The polarity of seriousness and playfulness in the spiritual development

When we examine spiritual masters then we can see masters who are deadly serious while others are maybe as playful as children. And some masters are maybe both. Indian Yogi Masters are often very nice and playful, also Buddhists. The Dalai Lama has a great sense for humor. Even Jesus talks about this topic when he says that we all must become like children to be able to enter heaven.

I want to put some light on this topic to give a better understanding.

The first and most formative aspect is that the spiritual path is often connected to superhuman challenges, suffering, sacrifices, experiences of death, of going through the underworld, of fighting with yourself and with karma. When you have to face so much darkness, when you lie on the ground crashed and naked, when your life is crashing and you lose it all and when you raise yourself from the dead, then it can be that all these experiences have made you serious. It can be also very hard to see mankind in the material world in its real nature, free of nice and limited illusions. Awakening and initiation are not really “fun”. In fact it takes its time to recover and heal from all these experiences to become “normal” again.

These things depend certainly also on your spiritual tradition. So when you join nice yogis with a holistic education then everything can be quite funny, playful, nice, etc.

Then this polarity is a matter of two, respectively three psychic centers. Your attitude depends on how these centers are developed and where you have your personal focus which means where your mind stays most of the time. This depends also on your history, your present situation, etc.

These centers are the crown chakra, the heart chakra and the solar plexus chakra. A spiritual master has certainly developed all these centers. The crown chakra lets the master take part in the cosmic, impersonal consciousness which is completely serious in its nature. The heart chakra offers total peace and vastness to the master, a state of independence, detachment and freedom but also a good sense for humor and laughter. The solar plexus chakra is the one which makes jokes, which is funny, which is playful and which shows all qualities of a child. The Dalai Lama has a perfectly developed solar plexus chakra and with this he can enjoy life to the maximum. From my point of view he uses the behavior of his solar plexus chakra to cover his higher nature to appear more human and not god-like.

Then we have types of masters who could be called the “grey eminence”. They are super serious and focused in their cosmic consciousness, far away from the human world.

As I have said already, this is more a matter of the tradition and what the tradition emphasizes.

A Master on the universal path will have developed all of his centers perfectly, so that he can take part in the impersonal divine consciousness as well as on the level of the child, the solar plexus center. Real masters have mastered all polarities perfectly. So a real master can be deadly serious or funny and playful always depending on the necessities of a specific situation.

Besides all these aspects, the air element is the element which is in nature closest to Akasha, the fifth and divine element. So humor is divine for sure and it is also simply necessary to manage all the hardships in the material world. Humor helps you to survive.

And regarding the child, the solar plexus center, – the child is very precious as it is the one which let us experience life with joy. If the child is damaged or dead, there is no human joy for the concerned person. Then you are only a spirit who works or functions but not more.

For this reason, Bardon has recommended to keep your personality, your “ego” or better called “child” to enjoy life instead of losing your “self” and just being an impersonal spirit in a body.

The mystery of the so-called “ego” needs to be understood. The ego needs to be healed and cleaned and then integrated and guided and nourished by the higher, more adult centers.

So take care that you keep laughing on your path even if you take all exercises serious. Develop yourself perfectly and in a lawful, holistic way. Then you will be able to enjoy and celebrate life as God meant it to happen.