Who is Bored?

Observing Boredom can teach you who you are

The mind exists in a state of "not enough"
and so is always greedy for more.
When you are identified with mind,
you get bored and restless very easily.

Boredom means that the mind is hungry
for more stimulus, more food for thought,
and its hunger is not being satisfied.

When you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind’s hunger
by picking up a magazine, making a phone call, switching on the TV,
surfing the web, going shopping, or — and this is not uncommon —
transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for more
to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingesting more food.

Or you can stay bored and restless and observe
what it feels like to be bored and restless.

As you bring awareness to the feeling, there is suddenly
some space and stillness around it, as it were.
A little at first, but as the sense of inner space grows,
the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish
in intensity and significance.

So even boredom can teach you
who you are and who you are not.
You discover that a "bored person" is not who you are.

Boredom is simply a conditioned energy-movement within you.

Neither are you an angry, sad, or a fearful person.
Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not "yours," not personal.
They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go.

Nothing that comes and goes is you.

"I am bored." Who knows this?
"I am angry, sad, afraid." Who knows this?
You are the knowing, not the condition that is known. --Eckhart Tolle
==============================

In Hindu philosophy, a muni is one who observes maunam - silence -
not merely in speech but also in mind;
emptied of thoughts and not engaged in recording,
the mind is totally free to be aware and just observe.

A new perspective of the self and Reality is experienced
and the Muni becomes a realised person.
The highest Truth is then revealed to the silent mind
as described by Adi Shankara :
maunavyakhyaa prakatita parabrahma tatvam
Siva, as the Guru, communicating in silence
to the assembled Munis the Truth about Reality.

We have to learn and practise how to convert boredom into
dynamic Silence that empowers us to receive the highest knowledge.
We need the help of a competent teacher to help us achieve this goal -
as advised in Kathopanishad:
praapya varaan nibodhata get guidance from a competent Guru for enlightenment.
As in education, it is not sufficient merely to get teachers
who "fill the bucket" of the mind with knowledge;
we have to 'light the fire' with a spark from the Guru to experience Reality.