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Traditional religion can take itself all too seriously…

• To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs. Sri Aurobindo
• The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature. Alfred North Whitehead
• But Jesus has been depicted as a serious man. And Christians say he never laughed. Then what is the function of an Enlightened man? If Jesus cannot laugh, then who is going to laugh in this world? Rajneesh

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…attributing laughter to God of only the cruel kind…

• The wicked plot against the righteous,
  and gnash their teeth at them;
  but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
  for he sees that their day is coming.
  Psalm 37
• They return at evening,
  snarling like dogs,
  and prowl about the city.
  See what they spew from their mouths—
  the words from their lips are sharp as swords,
  and they think, “Who can hear us?”
  But you laugh at them, Lord;
  you scoff at all those nations.
  Psalm 59
• He whose throne is in heaven is laughing; The Lord has them in derision. Psalm 2
• God will not pity them, but “laugh at their calamity.” The blessed company in heaven shall rejoice in the execution of God’s righteous judgment, and sing while the smoke riseth up for ever. Thomas Boston
• God still laughs caustically. God still bares teeth like a dog and foams rabidly at the mouth. Lauren F. Winner
• Humour is but the faint terrestrial echo of the hideous laughter of the blind mad gods that squat leeringly and sardonically in caverns beyond the Milky Way. It is a hollow thing, sweet on the outside, but filled with the pathos of fruitless aspiration. P. Lovecraft
• This world is a vaporous jest at best, Tossed off by the gods in laughter, And a cruel attempt at wit were it, If nothing better came after. Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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…or, even worse, attributing seriousness to God and humour to the devil

• I don’t suppose God laughs at the people who think He doesn’t exist. He’s above jokes. But the devil isn’t. That’s one of his most endearing qualities. Robertson Davies

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Surely its truer to say God has a tremendous sense of humour

• If there is a god, I think he has a sense of humour. He does not require human beings to protect him from satire. James K. Morrow
• God’s laughing at us; God’s laughing at God. We can take a joke too. We’re pretty funny. Frederick Lenz
• I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that he has a sense of humour. William Ralph Inge
• God has a tremendous sense of humor! Religion remains something dead without a sense of humor as a foundation to it. God would not have been able to create the world if he had no sense of humor. God is not serious at all. Seriousness is a state of disease; humor is health. Love, laughter, life, they are aspects of the same energy. Rajneesh
• A lot of people say, ‘Hey, God doesn’t have a sense of humor.’ Yes, He does. God has a great sense of humor. Si Robertson
• I think God has got a sense of humor. I really do. Dabo Swinney
• God has a most wicked sense of humor. Maureen O’Hara
• I don’t believe you really know God if you do not recognize His sense of humor. Robert Breault
• I think God has a tremendous sense of humor. Rainn Wilson
• There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God. Bill Cosby

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In fact, God may even be seen as a veritable comedian

• God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. Voltaire
• Down deep in His heart God is a comedian who loves to make us laugh. Arthur Miller
• The true art of the gods is the comic. Isak Dinesen

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God’s sense of humour is clear to see in what God has created, including us

• Humor must be one of the chief attributes of God. Plants and animals that are distinctly humorous in form and characteristics are God’s jokes. Mark Twain
• The pug is living proof that God has a sense of humor. Margo Kaufman
• God likes a little humor, as is evidence by the fact that he made the monkeys, the parrot — and some of you people. Billy Sunday
• Laughter is wholesome. God is not so dull as some people make out. Did not He make the kitten to chase its tail. Heinrich Heine
• Don’t be more serious than God. God invented dog farts. God designed your body’s plumbing system. God designed an ostrich. If He didn’t do it, He permitted a drunken angel to do it. Empirical facts can add significantly to the meaning of “being godlike”. Peter Kreeft
• If God makes all our faces, did he laugh when he made me? Amy Harmon
• You’re proof that god has a sense of humor.
• Does God have a sense of humor? He must have if He created us. Jackie Gleason
• God has a sense of humor. If you don’t believe me, tomorrow go to wal-mart and just look at people. Carlos Mencia
• God invented mankind because he loved silly stories. Ralph Steadman I Jimmy Fallon

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God loves a belly laugh…

• I believe that laughter is a language of God and that we can all live happily ever laughter. Yakov Smirnoff
• There was the sound of thunder, the loud uncontrollable laughter of God, and in his side like an incurred stitch, Jesus. R. S. Thomas
• Beware the god who cannot laugh. Alain de Benoist
• I guess sometimes God just needs to laugh. Zach Braff
• The soul will bring forth Person if God laughs into her and she laughs back to him. To speak in parable, the Father laughs into the Son and the Son laughs back to the Father; and this laughter breeds liking and liking breeds joy, and joy begets love, and love begets Person, and Person begets the Holy Ghost. Meister Eckhart
• Uncontrollable laughter arose among the blessed gods. Homer

