22 Mar It is the most intelligent people who feel boredom, who cannot see any meaning in money. (OSHO)
These people are dull people
Except man, nobody feels boredom; and even as far as man is concerned, all men don’t feel boredom. It needs intelligence to feel boredom, so very few, the most intelligent people in the world, feel boredom.
It is out of boredom that the inquiry for the meaning of life arises. Those who have felt bored simply show that whatsoever ordinary meanings life has, are no longer fulfilling for them.
There are people who are perfectly happy with money, accumulating more and more money, and they seem to be immensely interested in it, perfectly happy with their search for more.
These are not really developed human beings: they are the most mediocre human being, the lowest kind. Their intelligence has not yet become a flowering; it is still in the seed, only a potential.
The people who are greedy may be clever and cunning — they have to be — but you will never see any intelligence in them. You will not see the sharpness, you will not see any creativity in them.
And so is the case with the power-hungry, the politician, who is always running after more and more powerful positions, far higher status, who wants to become the president or the prime minister, whose whole life is devoted to the single purpose of dominating people.
These people are dull people. Their life is that of the ugliest form. They don’t have any sense of beauty, poetry, music. They don’t have any sense for aesthetics. Their whole interest is in bigger chairs, as if by sitting on bigger chairs they will become bigger, as if by becoming a president of a country they will have attained some spiritual integrity, as if by dominating millions of people they will become masters of their own being. They are empty people, hollow; their inner life is utterly dark. But you will never see them bored. They are always on the go, always interested in stupid efforts of gaining power, prestige, money. But they are contented; if they are succeeding you will see them very joyous.
It is the most intelligent people who feel boredom, who cannot see any meaning in money. Of course, there is certain utility in money, but no meaning.
Who cannot see any meaning, any significance, in power politics, in ego trips, who can see the utter futility of it all — now for people of such intelligence the greatest problem in life will be boredom.
The first thing, I would like to tell you is: feel blessed. This is a symptom of a higher intelligence. Out of this boredom the person starts moving inwards; finding everything futile on the outside he turns in — because there is nowhere else to go.
His intelligence is so clear, so transparent that he can see that he can have all the money of the world, still he will be the same person.
He can have all the power of the world, still he would not have become a new being through it, he will not be reborn. He can have all the knowledge that is available, but still he will remain the same stupid person inside; his knowledge will be just parrotlike.
The intelligent person becomes aware very soon that “All this is an exercise is sheer futility. Nothing on the outside can ever give me an inner fulfillment, an inner sense of significance.” And unless that is experienced, boredom will remain and will become heavier every day.
Now there are two possibilities. One is the western possibility.
If you look only through reason then you will never find any meaning in life; then boredom will become more and more acute, chronic. It will pervade your whole existence, it will permeate each moment of your life.
It will not allow you to live at all. It will become such a burden that suicide will seem to be the only possible way out.
If you look only through the head, only through the reason… that’s what the western approach has been up to now.
It is head-oriented, it is rational, it is Aristotelian, it is logical.
It has given great technology and science, but it cannot provide meaning for your life.
When the mind fails, when the reason fails, it does not mean that life has failed. It simply means that whatsoever reason could do it has done; now you have to look for deeper realms of your being — and there are deeper realms. Deeper than your mind is your heart. Deeper than logic is love. Deeper than science is art. Deeper than mathematics is music.
The East drops the mind, not life, and starts moving into the heart, into the world of feelings. And then suddenly great meaning arises, the boredom starts disappearing.
Moving from the mind to the being, the heart is exactly in between. When you have reached to the heart then you will become aware that there is a still deeper layer. But the heart will fill your life with joy, with great thrill, with excitement.
The feeling of boredom simply shows that you are ready to go for the inner journey.
If you don’t go you will feel stuck. Now the head cannot fulfill your longing. The heart will give you something, a glimpse, a window will open.
Use boredom as a jumping-stone towards the ultimate and then you will feel grateful, even grateful to the experience of boredom — which is painful, full of anguish.
But the wise man can transform even misery into bliss, and the fool goes on destroying all opportunities for bliss and goes on creating misery out of the energy which could have created a paradise within you.
Boredom
Osho
