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and security, but it took away exploration.
One of the Urdu poets has a beautiful song in which he says, "If you" -- he is addressing God -- "if you were in favor of marriage, then why did you give me eyes? Then why did you give me intelligence?" Idiots are not bored... and you will be surprised, blind people are not bored.
The more intelligent you are the sooner you will be bored, that is the criterion. The most intelligent, sensitive, creative people are the most bored people, because one experience is enough. To repeat it is only for the idiots.
As the world has become more and more settled financially, socially -- marriage, children, education, retirement, pension, insurance... people are even paid in advanced countries for their unemployment -- it has taken away all the joy of exploration. Everything has become so settled and controlled that there seems to be only one possibility to explore, in the West particularly, and that is suicide. Only that has remained unknown.
They have experienced sex and found it is just foolishness. They have experienced drugs and found that it is just deceiving yourself. Now there seems to be no adventure, no challenge, more and more people are committing suicide. It is something to be noted that the suicide rate is not increasing in the poor countries. The poor people seem to be less bored, less fed up, because they have to think about food and clothes and shelter; they don't have time for boredom. They cannot afford it.
The richer the society... where everything is available, how long can you go on living in a settled, monotonous, secure, insured, guaranteed lifestyle? People of great intelligence start committing suicide.
The East has also known times of richness, but fortunately the East has found a better substitute for suicide, and that is sannyas. When people became fed up, like Gautam Buddha -- because he had all the luxuries possible, and how long can you go on repeating the same luxuries every day? By the age of twenty-nine he was finished with the world. He had experienced everything; there were no more possibilities in the world.
One dark night he escaped from his kingdom,
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