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…especially when we have the vanity to think we are in control of it all…

• Every time I make a plan, God laughs at me. Jason Isaacs
• If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. Woody Allen
• God howls with laughter at earthly plans, you know? Rick Moody
• If you want to see God laugh, make a plan. Jodi Picoult
• How to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans. Marian Keyes
• The god of theater laughs in your face at planning. Ruth Negga
• Man makes plans . . . and God laughs. Michael Chabon
• Man plans. God laughs. Harlan Coben
• People plan, God laughs. Nicholas Sparks
• God laughs at men’s plans. Larry Gatlin
• I sit and talk to God, and he just laughs at my plans. Robbie Williams
• They say God laughs when you make plans, that’s why I make appointments and sometimes reschedule. Behdad Sami
• What makes God laugh is people who make plans. Nicolas Roeg
• How to make God laugh: Tell him your future plans. Woody Allen
• Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh. Al Swearengen
• Funny, isn’t it, how your whole life goes by while you think you’re only planning the way you’re going to live it? Edna Ferber
• I try not to make plans. God always laughs at your plans. I’m going to keep the door open, and keep the page blank, and see what gets painted upon it. Tom Hiddleston
• I try not to make plans. God always laughs at your plans. Tom Hiddleston
• Life is funny isn’t it? Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, just when you finally begin to plan something, get excited about something, and feel like you know what direction you’re heading in, the paths change, the signs change, the wind blows the other way, north is suddenly south, and east is west, and you’re lost. It is so easy to lose your way, to lose direction. And that’s with following all the signposts. Cecelia Ahern

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…or when we think we have it all figured out…

• Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. Albert Einstein
• Just when I discovered the meaning of life, [God went and] changed it. George Carlin
• Life is a funny thing, the minute you think you’ve got everything figured out something comes along and turns it all upside down. Zayn Malik
• Life seemed to be an educator’s practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong. Russell Baker

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…or when we behave pompously

• And God ‘sits in the heavens and laughs’ at the proud who pretend to be more than they are. Gabriel Fackre
• Life is funny and we are really funny, especially when we get to be hoity toity; we can be so ridiculous. Life is fun. Desmond Tutu

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Yes, indeed, God loves a good joke…

• God always has another custard pie up His sleeve. Lynn Redgrave
• God is always joking. Look at your own life – it is a joke! Look at other people’s lives, and you will find jokes and jokes and jokes. Seriousness is illness; seriousness has nothing spiritual about it. Spirituality is laughter, spirituality is joy, spirituality is fun. Rajneesh
• If there’s one thing I know it’s God does love a good joke. Hugh Elliot
• The gods too are fond of a joke. Aristotle
• Even the gods love jokes. Plato
• Life is a jest of the Gods. Bernard Cornwell
• Suppose the world were only one of God’s jokes, would you work any the less to make it a good joke instead of a bad one? George Bernard Shaw
• You find out that the universe is a system that creeps up on itself and says ‘Boo’ and then laughs at itself for jumping. Alan Watts
• A world like that, which exists only because the gods enjoy a joke, must be a place where magic can survive. And sex too, of course. Terry Pratchett
• I have never been able to see life as anything but a vast complicated practical joke, and it’s better to laugh than cry. Robert A. Heinlein
• Life is a joke that’s just begun. S. Gilbert

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… and loves to play jokes on us…

• Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me. Robert Frost
• Sometimes it feels like God has reached down and touched me, blessed me a thousand times over, and sometimes it all feels like a mean joke. Anne Lamott
• In life there are always these things happening if you can just get the joke. Lynda Barry
• Life plays the same lovely and agonizing joke on all of us. Scott Fitzgerald

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… ultimately for our own good, of course

• God’s jokes are the soul’s curriculum. John Perry Barlow
• God plays a lot of jokes on us to get our attention. Garrison Keillor
• I think God has a sense of humor, and the way my lessons come from God is very funny. I have to laugh at myself even if it’s a tough lesson. Yvette Nicole Brown

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Some of God’s greatest jokes on us are puberty…

• Puberty is the sickest joke God plays on us. So you’re just noticing members of the sex: “Girls girls, ooo”. Naturally you want to look your best, and God says “No! You will look the worst you’ve ever looked in your life!” Eddie Izzard

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… relationships with the opposite sex…

• God’s great cosmic joke on the human race was requiring that men and women live together in marriage. Mark Twain
• After God created the world, He made man and woman. Then, to keep the whole thing from collapsing, He invented humor. Bill Kelly
• It is a defect of God’s humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them. Tom Stoppard

