Hassidism, The True Sage Chapter 6: The perfect swimmer, Question 3

Question 3

I GET BORED IN THE DISCOURSE. THEN I FEAR AND FEEL GUILTY.

This is from Swami Vishnu Chaitanya. Boredom is your chief characteristic, so don't avoid it. Be bored. Know it. Watch it. Be aware of it. There are many people whose chief characteristic is boredom, who are always bored in everything.

Maybe in the beginning.... you fall in love with a woman and you are not bored, but the next day, or the next hour, or the next minute, you are bored -- the same face, the same eyes, and the topography is known, and the geography travelled. Now there is nothing. Finished. You are bored.

Every day the same sun rises, and every day the same moon, and every day things move in a circle and a routine, and you are bored. And every second the breathing comes in and goes out. Nothing seems to be new.

You are excited sometimes when you see something new. but soon it will be old. Once it is old, excitement is gone. Then you are again searching for something new.

I have heard: Henry Ford was celebrating his fiftieth wedding ceremony -- golden jubilee. He was a very happy man. Rarely, after fifty years of marriage, is one so happy with a wife as he was.

Somebody asked: 'This seems unbelievable, and particularly in America. It seems unbelievable that you are still happy with a woman that you have been married to for fifty years. Fifty years looks almost like fifty centuries. It looks like it is almost from the very beginning. Fifty years, the whole life -- and you still feel happy? And you still look still love? What is the secret?'

Henry Ford said: 'The same rule that I follow in manufacturing cars -- I stuck to the same model. I have never tried to change the model of my cars, and I have not tried to change the model of my wife But she is new every day. She has never been old and I'm not bored.'

So boredom is because you don't know how to find the newness every moment. In a way it is true that the same sun rises every day, but it is not the same. If you have the eyes to see, it has never been the same. The sky is different. The poetry is different. The colour is different. It is never the same. The climate is changing every moment. Nothing has ever been the same. In existence nothing repeats, but it feels repetitive because you are not intensely alert.

If you are intensely alert, everything is new. If you are absolutely alert, everything is absolutely new. Never does any dust of oldness settle on it.

In a way, I go on saying the same thing every day. In another way, I have never uttered any single thing twice. It depends on you. If you listen while you are fast asleep, snoring, you will be bored. But don't blame me; it is your characteristic.

I am not bored with your faces. Nor am I bored with your problems. Every evening, excitedly, I wait for you. Every morning, excitedly, I wait for you. You are bored -- so something must be wrong with you.

Just think of me -- your problems and your faces, and all sorts of stupidities that you bring. I am always happy listening to them, because to me, every individual is so unique that you cannot bring anybody else's problem; you always bring YOUR problem.

You are changing every moment. You are a river. Today you come in a different mood and climate. Tomorrow you will come in a different mood and climate. I have never seen the same face twice. It changes. It is continuously changing. But one needs penetrating eyes to see. Otherwise, dust settles and everything becomes old, and everything seems to be repetitive. That is the attitude that decides.

Listen more consciously. Make yourself alert. Whenever you feel that you are getting bored, give a good jerk to the body. Not others' bodies, your own body -- you give a jerk. Open your eyes. Make yourself alert. Listen again.

Boredom is one of the greatest problems of human life. No animal is ever bored. Have you seen any animal bored? No animal, no bird, no tree is ever bored; only human beings are bored. Why? -- they have missed the natural flow of Life. They have moved away from life. The more you move away from your essence and your inner life, the more things will be dead, and you will be bored.

Come back home. Be part of the existence: of the trees and the rocks and the rivers, of the sky and the sun and the moon and the birds and the animals. Come back home.

And look at everything as a child looks: fresh, young. Jesus says: 'Nobody will be able to enter into my kingdom of God unless he is like a child.' What does he mean? What is the quality of a child? -- a child is fresh and never bored.

