Harold Klemp Speaks on the Role of Humor in Spirituality

This clip is from Harold Klemp’s 2009 talk “The Secret Path to Heaven.” For more stories of inspiration, or for information on other spiritual topics, please visit http://www.Eckankar.org or http://www.EckankarBlog.org.

Transcript:

Now here’s a good one: What role does humor play in spirituality?

Humor. What is humor?

Well, humor is not wit necessarily. That’s something else. That’s sharp, and it bites. It’s certainly not sarcasm, which is often a part of wit. And it’s not comedy. Comedy can be a combination of all of the above. It can be sarcasm; it can be wit; it can even have humor in it. It has all of this.

Way back when, before electromagnetic radiation became such a problem for us at home, Joan and I used to watch TV for an hour in the evening. That was our recreation time when we’d have our dinner. Among the programs we really liked were two British comedies.

One was Are You Being Served? This takes place in a department store in London. It’s a very proper store, and everything is done very properly. Yet the characters, the salespeople, are all funny. Each salesperson has his or her quirks. The humor is built out of this, and so is the comedy.

But I think our very favorite program was Fawlty Towers. This was priceless British comedy at its very best. Twelve episodes are all that were made.

In a sense, it starts low-key. Everything is very peaceful in this little hotel, which is run by Mr. Fawlty and his wife. They have a little restaurant there too, and everything’s going well. Slowly, as the show moves on, the action begins to speed up. Things start to go all wrong——usually against Mr. Fawlty. Some of the situations are very, very funny.

Here is the difference between wit and comedy and spiritual humor. Spiritual humor may get one laughing, but when the laughter starts, there is some spiritual content behind it. So when the heart opens, something good and solid comes in. Whereas in the other forms of humor——comedy and so on——the high element of spiritual insight and understanding doesn’t come in.

So I hope that’s somewhat of an answer to, What role does humor play in spirituality?

Видео Harold Klemp Speaks on the Role of Humor in Spirituality канала Sri Harold Klemp Official Channel