FillMash

Boredom – A great Spiritual Phenomenon. Abha, boredom is one of the most important things in human life. Boredom simply shows that you are becoming aware of the futility of life, its constant repetitive wheel. Boredom is the first indication that a great understanding is arising in you about the futility, meaninglessness of life and its ways.

Only man is capable of boredom; no other animal is capable of being bored. That’s why buffaloes are not bored; they look perfectly happy and enjoying. And in man, also, only the people who are very talented, intelligent, they are bored. The stupid people are not bored. They are perfectly happy doing their jobs, earning money, making a bigger bank balance, raising their children, reproducing, eating, sitting in the movie, going in the hotel, participating in this and that. They are enjoying! They are not bored.

A man becomes human when he starts feeling bored. You can see it: the most intelligent child will be the most bored child—because nothing can keep his interest for long. Sooner or later he stumbles upon the fact and asks, “Now what? What next? This is finished.  I have seen this toy, I have looked into it, I have opened it, and I have analyzed it— what is next?” Soon he starts finishing things. By the time he becomes young, he is already bored.

Buddha was utterly bored. He left his kingdom when he was only twenty-nine, at the peak of his youth. He was utterly bored—with wine, with wealth, with kingdom, with everything. He had seen all, he had seen through and through. He was bored. Traditionally it is said he renounced the world because the world is bad – that is absolutely nonsense. He renounced the world because he became so bored with it.

It is not bad, neither it is good. If you are intelligent, it is boredom. If you are stupid, you can go on. Then it is merry-go-round; then you move from one sensation to another. You are interested in trivia and you go on repeating and you are not conscious enough to see the repetition—that yesterday also you had been doing this, and today also you are doing, and again you are imagining tomorrow to do the same thing again. You must be really unintelligent. How can intelligence avoid boredom? It is impossible. Intelligence means seeing things as they are.

Buddha left the world out of boredom; utterly bored, he ran away from the world. And what was he doing then for six years sitting in those forests? He was getting more and more bored. What can you do, sitting in a forest?—watching your breath,day in, day out, year in, year out. He created that boredom to its ultimate peak, and one night it disappeared. It disappears of its own accord.

If you reach to the peak-The turn comes. It comes! And with that turn of the tide, light enters into your being- you disappear, only light remains. And with light comes delight. You are full of joy- you are not, but full of joy- for no reason at all. Joy simply bubbles up in your being.

The ordinary person is joyous for a reason—he has fallen in love with a new woman or a new man and he is joyous. His joy is momentary. Tomorrow he will be fed up with this woman and he will start looking for another. The ordinary man is happy because he has got a new car; tomorrow he will have to look for another car. It goes on and on—and he never sees the point of it, that always, finally, you are bored. Do whatsoever—finally you are bored. Every act brings boredom.

The intelligent person sees it. The sooner you see, the more intelligence you show. Then what is left? Then only boredom is left, and one has to meditate over it. There is no way to escape from it. Then go into it. See where it leads, and if you can keep going into it, it leads into enlightenment.

Only man is capable of boredom, and only man is capable of enlightenment.

- Osho