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… sex itself…

• Sex is God’s joke on human beings. Bette Davis
• Everyone’s sex life is funny except your own. John Waters
• The act of sex, gratifying as it may be, is God’s joke on humanity. It is man’s last desperate stand at superintendency. Bette Davis
• God displayed a sense of humor when he configured the region between our legs an entertainment complex built around a sewage system. Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Sex is God’s joke on the human race … if we didn’t have sex to make us ridiculous, She would have had to think up something else instead. Erica Jong
• Men reach their sexual peak at eighteen. Women reach theirs at thirty-five.  Do you get the feeling that God is playing a practical joke?  Rita Rudner

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…and our human fallibilities

• We create these elaborate scenarios and then react to them. But there is nothing really happening outside our mind! This is karma’s cosmic joke. You can laugh about the irony of this, or you can stick with your scenario. It’s your choice. Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
• It is quite true, as some poets said, that the God who created man must have had a… sense of humor, creating him a reasonable being, yet forcing him to take this ridiculous posture, and driving him with blind craving for this ridiculous performance. H. Lawrence
• It was one of God’s jokes that such a dumb mind had been put in such an eloquent body. Charlaine Harris

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God may laugh at us but it’s a laughter that’s kind and loving

• God doesn’t tell you to do hard things so He can stand back and laugh and watch you struggle. He tells you to do things the things that He knows are gonna work out to your good in the end. Joyce Meyer
• God laughs, it seems, because God knows how it all turns out in the end. Harvey Cox
• God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him. Jürgen Moltmann

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Our own sense of humour is divine, proof we are made in the image of God

• A sense of humour is the only divine quality of man. Arthur Schopenhauer
• God cannot be solemn, or he would not have blessed man with the incalculable gift of laughter. Sydney J. Harris
• Laughter should be one of the most valued, cherished qualities of human beings – because only man can laugh, no animals are capable of it. Because it is human, it must be of the highest order. To repress it is to destroy a human quality. Rajneesh

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Laughter and humour is God’s great gift to us…

• Laughter is the most beautiful and beneficial therapy God ever granted humanity. Charles R. Swindoll
• At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. Jean Houston
• If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? Mitsugi Saotome
• I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong. E. B. Du Bois
• I think God gave us senses of humor, and we should use them. Vera Farmiga
• The good Lord in his ultimate wisdom gave us three things to make life bearable: hope, jokes, and dogs… Robyn Davidson
• Every moment of life is unique-a kiss, a sunset, a dance, a joke. None will ever recur in quite the same way. Each happens only once in the history of the universe. Stephen Nachmanovitch
• I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience – and laughter. Susan M. Watkins
• Laughter is God’s blessing. Joseph Prince
• There are three things in life which are real: God, human folly and laughter. Since the first two are beyond our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third. John F. Kennedy

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…helping us to weather the more tragic aspects of life

• God gave us laughter, I think, as a balm to wash the wounds of our own blunders, as a splint to mend the bones we break in our rashness or vanity. Mark Buchanan
• God made both tears and laughter, and both for kind purposes; for as laughter enables mirth and surprise to breathe freely, so tears enable sorrow to vent itself patiently. Tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and madness. Leigh Hunt
• God probably thinks it’s worth giving a sense of humor only to those of us who have to laugh at all the rubbish bits that are wrong with us. Allison Pearson
• Isn’t it only through laughter that we become one with the gods and thus can endure life and can overcome all the horror and waste and suffering here on earth? …Isn’t it only through laughter we can stay human? James Clavell
• Life can be very funny and very tragic. Emmy Rossum
• When you cannot joke about the darkness of life, that’s when the darkness takes over. Amanda Palmer
• In the midst of the sense of tragedy or loss, sometimes laughter is not only healing, it’s a way of experiencing the person that you’ve lost again. Alan Alda
• Laughter lifts us over high ridges and lights up dark valleys in a way that makes life so much easier. It is a priceless gem, a gift of release and healing direct from Heaven. Alan Cohen
• Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now. Veronica Roth
• Laughter is a medicine you’ve got to use to drive away blues. Goswami Kriyananda

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The healing power of laughter is God’s own power at work

