Osho Quotes on Boredom

Osho Quotes on Boredom

1. Miss the present and you live in boredom. BE in the present and you will be surprised that there is no boredom at all. Start by looking around a little more like a child. Be a child again! That’s what meditation is all about: being a child again — a rebirth, being innocent again, not-knowing.
2. Boredom and restlessness are deeply related. Whenever you feel boredom, then you feel restlessness. Restlessness is a by-product of boredom.
3. If you really want a life which has no boredom in it, drop all masks, be true. Sometimes it will be difficult, I know, but it is worth it. Be true.
4. Science has become too predominant, art has almost disappeared. It is no longer thriving, it is no longer as alive as it always has been in the past. Science has taken over everything. Hence the great boredom felt in the world, because unless you are creative you are bound to be bored. Only a creative person knows how to drop boredom; the creative person knows no boredom at all. He is thrilled, enchanted, he is constantly in a state of adventure. And small things create such ecstatic states within him. A butterfly is enough to trigger a process in his being. Just a small flower is enough to bring a spring into his heart. A silent lake reflecting the stars, and the poet himself becomes a silent lake and starts reflecting millions of stars.
5. Boredom is a very, very significant phenomenon. Only man feels bored, no other animal. You cannot make a buffalo bored. Impossible. Only man gets bored because only man is conscious. Consciousness is the cause. The more sensitive you are, the more alert you are, the more conscious you are, the more you will feel bored. In more situations you will feel bored. A mediocre mind does not feel so bored. He goes on; he accepts; whatsoever is, is okay; he is not so alert. The more alert you become, the more fresh, the more you will feel as if some situation is just a repetition, as if some situation is just getting hard on you, as if some situation is just stale. The more sensitive you are, the more bored you will become. Boredom is an indication of sensitivity. Trees are not bored, animals are not bored, rocks are not bored — because they are not sensitive enough. This has to be one of the basic understandings about your boredom — that you are sensitive.
6. But Buddhas also are not bored. You cannot bore a Buddha. Animals are not bored and Buddhas are not bored, so boredom exists as a middle phenomenon between the animal and the Buddha. For boredom a little more sensitivity is needed than is given to the animal. And if you want to get beyond it then you have to become totally sensitive. Then again the boredom disappears. But in the middle the boredom is there. If you become animal-like, then boredom disappears. So you will find that people who live a very animalistic life are less bored. Eating, drinking, marrying — they are not very bored, but they are not sensitive. They live at the minimum. They live only with that much consciousness as is needed for a day-to-day routine life. You will find that intellectuals, people who think too much, are more bored, because they think. And because of their thinking they can see that something is just repetition.
7. Mind is always bribing you by entertainments: put on the radio, put on the TV, go to the movie or at least to the club, gossip — do something. Boredom is a punishment from the mind to you if you are not doing anything. And the greatest problem for the meditator is boredom. But if you can sit absolutely unconcerned about boredom — let the boredom be there — if you don’t get disturbed by the boredom, within three to nine months’ time the boredom will disappear. And instead of boredom there will come such a bubbling joy, such freshness, that you have never known before. And it is not entertainment because there is nothing: you are simply sitting in an absolute void. And out of that void, the plenitude, out of that void, a new kind of fulfillment….
8. Boredom is the consciousness of repetition. Because animals cannot remember the past, they cannot feel bored. They cannot remember the past, so they cannot feel bored. They cannot remember the past, so they cannot feel the repetition. The buffalo goes on eating the same grass every day with the same delight. You cannot. How can you eat the same grass with the same delight? You get fed up.
9. Remember one thing more. Just as I said to you that suicide is absolutely human, no animal commits it, the same is true about boredom. Boredom is absolutely human. A buffalo is never bored, a donkey is never bored — only man, only a highly evolved consciousness. If you are not bored with your life, it simply shows that you live in a very low state of consciousness. A Buddha is bored, a Jesus is bored, a Mahavira is bored — bored to death! Just repetition all around and nothing else. Out of boredom comes renunciation. A man who is bored with the world becomes a sannyasin. The search is not for another world, it is for an end of the search. It is suicide, total, ultimate.
