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Bharat Savur

`One milliamp of mirth sparked by one playful thought releases up to a megahurt of emotional static and transforms old age to voltage.' So just see the funny side of things and get going.

The CEO, fed up over the swarm of flies circling his desk, refused the executive's request for a raise. But when the executive offered to swat all the flies, the CEO shot off a letter doubling his salary. Pocketing the letter, the executive rolled up his sleeves, picked up the swatter and headed for the door. "Right, sir," he said. "Send them out two at a time."

Corporate Confucius say: when you can't raise your remuneration, raise a smile.

Your career need not be your livelihood, but a lively-hood. When the virus of seriousness bottlenecks your humorrhoids, a fibre-rich diet of fun shows you the pottie of gold at the end of the drainbow.

If you're smiling by now, you're okay. You're on the co(s)mic caper that the travelling teacher of healing humour, Swami Beyondananda (beyond bliss) aka Steve Bhaerman, is on. "We have been given the human di-jestive system to turn the material of life into laughter," he grins. "When more of us choose to laugh, the levitational field will help us rise above the gravitational field that has been bringing us down." His wisdom for whiz kids: "Enlighten up. Each moment of laughter is a moment of enlightenment, because for that moment we have released worldly cares and concerns and are seeing the world from God's loving and joyful perspective."

Swami Be's puckish philosophy has tinges of Apache impishness. Big Apaches tell little Apaches: when Hactein the High God imp-ulsively created all kinds of funny fauna, viewing their queer shapes and quaint behaviour, he laughed uproariously. Then, he created two elves of his self — man and woman. Their combined laughter caused the dog to wag its tail, the monkey to swing from the tree, the bird to take wing. Thus, human laughter brought vibrancy to all cosmic creation.

That's why a full-bellied, open-hearted godly guffaw clears the debris of doldrums from the pranic laugh-track, restores the wag to our spirit, has our human hormones swing into health and our thoughts take wing. It is said that one milliamp of mirth sparked by one playful thought releases up to a megahurt of emotional static, acts as a circuit-breaker to midlife power fluctuations and transforms old age to voltage. There's luminous logic here too. Many light years lighten years. If a lifetime is laughtime, raise your laugh-expectancy to achieve moksha from all worldly worries.

If you find yourself in a worry curry, hop out of its heat. Scurry back a few miles from the worry until its sizzle looks like a fizzle. Now, find the absurd in the situation like sweetness snuggling in a spice. Hee-hee-healing happens when humour is compassionate, joyful, innocent, playful. And the founder of the Laughter Club International — with 1,300 chapters in India and 700 abroad — Dr Madan Kataria has his finger firmly on this funny bone. His playful humour stems from childlike miming-laugh while pretending to be on the phone or pouring lassi. His value-based humour is laughing while circling the thumb and forefinger of one hand into a mudra of admiration for another. His self-laughter is based on his belief that "real laughter is our nature." And there's crying laughter to help balance the play of opposing forces. Forces? Nope, that's too dead serious for livewire Swami Be. Realise that you're in a field of farces, he beams, and achieve fool-realisation. Ergo, when in a crunch situation, don't see a doctor, see the irony. The side-effects are side-splitting hilarity or a sidelong grin; front effects are a broad smile and a jellying belly; and back-effects, well, you laugh your butt off to achieve your true bottom-line. He explains, "Laughter lightens our load and releases suffering that no longer serves a purpose." That includes `suffering spirituality'— denying human desires, emotions, needs. This modern Moses says: do not covet your neighbour's vehicle, drive your own karma; speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil and curb your dogma.

On this higher level, he assures, enlightening strikes more than twice. Especially when we begin to see that life is a bowl of soup and we, the laughing stock. For Swami Be, bubbling over with joie-de-vivre, thefavourite yoga exercises are foot-in-mouth and tongue-in-cheek. Tantrum yoga helps him heat his home in winter. And practising `fun-shui' — having cuddly toys around the house — takes the stuffing out of his stress.

Similarly, if the squeeze is on you in the boardroom and your claws come out, don't draw them in. File them with humour into cute-tickles. Even the Iraqi invasion, however horrifying, has spawned comic characters. A bush wanting to prove he's mighty moss squeaking `Land ah-oil!' A me-Toony twittering `Fifty-fifty!' A Saddam sobbing `Who's sane?' All this on planet mirth? Surely not. The healing buzzword is elfish, not selfish.

The writer is co-author of the book,

`Fitness for Life'.

Response can be sent to life@thehindu.co.in

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