• Laughter heals all wounds, and that’s one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you’re going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing. Kevin Hart
• Laughter heals, gives solace, and is life enhancing. Liz Carpenter
• Wherever she was, holy laughter was present to heal and redeem. Madeleine L’Engle
• Spirituality does not have to be serious. You are spirituality. Fun laughter heal you faster than anything. Introduce fun back into your life. Anita Moorjani
• A good laugh heals a lot of hurts. Madeleine L’Engle
• I believe in the healing power of laughter. I believe laughter forces us to breathe. Brene Brown
• If people only knew the healing power of laughter and joy, many of our fine doctors would be out of business. Catherine Ponder
• When they say laughter is healing, it absolutely is the truth. Katey Sagal
• Laughter is important, not only because it makes us happy, it also has actual health benefits. And that’s because laughter completely engages the body and releases the mind. It connects us to others, and that in itself has a healing effect. Marlo Thomas
• Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine. Lord Byron
• Laughter is by definition healthy. Doris Lessing
• Mirth is God’s medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Henry Ward Beecher
• Laughter is the best medicine, y’know, besides medicine. Bo Burnham
• It’s true that laughter really is cheap medicine. It’s a prescription anyone can afford. And best of all, you can fill it right now. Steve Goodier
• I would say laughter is the best medicine. But it’s more than that. It’s an entire regime of antibiotics and steroids. Stephen Colbert
• Laughter is the best medicine in the world. Milton Berle
• Laughter is the best medicine for a long and happy life. He who laughs lasts! Wilferd Peterson
• Laughter is good medicine for the soul. Our world is desperately in need of more medicine. Jim Stovall
• Laughter is the best creative medicine. John Cleese
• Whoever said laughter is the best medicine had clearly never tasted scotch. Anne Taintor
• Always laugh when you can; it is cheap medicine. Merriment is a philosophy not well understood. It is the sunny side of existence. Lord Byron
• Laughter is a unique medicine that places your problems in perspective, relaxes your tense muscles, reassures those around you, and helps you to enjoy life even when you don’t have everything you want. A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. David Brinkley
• Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine. Lord Byron
• Laughter is the most inexpensive and most effective wonder drug. Laughter is a universal medicine. Bertrand Russell
• Mirth is God’s medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Henry Ward Beecher
• Love and laughter go together; and laughter is one of the greatest medicines. Rajneesh
• Laughter is a most healthful exercise. Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland

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Laughter is more sacred than prayer and a powerful way to connect with God

• Laughter is more sacred than prayer, dancing more spiritual than chanting mantras, loving existence more cosmic than going to a church. Rajneesh
• Humour is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer. Reinhold Niebuhr
• There are many ways to the Divine. I have chosen the ways of song, dance, and laughter. Rumi
• God is in the sadness and the laughter, in the bitter and the sweet. Neale Donald Walsch
• If I am against the condition of the world it is not because I am a moralist, it is because I want to laugh more. I don’t say that God is one grand laugh: I say that you’ve got to laugh hard before you can get anywhere near God. My whole aim in life is to get near to God, that is, to get nearer to myself. Henry Miller
• It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in his presence. George MacDonald
• Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about. Henri Nouwen
• You need to sense God’s greatness and to be moved it — moved to tears and moved to laughter — moved by who God is and what he has done for you. Timothy Keller

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Laughter is the true measure of spiritual realisation…

• Peace has to dance and silence has to sing. And unless your innermost realization becomes a laughter, something is still lacking. Something still has to be done. Rajneesh
• God can so fill a man with His Spirit that he can laugh and believe in the face of a thousand difficulties. Smith Wigglesworth
• I think any spiritual experience that’s worthwhile is not about ego and it will humble you in some way. And also, a Zen monk once said to me, ‘If you’re not laughing, then you’re not getting it. ‘ David O. Russell
• Since everything in life is but an experience perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter. Long Chen Pa
• The joke of it all is that you are looking from your true nature right now without knowing it. If you would stop being fascinated with the contents of your mind, you would experience what I am saying. Feel your way into what I am saying rather than thinking about it. Only a self-concept looks and longs for God. Drop your self-concept and there is only God meeting God. Enlightenment is the restoration of cosmic humor. Adyashanti

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…spiritual presence…

• I would like you to accept only one prayer, and that is laughter, because when you are totally laughing you are in the present. You cannot laugh in the future and you cannot laugh in the past. Rajneesh
• When you really laugh, for those few moments you are in a deep meditative state. Thinking stops. It is impossible to laugh and think together. Rajneesh
• I want my people to laugh like a lion’s roar. Then even laughter becomes a tremendous experience, because it is intelligence at its peak. Rajneesh
• Primitive societies, or social groupings, had shamans, and some of them even more recent in time. Shamans were tricksters. There was a tradition of the trickster, and the trickster was a clown, a humorous fellow. His task was to trick the gods, to humor the gods into laughing, so that there was access to the divine – because laughter is a moment when we are completely ourselves. George Carlin

