By: Vidagdha Bennett
"Ultimately everything becomes boring," begins philosopher Sri Chinmoy in a poem from 1973. And who can deny it? The tedium of a long plane flight, of waiting in a queue, of following the same routine day after day, of seeing the same faces, all bring home to us the fact that we easily become bored not only with what we are doing but, essentially, with our own company.
The solution, argues Sri Chinmoy, is not necessarily to change our outer circumstances but to radically change our inner attitude. He explains further:
"Every day the sun rises. Every morning we can look at the sun, if we are lucky enough to have a clear day. Although it is the same sun that is rising, every day we can see a new beauty inside the sun. Our mind is telling us that it is the same sun that we saw yesterday and the day before yesterday. But when the heart sees this same sun, there is tremendous joy, tremendous thrill, tremendous ecstasy.
"We have to see and feel everything with the heart, not with the mind. The mind will tell us, ‘I have seen the sun already; I have been seeing it for so many years. There is nothing new in it.’ But when the heart sees the same sun, the heart sees something new, with a thrilling sensation. That thrilling sensation itself is creating something new, and that newness is creating something special. If you use the mind, then everything becomes monotonous. You will say, ‘I have been doing this for ten days, ten months, ten years.’ But if you use your absolutely childlike heart, everything is new, new, new."
Sri Chinmoy encourages us to remove the very foundation of boredom, by cultivating newness in our life at every moment. That initiative must come from within and not from any external source. As actor Viggo Mortenson so emphatically reminds us, "There’s no excuse for boredom, ever."
By: Vidagdha Bennett
Picture: By: Kedar Misani Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries
- Everything Becomes Boring by: Sri Chinmoy at Sri Chinmoy Poetry
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