Flipping boredom with Meditation
Repetition with emotion is exhilaration and repetition with intellect is boredom. No song or bhajan or ghazal goes without repetition; music cannot happen without repetition. So repetition can also energise you. That’s why I say boredom is also the bridge between your head and heart
People often get bored too soon. These days people are tired of being inside the same four walls or being with the same people or of eating the same dish. How to break the pattern of boredom in life?
When the mind is stuck in a repetitive pattern, boredom sets in. Our intellect rejects repetitions and struggles to break the monotony. A person of active and sharp intellect gets bored faster than one with a dull intellect.
When boredom sets in life, it drags down your whole energy. It leads to inertia. When you get bored, nothing appeals to you and you get into frustration, anger and even into depression. A bored person not only feels apathy himself or herself but also spreads it to everyone around. Would you like to spend time in the company of a bored person?
How can you create enthusiasm in yourself and in others? How to shift this tendency of the mind to resist repetitions which leads to boredom?
Repetitions create boredom only at the level of the intellect or the head. At the level of the heart, they create positive vibes. When you integrate it into your life, repetition doesn’t bore you. Nobody gets bored of brushing teeth every day or of drinking the same tea every day. You watch the news every day and yet you don’t get bored. People who chant with rosary beads or do jappa don’t get bored of repeating the same mantra or prayer. But it’s easy to get bored of certain other things even if they are good practices. Unless you make it a passion or a hobby, you can get bored of things like doing workouts or walking, etc very soon.
Repetition with emotion is exhilaration and repetition with intellect is boredom. No song or bhajan or ghazal goes without repetition; music cannot happen without repetition. So, repetition can also energise you. That’s why I say boredom is also the bridge between your head and heart. When you are bored, know that you are in your head too much. Instead of looking for something new, something exciting all the time, embrace the repetition. It will act as a bridge for you to move into another dimension.
Meditation is the technique to move from the head to the heart! If you sit for a few minutes and embrace the boredom, you will slip into deep meditation. Use the moment of boredom to go inwards and dive into deep meditation. In fact, you should get bored with everything mundane! Then, you are enlightened. When you get bored with everything in life, you will suddenly find the Spring of Life. Nothing bores you anymore. You can keep experiencing the same thing again and again. Then the mind lives in the present moment and you are not stuck in past experiences or your memory. Your emotions wake up, your feelings wake up and then comes a state of giving, of contributing. A giver is never tired. A taker gets tired easily. If you are looking for some joy, some charm, some excitement from outside, you are bound to get bored.
When people fall in love, they never get tired of repetitions. They say ‘I love you’, over and over again. Love loves repetitions. You are born with a beautiful intellect and a great heart. And meditation is the way to sync the two and flip the boredom.