Osho on psychology of Jokes, origin of Jokes

Osho on psychology of Jokes, origin of Jokes

Osho : Jews have certainly proved their mettle. In all their agony they have maintained their laughter, they have not lost it. But it is a strange psychology that the people who are in suffering will always love laughter. That gives at least some time to forget the misery. People who have lived peacefully, with no suffering, don’t know what laughter is.

I have been thinking many times that I should speak on the psychology of jokes. It has so many implications, why a certain joke is a joke and why it arose; who were the people, who must have been the people who managed that joke?

In what background has the joke flowered, and was it refined? – because it is centuries of work. A single joke can be traced back for centuries, and you will find little differences happening and finally it comes to perfection. It is a work of art. But it needs a certain climate and a certain understanding and a certain openness, a certain unrepressed joyfulness; otherwise it can backfire.

This is a beautiful joke – but Nirvano is not a Jew. She thought it better to make it Christian because she knows the Christian names better and she knows the festival of Lent. In a Jewish context it would have been even better, because they are the most unrepressed people in the world. It is not a coincidence that Sigmund Freud – a Jew – started a new science: psychoanalysis. The whole science is against repression.

Every joke has a long history and background. It will be good sometime to give the whole series to Sardar Gurudayal Singh, and find the roots of these jokes – their psychology, the people, because there are many people. For example, Jews tell jokes about themselves; they are intelligent people.

Other people tell jokes about the Polacks, who are very unintelligent people. They cannot make a joke themselves, that is impossible. But they are good in a way; they allow the whole world to make jokes about them. Nice guys!