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…and spiritual health…

• It is good to laugh. Laughter is spiritual relaxation. Abdu’l-Bahá
• Laughter is spiritual health. And laughter is very unburdening. While you laugh, you can put your mind aside very easily. For a man who cannot laugh the doors of the buddha are closed. To me, laughter is one of the greatest values. No religion has ever thought about it. They have always been insisting on seriousness, and because of their insistence the whole world is psychologically sick. Rajneesh
• Children, old people, vagabonds laugh easily and heartily: they have nothing to lose and hope for little. In renunciation lies a delicious taste of simplicity and deep peace. Matthieu Ricard
• Learn to laugh. Seriousness is a sin, and it is a disease. Laughter has tremendous beauty, a lightness. It will bring lightness to you, and it will give you wings to fly. Rajneesh
• When you have a heartfelt belly laugh, all parts of your being – the physiological, the pyschological, the spiritual – they all vibrate in one single tune. They all vibrate in harmony! Rajneesh
• I have been confronted with many difficulties throughout the course of my life…. But I laugh often, and my laughter is contagious. When people ask me how I find the strength to laugh now, I reply that I am a professional laugher. Dalai Lama
• Everybody knows from his own experience that after laughter, good laughter, a belly laugh, you almost feel that you have taken an ice-cold shower; a peace, a silence, a freshness… Rajneesh
• Laughing in full abandonment is very good for your health. Dalai Lama

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…as epitomised by the laughing Buddha

• When you realise how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky. Gautama Buddha
• A buddha laughs too, but his laughter has the quality of a smile. His laughter has the feminine quality of grace. Rajneesh
• To sing with the voice of angels as we do the work of angels. To laugh with the laugh of Buddha as we go to our awakening. To extend the arms of Jesus to welcome the presence of children and let them climb into our hearts. Hugh Prather

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To lighten up completely is what true enlightened is

• Only the saints would joke so about the gods, because it was either joke or scream, and they alone knew it was all the same to the gods. Lois McMaster Bujold
• The secret to enlightenment is to lighten up. Whether you are talking rock or women, all there. Steven Tyler
• The first step towards true enlightenment is to lighten up on yourself. Bashar
• Lighten up to be enlightened. M. Davies
• You are enlightened, now just lighten up. Linda Kroll
• The shortcut to enlightenment is to lighten up. Camilla Marsh
• No more trying to reach enlightenment. Simply be enlightened. Choose to lighten up and live enlightened in this moment, in this life, right here. Camilla Marsh
• Everything that I’ve read suggests that enlightenment is lightening up. Mike Myers
• The definition of enlightenment – lighten up. Rich Furman
• Humour puts the “light” in “enlightenment.
• We are Light. We are Light beings. Our being is to bring Lightness to every experience. Simran Singh

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Life is inherently funny…

• Life has played some funny tricks on me and taken me on a wild ride. How did I ever get into this wonderful mess that is my life? Bo Derek
• Life is funny, baby, and that’s no joke. Rachel Cohn
• Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave. Quentin Crisp
• Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny. Stephen Hawking
• Life’s funny chucklehead. You only get one and you don’t want to throw it away. Andrew Klavan
• Life’s funny. You have to find a way to keep going, to keep laughing, even after you realize that none of your dreams will come true. When you realize that, there’s still so much of a life to get through. Claire Messud
• Life’s pretty funny when you’re objectively on the outside looking at it. Philip Seymour Hoffman
• Life’s too damn funny for me to explain. Don Marquis
• No good at life, but very funny sometimes with the commentary. Kurt Vonnegut

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…and is not meant to be taken too seriously

• Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun. Alan Watts
• Don’t take things so seriously, especially yourself. If the universe is a cosmic joke, remember to giggle. And remember to be astonished. Dennis McKenna
• An English philosopher said that whatever is cosmic is also comic. Do the best you can and don’t take it so seriously. Bernie Glassman
• Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity! Friedrich Nietzsche
• Life’s too mysterious to take too serious. Mary Engelbreit
• Life is too serious to be taken seriously. Mike Leonard
• Not one shred of evidence exists that life is serious. Joseph Campbell
• There is nothing in life to take seriously except the joy of life. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
• Seriousness is equated with responsibility, when, in fact, I think we would be much more responsible if we had more joy and laughter in our lives. Deepak Chopra
• In fact, not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the argument that life is serious, though it is often hard and even terrible. Brendan Gill

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Most of all, we should not take ourselves too seriously

• Many who think that they are taking life seriously are actually only taking themselves seriously. Joseph T. O’Callahan
• Nothing you do is going to matter that much in the long run. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Naval Ravikant
• To laugh at others is egoistic; to laugh at oneself is very humble. Learn to laugh at yourself – about your seriousness and things like that. Rajneesh
• Fools laugh at others. Wisdom laughs at itself. Rajneesh
• Don’t be serious about seriousness. Laugh about it, be a little foolish. Don’t condemn foolishness; it has its own beauties. Rajneesh

