At every step, He scatters jasmine jokes. He blunts the sharp edge of despair, playfully presenting an impossible remedy. "Cut off the limb", "Wed the oldest inhabitant", "Go act in a film", which raises laughter and relieves tension. If levity is the soul of wit, Baba is the inexhaustible reservoir. He laughs as no one else can, because He sees through the tricks we play, the trammels we wear, the stratagems of our grasp, the pretentions we perpetrate. But His laughter is the physician's chuckle at the stupidity of the sick. It is a reaction, preliminary to the gift of love, an amalgam of pity and affection.
Humour is the natural reaction, when things are not what they claim to be and men practise hypocrisy as a way of life. Humour is aroused when a man, as Baba says, gets inside the bottle he is addicted to, when he is possessed by his possession, held captive by a manner of speech, gesticulation, a prejudice, a passion, an "ism" or an idol. Laughing at such perversions, ridiculing them, exposing them to the disinfecting influence of humour, He promotes the progress of both the individual and society.
(From "Loving God" by Sri N. Kasturi)
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