Laughing As A Meditation by Carol Hiltner*

It would be very difficult for us to keep on doing the Spirit of Ma'at without Carol Hiltner. She handles our customer service, does research, writes articles, networks us with many incredible sources of information (especially her Russian friends), and frequently provides some wonderful artwork (see her website at AltaiBooks.com). But perhaps most valuable is her amazing sense of humor and fun.

Carol is a very serious seeker after the Light. But she couldn't even begin to tell you that without bursting into laughter! Of all the people I know, it is perhaps Carol who possesses the most alive awareness of the absurdity in this crazy Dream we call life.

So it makes sense that Carol has been channeling information about how to do "laughing meditation." And she wanted to share this with you. So of course we laughed and said, "Sure!"

Lately, the emergence of my Divine Self seems to be increasingly accompanied by gales of laughter. The plot gets so thick at times, I just lose it — break character and roll on the floor, tears streaming down my face, wondering how my ego can possibly be serious about this stuff.

And the more horrific the "stuff," it seems, the more likely I am to greet it with an access of mirth.

Here's an example. One of the pathways to my spiritual awakening seems to involve remembering all the ways I have died — some of them much too awful to talk about — and I was doing this recently with the help of my favorite neighborhood healer.

Suddenly, as my body was trying to "experience out" this really gruesome past-life memory, there was a "crack" in the virtual reality of the scene, and I became aware of all my cells running in different directions, staggering around and crashing into each other. It was like a slapstick comedy. So right in the middle of my next huge sob there came this snort of laughter. I started giggling, and then my healer entered in. Soon, the suffering I'd called up was vaporized in our laughter.

My first laughing meditation happened about a year ago, and it was totally spontaneous. I was at one of Drunvalo's workshops, and we were all doing healings on each other. Drunvalo was coming around and adding his own magic.

When he came to work on me, I started to feel an amazing sense of freedom. And the next thing I knew, I was laughing uncontrollably.

Get the picture: All around me are these sober people trying to do "serious" healing work, and I don't even have the courtesy to laugh quietly, for heaven's sake! Instead of lying down with my group around me like a good subject, I am doubled up, laughing so hard I am crying. I know this is just not kosher behavior, so I keep trying to sober up, and the harder I try, the more peals and peals of laughter keep rippling through me. I am a one-woman laugh track, totally convulsed in mirth.

Pretty soon, my entire group was laughing, and it spread to nearby groups.

Shortly after that strange occurrence, I was trying to figure out how to take the sting out of a major communication debacle with two dear friends and was instructed in a dream to do a laughing meditation. I suggested to my friends that we do this together, but they both refused. I did it anyway, and it set my mind at rest.

So I have become a practitioner of the laughing meditation, and I will now conclude with a few ideas from my experience — just in case you would like to enter in:

Do it with company — the more the better. You can use the contagion of laughter to propel all of you into catharsis.

Don't do it while you're driving or operating machinery (ha-ha).

Use props. It's easier to start laughing if you are already in an obviously silly situation. Props can be things like dress-up, make-up, and party noisemakers.

Don't try to hold still. Make sure you have room to fall down laughing.

Allow in all kinds of sounds. Besides laughter, for example, there is snorting, whooping, raspberries, baby talk, and animal noises.

Don't laugh aloud in the midst of a confrontation. It is so powerful, that someone who is upset with you may feel extremely threatened.

Whether you actually allow yourself to laugh in a particular situation, remember your ability to laugh.

In the middle of muddle, try imagining it all as a story to be told at a party to a room full of appreciative, light-hearted friends.

What better way could there be to transmute the dross we create for ourselves than to titter, giggle, guffaw, and then collapse, gasping, to catch our breaths.

Hilarious, side-busting laughter is a sacred gift.