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If we learn to laugh at ourselves more, we can convert life from tragedy to comedy…

• The humour of it all is that we are jesters and jokesters. We love to laugh and create drama.  We have reached the moment in time where the Divine Tragedy needs to be balanced with Divine Comedy. This means we must learn to laugh at ourselves.  Simran Singh
• Mostly we need to laugh at ourselves for the silliness we have engaged in, the seriousness, turmoil, chaos and confusion. It is time to learn how to laugh at ourselves. This is not to diminish the breadth of experience each situation provides, but to give a different perspective so that we unlock ourselves from the pain and self-inflicted drama. Simran Singh

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…especially if we learn to detach from our drama somewhat and see it for what it is

• Can we lighten up? Lighten up on ourselves. Lighten up on others. Just lighten up!  None of it is really that serious. None of it is really that important.   Simran Singh
• We age because we become too serious and embedded with the density of worry, topped emotions and story. Divine humour has the element of detachment, allowing the stories of our lives but not holding onto them. Stay light and be the jester.  Allow a smile to exist continuously in the heart, embracing each experience, regardless of whether it is a story of comedy or tragedy.  Simran Singh
• The humour of it all is that we seriously believe our stories, when in fact we are eternal. We forget we are playing make believe and become the whole story. Simran Singh
• The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. The objective world remains what it was, but, because of a shift of emphasis within the subject, is beheld as though transformed. Joseph Campbell

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Then we will come to recognise life as God’s divine comedy …

• God writes a lot of comedy… the trouble is, he’s stuck with so many bad actors who don’t know how to play funny. Garrison Keillor
• Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun. Alan Watts
• Between birth and burial, we find ourselves in a comedy of mysteries. Dean Koontz
• I think in life, the sense of humor and comedy always exists. Mike Epps
• I think my life has everything, you know; it has comedy, has drama, has action. Cesar Millan

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…a kind of cosmic comic play directed by God…

• We’re taking part in a divine comedy and we should realise that the play is always a comedy, in that we’re all ultimately ridiculous. Max Hastings
• Don’t be dead serious about your life–it’s just a play! Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
• Sometimes I feel that I am destined always to be offstage whenever the main action occurs. That God has made me the victim of some cosmic practical joke, by assigning me little more than a walk-on part in my own life. Or sometimes I feel that my role is simply to be a spectator to other people’s stories, and always to wander away at the most important moment, drifiting into the kitchen to make a cup of tea just as the denouement unfolds. Jonathan Coe
• The contented person, the person who knows life a little, laughs at himself – at the whole play of life itself. It is not addressed to anybody in particular. He just laughs at the absurdity of it all… the impossibility of it all. Rajneesh
• Now what else is the whole life of mortals, but a sort of comedy in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each ones part until the manager walks them off the stage? Desiderius Erasmus
• Play your part in the comedy, but don’t identify yourself with your role! Rumi
• What is our life? A play of passion. Our mirth the music of division. Our mother’s wombs the tyring houses be, Where we are drest for this short Comedy. Walter Raleigh

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…a kind of cosmic comic movie made for fun

• What is the universe? Is it a great 3D movie in which we are the unwilling actors? Is it a cosmic joke, a giant computer, a work of art by a Supreme Being or simply an experiment? The problem in trying to understand the universe is that we have nothing to compare it to. Heinz Pagels
• We must stop taking life so seriously. Delusion can be overcome by holding steadfast to one philosophy: Everything here is nothing more than God’s motion picture. We are the players. We must play our parts well, but we must not identify ourselves too intensely with the drama. Paramahansa Yogananda

