God will not give you an audience if you reach there with serious face, long face. You have to go there like an innocent child,playful, joyous. You have to learn something of the sense of humor. All your religion are lacking in that dimension- a sense of humor. They are all serious.
In my village, as happens all over the East every year Ramleela was played - the life of Rama.
The man who used to play the role of Ravana, the enemy of Rama who steals Rama's wife, was a great wrestler. He was the champion of the whole district, and the next year he was going to stand for the championship of the whole state. We used to take bath in the river almost simultaneously in the morning, so we became friends. I told him,"Every year you become Ravana, every year you are being deceived. Just the moment you are going to break shiva's bow so that you can get married to Sita, the daughter of Janaka, a messenger comes running in and informs you that your capital of Srilanka is on fire. So you have to go, rush back to your country. And meanwhile, Rama manages to break the bow and marry the girl. Don't you get bored every year with the same thing ?"
He said, "But this is how the story goes."
I said, "The story is in our hands if you listen to my suggestion. You must have seen that most of the people are fast asleep because they have seen the sam thing year after year, generation after generation -make it a little juicy".
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said,"This time you do one thing I say."
And he did it!
When the messenger came with the message:"Your capital, the golden Srilanka, is on fire,you have to get there soon," he said,"You shut up, idiot" - he spoke in English!.
That's what I had told him! The people who were asleep woke up: "Who is speaking in English in Ramleela?"
And Ravana said, "You go away.I don't care. You have deceived me every year. This time I am am going to marry Sita."
And he went and broke the bow of Shiva to pieces, and threw it into the mountains - it was just a bamboo bow. And he asked Janaka,"Bring......where is your daughter? My jumbo-jet is waiting!"
It was so hilarious. Even after forty years, whenever I meet somebody from my village, they remember that Ramleela. They said,"Nothing like that has ever happened."
The manager had to drop the curtains. And the man was a great wrestler, and atleast twelve people had to carry him out.
That day Ramleela could not be played. And next day they had to change Ravana; they found another person.
By the river, Ravana met me. He said,"You disturbed my whole thing."
I said,"But did you see the people clapping, enjoying, laughing? For years you have been playing the part and nobody has clapped, nobody has laughed. It was worth it!"
Religion needs a religious quality. A few qualities are missing. One of the most important is sense of humor.
They stopped me meeting their actors. They made it clear to every actor that if anybody listened to me or met me, he would not be allowed to act. But they forgot to tell one man who was not an actor.....
He was a carpenter. He used to come to do some work in my house also. So I said to him,"I cannot approach the actors this year. Last year was enough! Although I did no harm to anybody - everybody loved it, the whole city appreciated it. But now they are guarding every actor and they don't allow me close to anybody. But you are not an actor. Your function is some other work. But you can help me."
He said,"Whatever I can do, I will do, because last year was really great. Can I be of some help?"
I said,"Certainly."
And he did it......
In the war, Lakshmana, Rama's younger brother, get's wounded by a poisonous arrow. It is fatal. The physicians say that unless a certain herbal plant from the mountain Arunachal is brought, he cannot be saved, by the morning he will be dead. He is lying down on the stage unconcious. Rama is crying.
Hanuman, his most devoted follower, says, "Don't be worried. I will go immediately to Arunachal, find the herb, bring it before the morning. I just want some indications from the physician how to find it, how it looks. There may be so many herbs on the Arunachal, and the time is short, soon it is night."
The physician said,"There is no difficulty. That special herb has a unique quality. In the night it radiates and is full of light so you can see it. So anywhere you see a luminous herb you can bring it."
Hanuman goes to Sri Arunachal, but he is puzzled because the whole of Arunachal is full of luminous herbs. It is not the only herb that has that special quality. There are many other herbs which have the same quality of being luminous in the night.
Now the poor Hanuman - he is just a monkey - is at a loss what to do. So he decides to take the whole mountain, and put the mountain there in front of the physician to find the herb.
The carpenter was on top of the roof. He had to pull the rope on which Hanuman comes with a cardboard mountain with lighted candles. And I had told him,"Stop exactly in the middle. Let him hang there, with the mountain and everything!"
And he managed it.
The manager rushed out. The whole crowd was agog with excitement at what was happening. And Hanuman was perspiring, because he was hanging on the ropes with the mountain also in the other hand. Something had got stuck on the wheel on which the rope was going to be rolled. The manager rushed up. He asked the carpenter.... and the carpenter said,"I don't know what has gone wrong. The rope has got stuck somewhere."
In a hurry, finding nothing, the manager cut the ropes, and Hanuman with his mountain fell on the stage. And naturally he was angry. But the thousands of people were immensely happy. That made him even more angry.
Rama continued repeating the lines he had been told to say. He said,"Hanuman, my devoted friend...."
And Hanuman said,"To hell with your friends! Perhaps I have fractures."
Rama went on saying,"My brother is dying."
Hanuman said,"He can die any moment. What I want to know is, who cut the rope? I will kill him."
Again the curtain had to be dropped, The Ramleela postponed. And the manager and the people who were organising all approached my father saying,"Your son is destroying everything. He's making a mockery of our religion."
I said,"I'm not making a mockery of your religion. I'm simply giving it a little sense of humor."
I would like people to laugh. What is the point of repeating an old story every year? Then everybody is asleep because they know the story, they know every word of it. It is absolutely pointless.
My approach is to create a world where laughter is good, is healthy, is supported not condemned. I would like our temples to be full of laughter, singing, dancing. I would like our churches to be full of music. I would like all our religious places to be playful.
How strange it is that you continously go on saying that the world is God's leela, and you never understand the meaning of the word "leela". Leela means playfullness. If God is playful, then who are your saints not to be playful? If the whole of existence is divine play, then our lives should also be a part of it, a divine play.
The source of this blogpost is: Life after joining Isha Yoga
If your interested in exploring the leela of life. Please join us for Tantra Theater Auditions/open house this Monday, June 7th at 6:45pm No experience necessary. Call 858-272-2254
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Tantra theater took a field trip to the beach yesterday. If we knew it was going to be the first sunny day of the summer, we would've worn our bathing suits instead of the everyday casual wear you see here. :)