Have you observed? Tell a story to a child. He listens, he gets excited. And he says: 'Uncle, tell it again.' The same story! He is saying: 'Tell it again.' Now he is even more excited. You tell him and he says: 'Now, once more.' You cannot understand what is happening to this child, because it is the same story. But for a child, it is never the same story. Every night he listens to the same lullaby, but it is never the same. His consciousness is so fresh that dust never settles on it.

Your consciousness is so dusty already that you are not in a state to mirror reality. Even when I am saying something, you are understanding something else. Your dust distorts -- I say something; you understand something else. And you understand that which you already know. Of course, you become repetitive. You are bored.

I am not saying the same thing. In a very very deep sense I am saying the same thing, but that same thing is absolutely fresh, and it is always fresh. Freshness is its intrinsic quality. Truth is never old. It is eternal. It is not part of time where things are new and become old.

So if you are bored, catch this characteristic of boredom and make yourself more alive, more aware, and you will feel less bored. Bring your awareness to a deeper clarity, transparency, and boredom will disappear. You have to do something with your being.

And it is not only a question while listening to me; it is a characteristic. Everywhere you will find it. Wherever you will go, you will carry your boredom around you. Everything will bore you.

Nothing can give you the sheer excitement of a child -- running after a butterfly, or gathering coloured stones on the sea beach. You think: 'What nonsense. These stones are valueless.' But for a child, these stones are not commodities to be purchased or sold. These stones have nothing to do with money. Each stone is unique, a KOHINOOR. The value is intrinsic. It is not to be decided in any market; it is not a commodity. And you can say whatsoever, the child goes on collecting. Every morning he goes and collects stones.

But sooner or later you will destroy his consciousness; his essence will be lost. A crust of personality will arise, and he will also think: 'These stones are useless. But, diamonds? No. They are not useless.' They are also stones, but they are not useless. Why? -- because they have a market value.

Now life itself is not valuable. The value has to be decided by the fools who run the market. They are the valuators. They will decide it. Now you will always be bored. If you want to attain to a fresh stream of consciousness, drop personality, and the values attached to it Become a child again!

That's what meditation is all about: to become a child again, and to look with fresh eyes. Look again with a new consciousness, and trees will be greener, and flowers will be redder, and the sun will be new every morning, and the stars -- then they become infinitely valuable things. But the value is not of the market; it is of the heart. Then you listen to me. Then I am not talking to you. Then these are not mere words that I am telling to you.

I will tell you one story.

It happened: A great Hassidic Master had a big book always by his side, and he would never allow anybody to look into it.

When there would be nobody around, he would close the windows and doors. And people thought 'now he is reading.' Whenever there was somebody, he would put the book aside. And it was prohibited -- nobody should touch it. Of course, it became a great curiosity.

When he died, the first thing the disciples did.... They forgot about the old Master. He was Lying dead; now nobody was to prohibit them. They jumped on the book. It must carry something tremendously meaningful.

But they were very much disappointed. Only one page was written -- and the rest of the book was empty. And on that page also, there was not much, only one sentence. And the sentence was: 'When you can make a distinction between the container and the content, you have become wise.'

If you listen to the container, the words, you will get bored. But if you listen to the content, you will be exhilarated, you will be in deep ecstasy.

I am not speaking for speaking's sake. I have no message that can be delivered through words -- but there is no other way to indicate it.

I am not trying to say something; I am trying to show something. These are not words. These words carry my silence. These words are only containers. Don't bother about the containers; look at the content.

These words are alive. They have the throb of my heart. I bring them to you as a gift. They are not doctrines. At the most, you can call them poetries. At the most, you can call me a good storyteller, that's all.

I am not a philosopher, not a theoretician, not a theologian. I have something within me and I would like to share it with you. Because you cannot understand silence, I am forced to use words. Once you are ready to understand my silence, I will drop words. Then I will look into you.

But right now you are not at home! If I look into you, there is nobody, so I have to knock hard. My words are nothing but knockers on your door, so that you can come home.

Accept my gift.

Hassidism

THE TRUE SAGE

Chapter-6

The perfect swimmer