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…a kind of tragi-comedy

• A thin line separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. Our lives constantly walk that line. When we slip off on one side or the other, we’re taken by surprise. But who said there wouldn’t be surprises? Knowing God just means that all the rules will be fair; at the end of our life drama, we’ll see that. We never know how things will turn out, but if we know with certainty they will make sense regardless of how they turn out, we’re on to something. Barbara Johnson
• But it is only in epic tragedies that gloom is unrelieved. In real life tragedy and comedy are so intermingled that when one is most wretched ridiculous things happen to make one laugh in spite of oneself. Georgette Heyer
• Comedy and tragedy are so mixed up in life. Lucy Maud Montgomery
• Comedy is about flaws anyway… There’s a lot of humor in the dark areas of life. Brett Gelman
• Human life is a combination of tragedy and comedy. The shapes and designs that surround us are the music accompanying this tragedy and this comedy. Alvar Aalto
• Human life is basically a comedy. Even its tragedies often seem comic to the spectator, and not infrequently they actually have comic touches to the victim. Happiness probably consists largely in the capacity to detect and relish them. A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable. H. L. Mencken
• I don’t want to make a style. Not tragedy, not comedy. Life is a mixing of all kind of things: comedy and tragedy going together. Alejandro Jodorowsky
• I see tragedy and comedy and pain and irony and all that stuff. But in the end I think life is fascinating, and I think people are more good than bad, and I think that the possibilities of prog­ress are real. Barack Obama
• Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy. Scott Fitzgeral
• Life is a comedy when watching and a tragedy when experiencing. I try and share anything I have. Eric Idle
• There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy. Mark Twain
• Life is a double-faced creature; one face is tragedy, the other one is comedy. We have no way but to face the first face with dignity! Mehmet Murat Ildan
• Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor. Sholom Aleichem
• Life is a mixing of all kind of things: comedy and tragedy going together. Alejandro Jodorowsky
• Life is replete with comedy, drama, horror, suspense, tragedy, romance, mystery, fantasy and a good dose of fiction. While at times the plot may seem to be lacking, the special effects alone are well worth the price of admission. Derek R. Audette
• Life is tragic comedy, in a way. There is humor. Tcheky Karyo
• Most people go on living their everyday life: half-frightened, half indifferent, they behold the ghostly tragic-comedy that is being performed on the international stage before the eyes and ears of the world. Albert Einstein
• The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life’s tragedy. Oscar Wilde

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…and we should learn to enjoy the comic episodes more

• Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more. Jeannette Walls
• Life is neither comedy or tragedy, life is what you make of it. Radha Mitchell
• Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy. To be alive means to have a sense of humor. Rajneesh
• Life is a comedy far darker than drama. It just takes time to learn what to smile at. Robin Morgan
• Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you. Mel Brooks
• My whole life I try to make into a comedy. Saoirse Ronan
• There’s comedy even in tragedy. There’s comedy in life. Nathan Fillion
• Think about yourself at least once in your life otherwise you may miss the best comedy in this world. Charlie Chaplin
• Tragedy and comedy are simply questions of value; a little misfit in life makes us laugh; a great one is tragedy and cause for expression of grief. Elbert Hubbard
• Well, for me, it’s the relationship between comedy and life – that’s the edge I live on, and maybe it’s my protection against looking at the tragedy of it all. It’s seeing life in balance. Comedy and tragedy co-exist. You can’t have one without the other. I’m of the school that anything can be funny, if seen from a comedic point of view. Harold Ramis
• What is the work of a Master?” said a solemn-faced visitor. “To teach people to laugh ,” said the Master gravely. Anthony de Mello
• You can perceive life as tragic, or you can laugh at the tragedy of it and that turns it into comedy. It doesn’t change the circumstances. Harold Ramis
• You’ll laugh at the comedy of errors that is my life. Bret Michaels

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Much of life is a delightful cosmic joke if we see it with the right perspective

• It’s important to remember that life is a joke and that outlook grants a lot of perspective. John Mulaney
• I believe that life is a game, that life is a… joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.  Neil Gaiman
• Life is a jest of the Gods and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh… or else you’ll weep yourself to death. Bernard Cornwell
• Life is a cosmic joke. Robert Wyatt
• Everything about life is a joke. Don’t you know that? Kurt Vonnegut
• Life as such has to be taken as a cosmic joke – and then suddenly you relax because there is nothing to be tense about. And in that very relaxation something starts changing in you – a radical change, a transformation – and the small things of life starts having new meaning, new significance. One learns only one thing, how to rejoice in life. Rajneesh
• God is always joking. Look at your own life – it is a joke! Look at other people’s lives, and you will find jokes and jokes and jokes. Seriousness is illness; seriousness has nothing spiritual about it. Spirituality is laughter, spirituality is joy, spirituality is fun. Rajneesh
• What if life is just a cosmic joke, like spiders in your underwear. Jimmy Buffett
• It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination. Martha Gellhorn
• If God gives you (or makes you) a joke, what are you meant to do in response? (Receive it. Laugh.) D. Wilson
• It was almost funny. Life seemed downright accidental in its brevity, and death a punch line to a lousy joke. Maureen Johnson
• My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked, a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself. Maya Angelou
• My life is passed in making bad jokes and seeing them turn into true prophecies. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• My whole life is a practical joke. Howie Mandel
• Perhaps the way to succeed is to think of life on Earth as a colossal joke, a creation of such immense stupidity that the only way to live is to laugh until you think your heart will break. Meg Rosoff
• There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. Bob Dylan
• You make a joke out of everything. Life’s too painful not to. Richelle Mead
• Comedy takes all of life and puts it through a lens of acceptance. Ted Alexandro
• I love comedy. Life is a cosmic joke. Robert Wyatt
• It was almost funny. Life seemed downright accidental in its brevity, and death a punch line to a lousy joke. Maureen Johnson
• I think the role of comedy in your life should supersede anything and everything negative. Just by virtue of the fact that you have to be funny, you can’t afford to focus on the negative. DeRay Davis
• Only silence can laugh, because only silence can understand the cosmic joke. Rajneesh

