THE SERIOUSLY FUNNY WORLD

Someone is born, Someone dies.
Someone is hired, Someone is fired.
Someone is married, Someone gets divorced.
Someone gets rich, Someone gets poor.
Someone is praised, Someone is criticised.
Someone is a success, Someone is a failure.

What kind of world is this? Is this a serious place or a funny one? I would say - this is a seriously funny place.

THE SERIOUS SIDE
In the Bible, Jesus Christ tells his follower the story of Prodigal son - of a son who wanted to check out the world on his own. He forced his father to give him his share of money and left home confidently yet naively. The result - he slowly lost all his money and became bankrupt. Then, he realised all the warnings his father had given him and he understood that this world is after all not that easy - it is filled with all sorts of difficulties. This is the story of all of us. We all, confidently left the spiritual world, our original home not realising what we were getting into - we probably would have never imagined that the price to "check out" this world would be such a costly affair.

Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita stamps this material world as a place of misery. Just like if someone enters a coal mine, it is but natural that his clothes will get dirty, similarly entering the material world means to contact misery. In fact miseries seem endless here, by the time one ends another begins. In my life, I have seen so many near and dear ones leave this world, many of them young. What to speak of the enormous problems and sufferings plaguing the life of an average person. Indeed, living in this world is a serious business, not at all a matter of fun. All this may sound pessimistic and depressing, as if someone has suddenly plugged off the light and sound in the midst of a well set party and spoiled it's entire mood. This may be true for one who has his eyes set on having a gala time here but for one who is seeking the truth, he's happy to know and realize these facts because he slowly begins to see that this world is after all not such a great place to party - the real party begins in the spiritual world. He's all set to get into this never ending party. In order to balance the serious side of this world, there is a funnier or lighter side to it which can be en-cashed especially when we are too bogged down with problems and difficulties. 

THE FUNNY SIDE
One time there was a King who had a strange request. He announced, saying that he would reward anyone who would make him sad when he was happy and happy when he was sad. Everyone in the kingdom seemed confused about this puzzle the King had thrown at them. But, there was an wise old man, who knew the answer. He offered the King a ring on which was inscribed - "THIS TOO WILL PASS AWAY". So, when the King would be happy, he would read the letters on the ring and understand that this happy phase will pass away and become sober and when he would be sad, he would again read the words, THIS TOO WILL PASS AWAY and become hopeful and happy. Radhanath Swami, a towering spiritual leader of today's times puts this very aptly - "Don't take this world very seriously because what you take seriously today will change tomorrow."

Many times we get so overwhelmed with our problems or get stuck with what someone said to us or get attached to our position or get attached to how life was before - "the good old days" syndrome. Why?  Because of the simple reason that, we take these things too seriously. Life keeps moving on, so should we. If we become stagnant we will become irrelevant and left out. We need to be flexible. We need to remember that, "change" is the name of the game.

The more difficult yet important part is the need to access more lightness especially in dealing with our faults and weakness and those of others. Let's accept the fact that we are small, it's okay to have faults and make mistakes. That's just a part of being a human. Let's not get bogged down by them. After all we learn by our mistakes only. Therefore, the two most important words in any relationship is FORGIVE and FORGET. This applies not only to others but to us as well.

LAUGHING OUR WAY OUT
Think about the issues and difficulties you faced in your childhood days. You will probably recollect, the stress of exams, teachers scoldings or the bullying by friends. All these and more which invoked deep emotions and stress in us then, seems completely insignificant now. Similarly what may be very important to us, right now may become trivial 20 years from now. So, it's important to focus on what is really important than what seems important. We need to learn to not take ourselves, our problems or our lives too seriously because no one else does. Everyone is busy with their own lives. Even if we leave the planet tomorrow, nothing will change, people will get over with us and life will go on, as it is. Our life is really very inconsequential, we are just a small occurrence in this immense universe.

It's time for us to learn the art of laughing our way out of our problems. That's probably the reason why Lord Krishna, while performing all his roles and responsibilities seriously, maneuvering through most difficult situations still had a smile of His face. He is teaching us that the best way to live in this seriously funny world is to strike a balance between seriousness and fun. Only fun and no seriousness is not good and only seriousness and no fun is also not healthy. Life is about balancing both. A healthy dose of seriousness with a good amount of lightness is the formula for success. This type of lifestyle is called "the serious fun life". That's precisely what spiritual life is about. Graceful living and graceful leaving.

- Achyut Gopal Das