Laughter is a very beneficial, very therapeutic energy. This is why a visit to a circus with clowns can be very good for someone who has problems with their liver, for laughter relaxes the spleen and the spleen can heal the liver.

Someone whose liver is over-burdened with poisons and toxins of all kinds tends to be depressed and pessimistic. But the spleen can help to remedy this; that is why it is placed where it is, opposite the liver. Of course, if you ask an anatomist why the liver is on one side and the spleen on the other, they will be unable to answer you, but I can answer you: it is because, in this way, they can give each other a helping hand. Is my explanation sufficiently scientific for you?

Our love keeps us flexible and happy
Why do you cling so tenaciously to traditions that make you old? All your flexibility wears off. I no longer recognize you when you come back here after an interval of several months. Your expression has hardened and your faces are pale, sad and discouraged. Then, after you have been here a few days or a few weeks, you are well on the way to becoming young again.

Why can you not maintain this attitude of gaiety, joy, hope and love? Be like children! Children are full of love; that is why they are always flexible and happy. It is when they begin to lose their love that they become unhappy. Adults are unhappy beings.

Those who are cheerful and full of love, have plentiful reserves of energy
I have already talked to you in the past about the difference between a child and an old man. Children cannot be serious because they are too young. They possess no philosophy or science. They laugh and sing and dance, because they are all love, movement and plasticity. Whereas an old man shrivels up and becomes stingy and serious because his reserves of strength are almost exhausted, his possibilities are very limited.

And so we can draw a conclusion from this observation: when people are always serious it proves that their reserves are running low, whereas those who are gay, cheerful and full of love, have plenty of reserves and can spend freely because they are rich.

We need to be old and young at the same time
You see how marvellously all this corresponds! If old people are not as outgoing and generous as children, it is because they are coming to the end of their reserves, and they have to use their gestures, words and laughter sparingly. And they watch their step and walk cautiously, because they know that, if they fall, they will not be able to pick themselves up again.

In reality, we should combine the two and be both old and young at the same time. Here, in our hearts, we should be young; and here, in our heads, we must be old. Unfortunately, more often than not, people have the heart of an old man and the intellect of a baby.

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