| |
from everywhere: whatsoever happens in tehran, or timbucktu, next morning you know about it. And people are glued to their seats before their television sets, and everything is available in colour... very exciting. Each thing changes continuously.
Every year the car-producing companies change their models. There seems not to be much improvement. Sometimes even the new model may be worse than the old, but still there is excitement. People go on changing their jobs. The average length of a job in america now is three years.
In ancient india people were in the same job continuously -- not only for one life, for many lives. A sudra was born again as a sudra, and a brahmin was born again as a brahmin. So it continued life after life after life, the same.
Now people are changing their spouses -- nothing is settled. One person can marry many women in one life. One woman can have many husbands in one life.
There is so much excitement that the mind is always on the verge of going mad. Of course the modern world is not boring -- one thing is certain. It is anything but boring. It is too exciting, too tiring... maddening! And this has become our habit. You don't want to eat the same food every day, you don't want to use the same dress every day, you don't want to do the same thing every day But this is my understanding -- and the understanding of all those who have worked in the inner world of man -- that if you settle with a few things, in the beginning it is monotonous, boring, but by and by the mind becomes settled. One day suddenly the mind is not there, and you can look at life without the mind -- and that's what enlightenment is.
So you try it sometimes. For one week or two weeks, you can go to the hills to lonavala or anywhere and just be bored. Sitting in the same room, doing nothing -- just be bored! Accept boredom, and out of boredom something very significant will happen to you. So boredom is not always a curse. It can be turned into a blessing.
I am thinking to create a few groups here... mm? One group will simply be sheer boredom! (laughter) So nothing happens in that group. People simply sit and look at each other for
|
|
|