God loves to laugh, too

Many religions often show God as someone stern and absolutely humourless. That's perhaps the reason why we are living in a completely humourless and utterly violent world. When we dare not endow God with laughter, how can we expect laughter and merriment in our lives?

All the miseries in this world are because of our flawed perception of God as a humourless being who punishes those who grin. To quote a Hindi-Urdu poet, 'Itna bhi sanjeeda nahin Khuda/Hansta hai woh bhi yada-kada' - God is not that serious/ He too laughs at times. The Buddha once told his favourite disciple Anand that the main reason to militate against an organised religion and its ritualistic paraphernalia was that 'I saw no smile and no laughter in a religion. This suffocated me.'

'Only with a laugh, you tide over the toughness of life,' the Buddha further explained. Laughter is the celestial music of the kainaat, universe, and arq-e-vajood, an elixir of existence. Jalaluddin Rumi saw God's smile in a streak of lightning in the firmament: Barq-un-falak, tabassum-e-Khuda ast.


The concept of laughing Buddha in Chinese Feng Shui came into being long ago. In the Pitakas, scriptures of Buddhism, and Jataka traditions, the Buddha is also known as smithaasya, smiling mildly. Nowhere will you see a Buddha murti with an ashen face despite the Buddha calling pain the core of human life and leaving the world in search of the ultimate Truth. That's the kernel of life: smile, laugh and also put a smile on your God's otherwise emotionless face. He wants to laugh.