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Life is particularly hilarious when we recognise how ridiculous it can be…

• The ridiculous is closer to life’s source than the sensible. Barry Webster
• Why wait for reasons to laugh? Life as it is should be reason enough to laugh. It is so absurd, it is so ridiculous. It is so beautiful, so wonderful! It is all sorts of things together. It is a great cosmic jokе. Rajneesh
• Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. Samuel Butler
• Life is too important to be taken as a joke, but too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Ashleigh Brilliant

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…and even, at times, absurd

• Absurd: wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate. Oxford Dictionary
• Life itself is pretty funny when you realize how absurd it can be. Ray Stevenson
• Absurdity is what I like most in life. David Lynch
• Why wait for reasons to laugh? Life as it is should be reason enough to laugh. It is so absurd, it is so ridiculous. It is so beautiful, so wonderful! It is all sorts of things together. It is a great cosmic jokе. Rajneesh
• Life is fragile and absurd. Leo Tolstoy
• The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning. Albert Camus
• Life is much weirder than fiction; nothing’s more absurd. Peter Mullan
• Life might just be an absurd, even crude, chain of events and nothing more. Haruki Murakami
• Life is so absurd now that it is almost impossible to be a satirist in this era. Fran Lebowitz
• Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there’s humor in struggling in ignorance. David Lynch
• There’s no end to the absurd things people will do trying to make life mean something. William Wharton
• We all live in a tragicomic situation, a life that is in part absurd simply because it is not of our own making. We are born into a disordered world, into a family we did not choose, into circumstances we would have had somewhat improved, and we are even called by a name we did not select. Sheldon B. Kopp
• I am interested only in “nonsense”; only in that which makes no practical sense. I am interested in life only in its absurd manifestations. Daniil Kharms
• I’ve always been literally a lover of the absurd. I think the absurd gives a new dimension to reality and even to common sense. And life, you know, on an everyday basis, is absurd, or may turn out to be absurd. There’s no reality without absurdity. Tomi Ungerer
• Life doesn’t make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy’s job is to point out that it doesn’t make sense, and that it doesn’t make much difference anyway. Eric Idle

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Great laughter and joy are be found in embracing this absurdity rather than running from it

• Because you are defined not by life’s imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. And because there is joy in embracing – rather than running from – the utter absurdity of life. Jenny Lawson
• Recognizing the absurdity of life is also a way of surviving. Noa Ben Artzi-Pelossof
• Humour allows us to see that ultimately things don’t make sense. The only thing that truly makes sense is letting go of anything we continue to hold on to. Our ego-mind and emotions are a dramatic illusion. Of course, we all feel that they’re real: my drama, your drama, our confrontations. We create these elaborate scenarios and then react to them. But there is nothing really happening outside our mind! This is karma’s cosmic joke. You can laugh about the irony of this, or you can stick with your scenario. It’s your choice. Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche
• Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly. Paulo Coelho

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Therefore, lighten up and be playful with life

• The most responsible way to live is to be playful with life. It is absolutely irresponsible to walk around with a long face. Being playful is being responsible. Only when you are playful, you can be responsive to life. When you are serious, life around you does not exist for you – it is only about you and your nonsense. You can truly respond to everything in the world only if you are playful. Otherwise, just the burden of it will kill you. Sadhguru
• Play is an expression of God’s presence in the world; one clear sign of God’s absence in society is the absence of playfulness and laughter. Mike Yaconelli

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Live a life that makes you laugh out loud and if you listen really carefully, you’ll hear God laughing along with you

• I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud…I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift. Shauna Niequist
• If you become silent after your laughter, one day you will hear God also laughing, you will hear the whole existence laughing – trees and stones and stars with you. Rajneesh
• It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• May God keep fresh the fountain of our laughter and our tears! Aiden Wilson Tozer
• The world will never be converted to God unitl Christians cry less and laugh and sing more. Charles Spurgeon
• We sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear. Gilbert K. Chesterton
• Comedy is a necessity to get through life with the fewest scars. Humor is the best antidote to help relieve all struggles. Suzy Kassem

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• Do you know why God withheld the sense of humor from women? That we may love you instead of laugh at you. Patrick Campbell
• If life is a joke then I’m waiting for the punch. Mac Miller
• Those who can’t laugh at themselves leave the job to others. Dave Barry

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