Cracking The Cosmic Joke

[not2too]

For the present, the comedy of existence has not
yet "become conscious" of itself. For the present,
we still live in the age of tragedy, the age of morality
and religions.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Laughing gas has been discovered at the center of our galaxy.
THE GRAB BAG

Ah Ha! Ha Ha! The universe did not begin with the Big Bang but with the Big Giggle (Guffaw, Chortle, Snicker…take your pick).
QUANTUM COYOTE

MAYBE "enlightenment" means waking up NOT ONLY to the non-duality of being BUT ALSO to the comedy, the Cosmic Joke of you being you.

This dreamstate we find ourselves in is both an infinite game and an elaborate improvisational fiction, first devised by the Source and then promptly forgotten - so as to make things "really" entertaining.

Prior to this realization, we are like actors on a stage, who forget that they are playing characters in a fictional drama, and take all the twists and turns of the plot - which can put them in hideous, as well as delightful, situations - seriously. Meanwhile, the audience is laughing its head off at - and at the same time deeply pitying - these poor souls on stage who do not realize that its all a play that will end sooner than they realize. The audience, in this case, is made up of those who have seen through the artifice - are awake to their status in The Game. Compassion is in order, of course, but still - the Cosmic Joke is apparent.

As Tom Armstrong put it in LAUGHING YOUR WAY TO ENLIGHTENMENT.
http://www.hundredmountain.com/Pages...laughing1.html
Countin’ flowers on the wall. It don’t bother me at all/ Playin’ solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one/ Smokin’ cigarettes and watchin’ Captain Kangeroo/ Don’t tell me I’ve nothin to do.
OLD STATLER BROS. SONG

THE SWEDENBORGIAN philosopher Wilson Van Dusen wrote in The Natural Depth in Man, “The purpose of creation is that the One playfully experience all its possibilities, so to speak, just to pass the time. Each individual is a possibility that leads back to the One.”

Scholar, writer and zenyk Ken Wilber in an interview in Pathways Magazine, titled “A Ticket to Athens” [reprinted at the Shambhala Publishers website], said much the same, in an elaborate answer to this question: “Why does Spirit bother to manifest at all, especially when that manifestation is necessarily painful and requires that It become amnesiac to Its true identity? Why does God incarnate?”

He said, “Here you are, the One and Only, the Alone and the Infinite. What are you going to do next? You bathe in your own glory for all eternity, you bask in your own delight for ages upon ages, and then what? Sooner or later, you might decide that it would be fun -- just fun -- to pretend that you were not you. I mean, what else are you going to do? What else can you do?”

He went on to say, “[it] is exactly the core of the answer given by the mystics the world over. If you are the One, and -- out of sheer exuberance, plenitude, superabundance -- you want to play, to rejoice, to have fun, then you must first, manifest the Many, and then second, forget it is you who are the Many. ...”

Perhaps, then, the ultimate cosmic joke is that we are here to laugh at our own ultimate cosmic joke. Like a troup of storytellers from the Decameron or Canterbury, we journey a pathway home, laughing at our strangely precious foibles and follies.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee and I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
ROBERT FROST

[mkirkpatrick]

Excellent thread starter not2too,we all seem to take ourselves far too seriously at times,we allneed to lighten up,cheers!




regards michael.

[Profpat]

The yolk is on us and once aware of that we can all start laughing.

[not2too]

Actually, the yolk was on Descartes (You've probably all heard this by now, but I can't resist.) when he went into a restaurant, was shown to his usual table and asked if he would like to see a menu.
"I think not", he replied, and Poof! he disappeared.
But seriously folks...MAYBE the One and Only was tired of playing to an empty house. Hence...us...

[melanie]

Excellent thread starter not2too,we all seem to take ourselves far too seriously at times,we allneed to lighten up,cheers!




regards michael.

Quite agree michael,

Hey, wouldn't it be a different world if we all dropped our little 'i's
and stopped thinking ourselves to be something more superior
over everything else, this is why we suffer,

when 'we' learn to live in this timeless eternal present,
and realize that we are nothing more than PRESENCE in THIS,
THIS is so obvious,
maybe too simple for our complicated minds to understand,
It will take a lot of unraveling, but i'm sure it will be done on earth as it is in heaven LOL
seriously though it is a long time in eternity, so eventually 'we' will learn
to live like all other conscious manifest forms that have an appearance here on earth.

i mean look at nature and all the animals
see how they live in harmony without instruction, there is no need for instruction because it is it's own instruction,
everything is driving itself,
trying to find the answer to who is driving, is the eye searching for the eye.

All of nature is at one with it's environment, effortlessly living in this eternal present AWARENESS
humans have somehow separated themselves from this unity
alas they must re-unite, but first they must return to their roots
it is the return cycle, we are coming full circle to understanding ourselves again.

ps .. thanks for the great thread title not2too

love melanie.

[not2too]

You're very welcome Melanie...and thank you for the great response.

And now...for your consideration...

A FEW UTTERANCES OF STEVEN WRIGHT ROSHI:

I was once walking through the forest alone. A tree fell right in front of me…and I didn't hear it.

If God dropped acid, would he see people?

I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it.

I like to reminisce with people I don't know.

I live on a one-way street that's also a dead end. I'm not sure how I got there.

Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before.

Lots of comedians have people they try to mimic. I mimic my shadow.

He asked me if I knew what time it was. I said, "Yes, but not right now."

I put tape on the mirrors in my house so I don't accidentally walk through into another dimension.

A friend of mine once sent me a post card with a picture of the entire planet Earth taken from space. On the back it said, "Wish you were here."

Further...
not2too

[dleviwing]

The cosmic joke? – wait till you get to the punch-line!

Post some more.

[not2too]

In the period that Einstein was active as a professor, one of his students came to him and said: "The questions of this year's exam are the same as last years!" "True," Einstein said, "but this year all answers are different.

[RascalPuff]

Einstein climbs to the top of Mt. Sinai to get close enough to talk to God.
Looking up, he asks the Lord...
"God, what does a million years mean to you?"
The Lord replies, "A minute."
"Einstein asks, "And what does a million dollars mean to you?"
The Lord replies, "A penny."
Einstein asks, "Can I have a penny?"
The Lord replies, "In a minute."

[not2too]

First, to Profpat - another thing about the Cosmic Yolk...

When you (or anyone) attempts to crack the Cosmic Egg with your TOE, the Yolk is liable to be on you.

And - to RascalPuff -

Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg were out walking in the country conversing at length on the subject of physics. After some time, Einstein said, "Werner, stop a minute."

Both men stopped walking and Heisenberg asked, "What is it Albert?"

"I have been so immersed in thought that I have not been paying attention, where are we?" Einstein queried.

Heisenberg replied, "I'm not sure."