Question : BELOVED OSHO, HOW IS ONE TO OVERCOME BOREDOM? HOW CAN ONE REDISCOVER MYSTERY IN THINGS THAT HAVE BECOME BORING, REPETITIVE, DEMYSTIFIED?
Osho : The first thing to remember is that it is not that things are repetitive – it is your mind, not the things. The sun rises every day, you can say that it is repetitive. It is not, because the sun rises every day in a different way. The colors are different, the mood is different, the sky is different. The sun n ever repeats, it is always new. It is your mind which says, ”This is repetitive, so what is the beauty there?”
Looking at the sun rising every day will create boredom, but the boredom is coming because you are not sensitive enough to see the newness. Everything is new every moment. It looks old because you carry the past in your mind and you look through the past. You may have lived with a person for thirty years – your wife, your husband, your friend – and you may have noticed that for years you have not seen the face of the person, for years.
You may be living with the person but you have not seen those eyes, the face. You think there is no need, you know the person well. The face is changing every day, the eyes are changing every day, the mind is changing every day. Life is a flux. Nothing is old, nothing can be old here. Never is a thing repeated, it is nonrepetitive. And if you think that things are old it is only because you are not sensitive enough to see the newness.
Just try to see a person; observe for twenty-four hours, and see how many persons exist in that one person. And this is not only so with a person, even a rock has its moods. Sit by the side of a rock and feel the mood. Sometimes the rock is happy and then the rock will receive you, will welcome you. And you can feel, you can touch and feel a warmth, a receptive welcome. Sometimes the rock is sad. You touch it and it will be cold.
She will not be receiving you, it is as if she is saying, ”Go away.” In the morning look at the rock, in the evening look at the rock. When the stars have appeared in the night then look at the rock. It is not the same rock because the whole milieu is changing, it is part of a great milieu. When the whole milieu is changing how can this rock remain the same? It goes on changing but you don’t have eyes to see.
Your eyes are old, this is the first thing to remember. Nothing is old in the world, everything is new – only your eyes get old. You become fixed, you start seeing patterns. Now scientists say that ninety-eight percent of the information that goes on coming from the outside world is not taken in by your senses, only two percent is taken. And that two percent of information that is taken in by your senses, you have a fixed pattern of taking, you choose it.
That’s why the thing becomes old. You come to the house, you look at your wife in a particular pattern that has become fixed. You may not observe – you are not observing many things. The wife may be happy but you have become fixed with an idea: ”My wife and happy? – it is impossible!” She may be happy but you cannot see. You have a pattern, you see only that which you believe. And if the wife sees that you are seeing only unhappiness when she is happy suddenly she will become unhappy, because happiness cannot exist unsupported.
She may have been smiling and waiting for you. Then she looks at your face and reads your face and sees that you are seeing that she is unhappy. Suddenly the smile disappears and your pattern is proved right. And the wife is doing the same with the husband….
Everybody has a fixed pattern, that’s why things become old, look repetitive. Drop this pattern. Boredom comes because of you, the world is not creating boredom. It is one of the most wonderful worlds possible. Everything is new and everything is changing, nothing fixed, no pattern is followed. It is an alive movement. But you have a dead mind, so you see only those things which you have fixed. Drop this mind and start looking afresh.
What to do? Meditate. Whenever you see a thing which you feel is old, meditate. Look deeper, look again, think twice, feel, touch, be sensitive. Try to discover something new in it and you will always be enriched, you will always find something new there. Sometimes sit with your wife or with your child, with your friend, and look in the eyes, touch the face as if you are meeting for the first time.
Close your eyes, put the light off, touch the face of your wife or your husband and feel the lines, the curves, as if for the first time. And suddenly the boredom will disappear, the person will become new. The person has always been becoming new only you never touched, your touch was dead. You never felt, your feeling was dead. ”How is one to overcome boredom?” The first thing to remember, drop your pattern; your mind creates the boredom.
And then you will feel mystery all around you. Every day you go to the table, you take your food – it has become a routine. Tomorrow, or this very night when you are eating, close your eyes. First feel the bread with your hands, smell it – you have never smelled it. Touch it on your cheek – you have never touched it. And be slow, so you can feel and you can absorb. And then eat it, then taste it. Chew it as much as possible.
It should be the rule that while drinking water, eat it, and while eating food, drink it. Chew it so much that it becomes just like water and you can drink it. And when you drink water, don’t drink it abruptly, don’t just throw it down. Taste it. When you are thirsty just feel the water on your tongue, in your throat going down, the thirst disappearing – the feel of it. And even ordinary food can become wonderful.
An ordinary woman can give you all the mysteries that any Cleopatra can give. An ordinary man is all – because ordinariness is just in your mind; otherwise everybody is extraordinary, everybody is unique. But you have to discover it. Life is not given readymade, it has to be discovered. You get bored because you think life is readymade, somebody is going to give it to you. Nobody is there to give it to you. You have to discover it moment to moment, every day.
The discovery must continue to the very end. If you stop discovery you will be bored. You have stopped discovery, long ago you stopped discovery completely. Start again. Start feeling things, persons, try to find out something new always. Wherever you look – in the sky, at the trees, at the market, at the shop – wherever you look just be in a search to see something new.
And there is enough, you will never feel a failure. Always the new will bubble up, the life will again become a mystery. And when life becomes a mystery you become religious. A demystified life cannot lead you towards the divine. The divine means the deepest mystery that is hidden in this life.