifully.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

If somebody behaves selfishly towards one, one may take it naturally, because it is human nature to be selfish, and so one is not disappointed; but if one appears oneself to be selfish, one should take oneself to task and try to improve.

THE ULTIMATE THERAPY

Now, once on the laugh azimuth, spurs into further horizons of laughter lie open. The therapeutic laugh is to realize how stupid one has oneself been. The fine point of wit is to laugh at one's own stupidity, naivety, and inconsistencies. Please excuse the forthcoming upfront witticism - no offense - we are stalking laugh-therapy.

?PRACTICE:

This is the ultimate test on one's ego. Have you overcome your ego sufficiently to have the courage to do this? Keep uncovering those situations in one's life where one handled situations in a way that reveals how inconsistent one was. Now one can laugh at oneself instead of others.

Hazrat Inayat Khan:

If one does not attach oneself seriously to things, then those things laugh at us. (Healing and the Mind World).

How could one know that one was stupid unless one had been stupid? Therefore it is even more stupid to regret one's stupidity; rather one should rejoice that it was one's stupidity that sparked one's realization!

The trouble is that in one's jubilation at discovering how stupid one has been (which bodes well for reforming one' s ways in the future), there is a catch 22, because the ultimate stupidity is to assume that, having realized how stupid one has been, one presumes that one is not stupid anymore! Acknowledging how ludicrous and counterproductive were one's inappropriate handlings of situations in the past does not guarantee one will be aware of the same in the future. That is why Zen masters declaim as the ultimate, utmost stupidity, claiming to have attained illumination.

PS. It is intriguing that in the process of stalking humor, for the purpose of therapy, an uncalled for choice joked to spark my laughter, urging me to really apply the laugh therapy that has snuck into the wheels: when reading the text on Laugh Therapy dictated to my secretary, I noticed that she typed 'Love Therapy' instead of 'Laugh Therapy!!!'

 
