Laughter 273
It was known as Ananda Math – Joyful Monastery. Wise,
laughing saints sprang from there and they laughed their way to Nirvana. But it
all suddenly changed after the near-death experience of their abbot.
The abbot had died and was taken to the crematorium.
At the same time an Englishman’s body was brought there. A double miracle
happened. Both bodies came to life. But
unknown to all, the two souls had interchanged their bodies. The Englishman’s
soul found himself an abbot. He had been a famed sober, army accountant. He
found the laughter in the monastery too much for him. He found he had to do
something about this excessive laughter. He decreed a new law banning assemblage
of more than four monks.
But classes were allowed. So one
monk suggested that each write by turns a 1000 word, funny, religious story.
Another monk by name JayaraJ Ananda (known as JJ in short) wanted the length of
the story to be cut down by one thirds and asked his friend BollaBo (Bobo in
short) to calculate one third of 1000. Bobo, whose math was poor, arrived at
273. That proved to be the ideal number. Soon there was laughter again in the
monastery but now inside the classes instead of in the corridors. The exasperated
abbot died again of apoplexy.
He was again taken to the crematorium. Again a
miracle happened. The body of the monk turned Englishman arrived at the same
time. This time the god of death got his act right. But the laughter in the
monastery has dented a bit as the monks are busy tallying their newly
introduced account books.
Swami Sampurnananda,