With so many TV channels, so many movies available to us, our lives have become too full of endless means of entertainment. Yet, if you compare this situation to the past – when people weren’t so lucky to have access to all this – people now feel more bored than ever! You see them yawning despite being surrounded by infinite sources of entertainment.

What could be the reason behind this boredom? Well, if you observe, only an intelligent and above-average person can get bored. And people today are certainly more intelligent than ever before. It does need a certain amount of sensitivity to feel the boredom. Today, people live very luxurious lives. Even the mythical paradise has become out of date and context, as we have more context, as we have more comforts and more luxuries than ever before!

Gautama Buddha had all the possible comforts, though not as many as we have today but he too got fed up and left his palace-forever. He went out in search of truth, of self- actualization, of permanent contentment... We don’t take such drastic steps as our boredom does not frustrate us so completely. We hope that, one day, everything will become all right, everything will be hunky-dory and we will be content. So, we are bored but not fully bored – because somewhere we feel that much more is possible in our lives.

We need to understand this phenomenon of boredom more closely. It will make us understand that boredom is very human and it has a higher purpose- if we allow that purpose to lead us to meditation and transform our lives. Osho explains: “Boredom is one of the most vital things in human live. Man is only animal capable of boredom. Boredom is born when the mind start coming closer and closer to enlightenment. And boredom is just the polar opposite of enlightenment. Animals cannot get enlightened, hence they cannot get bored either. Boredom simply shows that you are becoming aware of the futility of life, of its repetitiveness. You have done all those things earlier. There is monotony. Nothing has changed. Boredom indicates that you have become conscious of life’s cycle.”

Osho adds: “You can respond to boredom in two ways: Escape from it and choose simply not to encounter it, or try to divert your mind with things that take you so far away from the realities of life that you never have to witness boredom again.” That’s why people invented alcohol and drugs, as ways to ‘escape’ boredom.

However, you cannot really escape boredom; you can only avoid it for a while. It is inescapable because it is a part of human growth. We’d be leading very stagnant lives, were we not blessed with some kind of boredom that stimulates us into doing something. Being content can make life dull and boring. When everything is predictable, life loses its charm. Osho says: “The beauty of facing life unprepared is tremendous. For then, life has newness, a youth, a flow, a freshness... Then, life has so many surprises that boredom never gets to you!

- Swami Chaitanya Keerti