Gurudev, there is a proverb that says that laughter is the best medicine. Can you explain the importance of laughter in our life?
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar :
When you start your day with laughter and love, your life is divinely animated. The true prayer is to laugh in the morning from outside and from the depths.
Laughter comes from the center of our Being, from the center of our heart. Our stomach is so full of laughter that laughter permeates every cell in our body. True laughter is true prayer. When things are going well, everyone can laugh, but when everything falls apart and yet you laugh, that is evolution and growth. Nothing in life is more worthy than your laugh. Never lose it. Events come and go. Some are nice and some are unpleasant. There is an area deep within you that is not touched. Hold on to what is intact. Then you can keep laughing.
Sometimes you laugh just to not think or to not look at you. But when you see and feel inside that life is present and intense in every moment, nothing can disturb or touch you. That laugh is real. You may have observed six-month-old or one-year-old babies. When they laugh, their whole body jumps and bounces. Every cell in the body laughs. That is enlightenment. That laugh is innocent, pure, uninhibited.
Opinions are the impressions we make on our mind. If we have an experience repeated four or five times, then for the rest of our lives, we tend to see life through those same experiences. We need to be able to see things as they are. When the essence of life blooms from within, there is true laughter akin to pity. Laughter opens us, opens the heart.
