“Once you achieve a degree of neutrality, the fun part begins. Detached from reactions, you can use your creativity and imagination. You can choose to enjoy life. And with your laughter, you take the first step toward your spiritual fulfillment. When the soul is inactive due to boredom and apathy or fear or anger, there is no growth. But with a bit of humor, fun, and laughter, you begin to embody your spiritual Self.” — Michael Tamura, You Are the Answer, p. 186
It becomes clear why neutrality is so important—it provides us with the space in which we can laugh at everything we go through, even when it is difficult and painful.
“Enjoying life is easy when you are having fun. The challenge is to enjoy the part where it gets difficult. Of course, this does not mean that you should enjoy tragedies. It means knowing that you can choose to be happy with yourself, regardless of how desperate you feel or how terrible the circumstances are, and this helps you connect with the energy of the soul. It means learning to love yourself when you feel angry, bereaved, or like a failure. It means finding the humor in the cosmic joke of believing that truth, love, and fulfillment are not within you and that something can take them away from you.” (p. 186)
The importance of joy and amusement was revealed to Michael Tamura during his monthly meditation when he asked his regular question to God about what he needed to develop within himself. The distinct answer was “More amusement.” And so, for an entire month, he practiced “more amusement.” Like every new beginning, when he decided to start his new practice of joy, it met with resistance from the outside world.
“You can imagine what I went through that month. Most of the time, it wasn’t fun at all. Not a day went by without some heavy blow to my senses and sensitivity. But toward the end of the month, I was pleasantly surprised that I had handled it quite well. I could see that responding with amusement to difficult and unpleasant situations was starting to become easier and that I could laugh at myself with more readiness. So it was a surprise to me when my next monthly meditation brought the same instruction: I had to develop even more amusement.” (p. 192)
Not only the next, but the following monthly meditation brought the same message for Michael Tamura—”more amusement.” And this continued for twelve whole months! As he writes, “perhaps God was on vacation and had left me a recording.” At the end of the year, after having gathered quite a bit of amusement and fun, Tamura was put to the test once again. In a single day, he had to go to his bank five times. On the fifth and final time, while waiting in line—amused by his repeated trips there—he witnessed a bank robbery!
It is worth reading the full description of this episode in his book. When he saw everyone lying face down on the floor, he turned to see what was happening around him and realized he was in the middle of a bank robbery—but the two robbers could not see him!
“I was in the middle of an armed bank robbery, pinned between two armed men, one of whom was holding everyone on the floor with the threat of murder—except me. He stood about a meter away from me, and every time he ordered someone on the floor not to move, he would wave the gun in front of my face to point it at another person. Amused, I hoped he wouldn’t sneeze while doing this. Then I realized they hadn’t ordered me to lie down because they couldn’t see me. I wasn’t in their universe.
The two robbers had entered into fear and anger. Everyone in that place was afraid, except me, because I was neutral and completely amused. To them, I did not exist. Just as when you boil water and it turns into steam and becomes invisible, the power of amusement, laughter, and happiness made me invisible. Compared to the dense vibrations of fear, anger, and hostility, amusement was so much higher that for those people immersed in low vibrations, I had vanished… After reviewing the camera footage in the room, the FBI held me for over three hours because they couldn’t understand how I was standing upright with the armed men while everyone else was on the floor. And the next morning, I was on the front page of five newspapers, calmly standing between the two armed bank robbers. Then I realized I had passed yet another exam in amusement. Since then, I have never received that assignment again.” — Michael Tamura, You Are the Answer, p. 194
Such a story seems incredible to me, pure science fiction. I thought the same when I read in other books that by raising one’s vibrations, the human body becomes invisible. Thanks to this story, however, I understood what it means for a person to become “invisible”—they don’t become invisible in general, but only to people with different vibrations. The camera, however, “saw” Michael Tamura, likely because it is neutral—the primary condition for being able to laugh at ourselves and what happens to us.
I have no personal experience with how one becomes invisible, but I do have experience using laughter as a means of healing. Therefore, I entirely agree with Tamura when he writes that “laughter is not only the best medicine, but also the front line of healing” (p. 186).
Psychotherapy does not necessarily have to be something agonizing and heavy. Often, in my work with people, it is exactly the opposite—it generates a lot of laughter and fun. I imagine us standing together on the front line, fighting the enemy by making him laugh. He falls stricken to the floor, his body shaking with laughter and his legs kicked up toward the sky.
Practicing amusement is easy if we put on “the glasses through which God looks at us.” What is a drama for the earthly part of us is a comedy for the divine part, and that is likely why it is constantly amused.
The other thing that helps me in this practice is to look at life through the eyes of a child. I am reminded of Pippi Longstocking, who asks Tommy and Annika where the land of amusement is. The answer: “The land of amusement is where I am, Pippi Longstocking!” But what helps me most of all is when I connect with the feeling of ordinariness. It is from this kind of shrinking of the ego that I am most overcome with laughter.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
