(November 1952) Baba then mentioned different incidents in the lives of the past Avatars, which illustrated their unique sense of humor:
It is said that once Rasool-e-Khuda, the Messenger of God, felt indisposed, and someone suggested that it was due to an evil eye and that he should sleep on a pillow with an open knife underneath it. He did so, and thereafter declared himself to be all right. Call it ordinary or call it divine; it was Prophet Muhammad’s sense of humor.
It is a fact that during the childhood of his grandsons, Hassan and Hussain, the Prophet predicted the Moharrum [martyrdom] “Karbala” to his daughter Fatima, the mother of the martyrs. Now, if the Prophet who, in fact, turned the then savages of Arabia into the torchbearers of faith, love and truth for the world did not even try to avoid the greatest tragedy in Islam, or to stop the most horrible end for his own and only two grandsons, that was only because of God’s divine sense of humor in Muhammad.
Likewise, the strife between the Kauravas and the Pandavas (1) and the consequent bloodshed was not only due to the divine sense of humor in Krishna, but its height was reached when Krishna himself died through an arrow that accidentally struck one of his legs from the bow of an ordinary hunter who never had any intention of harming the Rangila [colorful, playful] Avatar in any way.
The kindhearted Jesus knew very well that his nearest disciple would betray him and thus lead to his crucifixion. But, because of the divine sense of humor, Jesus Christ could not help getting himself crucified, although the world rightly continues to look upon him as the Savior of humanity.
The funniest divine sense of humor was on the part of Buddha when he died of simple dysentery, though his “medicine” for the spiritual bimaries (illnesses) of mankind holds the field to this day.
In short, except for a change in the circumstances, the atmosphere and the surroundings, the same old, old story goes on repeating again and again, which by itself proves the divine sense of humor or the leela of God. The manifestation of the divine sport or leela, however, depends upon the Great Ones of God who achieve Oneness with God. And thus, in spite of raising themselves above the law of duality, they still retain the divine sense of humor to uphold the universal law of ignorance through which Knowledge Divine is achieved for all eternity.
Those who were with me at the spot at the time of my car accident in America can alone well describe my own sense of humor as to how thoroughly battered, bruised and literally helpless and hopeless I was when lying with broken bones in a pool of my own blood together with my dearest ones. Yet I maintained my silence and my consciousness throughout the crisis and the long period of convalescence.
(1) Kauravas were of the Kuru clan; namely, Dhrtarastra, Janamejava and Duryodhana. The Pandavas were the sons of Pandu; namely, Yudhisthira, Bhima, Nakula, Sahadeva and Arjuna. These two clans fought each other during Krishna’s advent.
Lord Meher, Original ed., Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 11, pp. 3934 – 3936.