10. Man is the only animal who can get bored. Boredom and humour are two aspects of the same coin, two sides of the same coin. Only man can get bored and only man can laugh. These are the two specific qualities that exist in man. They are the definition of humanity. Animals are never bored. They go on doing the same routine every day, year in, year out, from birth to death — they are never bored. You cannot see boredom on their faces, because for boredom also intelligence is needed. The more intelligent a person, the more bored he is in the world. Buddha became BORED with the whole nonsense that is called life. He became bored with birth, he became bored with love, he became bored with death. In the East, religion is nothing but a search to get out of this boring existence, how to get out of AWAGAMAN — this constant coming and going, this continuous birth and death. It is boring! It has nothing new in it. And the idea of many lives makes it even more boring.
11. Boredom is a high quality of intelligence. It means you are perceptive; you can see that there is nothing but — finally — death. Empty handed you have come, and one day empty handed you will leave, and all that happens in between birth and death is simply tedious.
12. Your religions are boring you, your philosophies are boring you, your scriptures are boring you. Thousands of years of the past are the cause of your boredom. You cannot dance — you are chained to the past, you are imprisoned in the past.
13. Boredom has been used as a technique, it is a device. In Zen, boredom is used as a device: you are bored to death, and you are not allowed to escape. You are not to go outside, you are not to entertain yourself, you are not to do, you are not to talk, you are not to read novels and detective stories. No thrill. No possibility to escape anywhere.
14. What exactly is meditation? Facing boredom is meditation. What does a meditator go on doing? Sitting silently, looking at his own navel, or watching his breathing, do you think he is being entertained by these things? He is utterly bored! That’s why the Zen master moves with a stick in his hand — because those bored people are bound to fall asleep. There is no other escape, so only one escape is left: at Least they can fall asleep. They cannot escape. They have themselves, of their own accord, become part of the Zen training and the discipline — they cannot escape. But one escape is always available: you can fall asleep, then you forget all about it. That’s why in meditation one feels sleepy. The whole effort in meditation is this: be bored but don’t escape from it; and keep alert, because if you fall asleep you have escaped. Keep alert! Watch it, witness it. If it is there, then it is there. It has to be looked into, to the very core of it.
15. I want to teach you that it is not only painters and dancers and singers that have the prerogative to enjoy life. It is everybody’s birthright — it has nothing to do with special talents. Cooking can be a joy, cleaning the house can be a joy. It is all the same. What you are doing is not the point; the doer must be lost in doing, you should not remain separate. If you are separate, then of course, there is going to be boredom. Every day cleaning the house…. All housewives are bored, utterly bored. All men are bored: the same job, the same stupid customers, the same wife at home. To a meditator, everything is beautiful. He lives life in its abundance. I say to you, only the enlightened person can live luxuriously. Whether he has luxurious things around him or not does not matter. He has some inner change. His vision, his attitude, his approach to things is totally different from the average man or woman.
16. The day your passions are gone, how can you be jealous? Jealousy is a by-product of your passions. And when you are no more interested in anybody, except the exploration of your own being, judgments will fall away. And when you discover your treasure, the hidden splendor within you, your greed will disappear. When you are feeling so fulfilled, how can you be angry? That anger will destroy your contentment and your fulfillment. But the secret of all this transformation is watching. No meditator in the whole of history has ever felt bored. In fact, the meditators are the only people who destroy boredom completely. They are so thrilled by existence, they are so thrilled just by their consciousness, they are so thrilled by falling in tune with the heartbeat of the universe that it is impossible to be bored. It is changing every moment; it is every moment a new universe, and it is every moment a new dance, a new song, a new music, which you have never heard before.