‘Today is a blessed day! Just look at the light! Look at how pure and transparent it is! Thousands of nature spirits, little gnomes with beards and funny little hats, are here laughing with me. They whisper amongst themselves, ‘Here is one, at last, who understands!’ And they bring me all kinds of presents from nature.

You cannot see them, but they all bring me some little gift because they have never seen anyone laugh like that before. My laughter travels over the hills and far away and, hearing it, thousands of them flock to me, saying, ‘We have had our fill of long faces, of all those sad or sinister countenances!’ Ah, if you only knew how much good it does one to laugh!

Laughter is an indicator of one’s character
To be sure, we must not laugh at all the wrong moments and in all circumstances; we have to find the right moment. When someone is always stiff and never laughs, even when they see or hear something very funny, it shows that something is wrong with them; but it is no better to laugh stupidly at everything.

Laughter should be aesthetic and there should be a reason for it. I only have to hear how someone laughs to know exactly what they are like. A person’s laugh is a significant indication of their character; and it is also very revealing to see what makes them laugh and what doesn’t.

A spontaneous burst of laughter is a sign of love
When you feel like laughing it means that your heart is full of love, and that love has to manifest itself in the form of laughter, otherwise your heart would burst. A spontaneous burst of laughter is a sign of love, but when love is no longer there, no one feels like laughing.

An expression that is sad or too serious is a sign of a lack of love. Love manifests itself in joy and happiness. But laughter is only one manifestation; one can perfectly well be happy without laughing. Laughter is the sign that an energy is escaping – a benign, generous, luminous energy.

And animals laugh at humans…
Actually, laughter is something very mysterious; philosophy has never really explained it. It is said that man is the only creature that laughs but, in point of fact, laughter also exists in animals. Of course, they laugh in their own way.

And what do they laugh about? About the stupidity of human beings. They think that human beings are very weird animals, and they laugh at them surreptitiously, amongst themselves, so that we never realize it. But laugh they do!’

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

To be continued…

From a lecture given at Sevres, on April 18, 1970
Complete Works Volume 18, Jnana Yoga Vol 2
Chapter 8, Love