Monday, January 10, 2005
On Boredom #3
[This post is the denoument to the "on boredom series." I've trimmed it down to the meatiest parts, inspite of which it's slightly lengthy. To download the entire ebook, click the link]
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, his security, his safety. He dropped all that and became a beggar in search of something which would be eternally fresh, which would never become old, which would never become boredom. The search for the eternally fresh is the search of sannyas.
There is a source within you which is eternally fresh; it never becomes old, you can never get fed up with it. And when I am saying this, I am saying it from the same source. My words are coming from the same source. If you can taste them, if you can feel them, you may have some glimpse of a faraway land where everything goes on becoming new every moment, where dust does not gather on any mirror. That world is within you.
[...] We are all focused on others, and that which can give you a continuous joy is within you -- but you never look within. [...] Man looks always to faraway things; he seems to be completely unaware of that which is obvious, that which is close. You are the closest to you, that's why you go on missing it. And there is no way to take you away from yourself. Wherever we will take you, you will be -- you cannot be separated from you. Hence you cannot say, "My beautiful being..."
You will have to learn the art of entering into yourself. You will have to be more subjective than objective. Subjectivity is the essence of mysticism. You will have to start looking inwards.
That's what we call meditation; it is nothing but looking inwards, reaching to the point of your very life source. And once you have touched your very life source, there is no boredom, your life is a constant celebration.
Otherwise, whether you are man or woman, to be bored is going to be your destiny.
-- Osho,
Passion for The Impossible,
Chapter 1: The Psychology of Frustration
Note: Even though "sannyas" is commonly translated as renunciation, that is not Osho's usual connotation. When Osho says "be a sannyasin" he means "learn how to be in the world, but do not be of the world." Another metaphor he often uses to explain this: "the art of living: to be a lotus untouched by the filth of the cesspool in which it grows." To prevent this liable misinterpretation, Osho started substituing "neo-sannyas" for "sannyas" later on.
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, his security, his safety. He dropped all that and became a beggar in search of something which would be eternally fresh, which would never become old, which would never become boredom. The search for the eternally fresh is the search of sannyas.
There is a source within you which is eternally fresh; it never becomes old, you can never get fed up with it. And when I am saying this, I am saying it from the same source. My words are coming from the same source. If you can taste them, if you can feel them, you may have some glimpse of a faraway land where everything goes on becoming new every moment, where dust does not gather on any mirror. That world is within you.
[...] We are all focused on others, and that which can give you a continuous joy is within you -- but you never look within. [...] Man looks always to faraway things; he seems to be completely unaware of that which is obvious, that which is close. You are the closest to you, that's why you go on missing it. And there is no way to take you away from yourself. Wherever we will take you, you will be -- you cannot be separated from you. Hence you cannot say, "My beautiful being..."
You will have to learn the art of entering into yourself. You will have to be more subjective than objective. Subjectivity is the essence of mysticism. You will have to start looking inwards.
That's what we call meditation; it is nothing but looking inwards, reaching to the point of your very life source. And once you have touched your very life source, there is no boredom, your life is a constant celebration.
Otherwise, whether you are man or woman, to be bored is going to be your destiny.
-- Osho,
Passion for The Impossible,
Chapter 1: The Psychology of Frustration
Note: Even though "sannyas" is commonly translated as renunciation, that is not Osho's usual connotation. When Osho says "be a sannyasin" he means "learn how to be in the world, but do not be of the world." Another metaphor he often uses to explain this: "the art of living: to be a lotus untouched by the filth of the cesspool in which it grows." To prevent this liable misinterpretation, Osho started substituing "neo-sannyas" for "sannyas" later on.
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I understand Duke Leto's assertion that creativity and boredom are almost antonyms. However, every well of original ideas runs dry eventually, and that's when frustration and boredom sets in. There are too many obvious examples of this all around us, especially in the entertainment industry where it's aptly called 'burnout' and this soon becomes 'sellout' - George Lucas, Chris Carter, Metallica (who were so bored they sued their fans), The Wachowskis. So what do you do then? Osho interjects with his message at this point - that you can't be infinitely creative, UNLESS your creativity gushes from an inexhaustible source. Tagore, Picasso, Van Gogh, Whitman, Emerson knew how to tap into that source and were fecundly creative right upto their deaths. The obvious retort is that none of these people were overtly spiritual (indeed some were atheists) and none of them ever went to a meditation camp. But that's just the kind of radical meditation Osho teaches sans prerequisites - no camps, no backbreaking yoga postures, no mantras, no rituals, no superficial B.S. of any kind. Meditation through dance, through painting, through music, psychodrama and laughter, and also through traditional, time-tested methods of silence and seclusion (like Vipassana and Patanjali Yoga). It's well known that Picasso would go into trances during his "subjective painting", and Vaslav Nijinski wouldn't remember a thing of his incredible stage performances. According to Osho, all the geniuses of the past were meditators in one way or another, sometimes without even knowing it themselves.
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