BOREDOM IS GETTING STUCK at one point -- repeating, repeating, repeating. Joy is in exploration -- finding new people, new spaces. It is simple common sense.
People are bored in their job because they allowed others to decide their job; their parents wanted them to be a doctor, so they are a doctor. They never had any inner urge to be a doctor, and they never listened to their inner voice.
It is never too late; they can start listening to their inner voice. And it is better to drop a job and do the thing they always wanted to do. It may be a loss in salary; economically it may not be good, but spiritually it is going to take away the boredom. And what are you going to do with the money, with all the facilities that the job gives you, if you are utterly bored? It is better to be a beggar but not bored, than to be an emperor and be bored.
These are common-sense insights. The cities are becoming bigger and bigger. The villages are disappearing, and with the disappearing villages the pure air, the unpolluted atmosphere -- that is disappearing. People should just see it; they should start moving towards the villages. They should start doing farming, gardening; and there are thousands of other things. It just needs a little courage.
The city has no future.
Small villages can convert themselves into communes, which would give them a new structure, which would make people free of children and would make the children free of parental power. And they could have more fresh food, fresh water, fresh air.
There were all running to the city for one thing -- because it gives money, and the villages cannot give money. Why have villages been disappearing, and big, monstrous cities coming up? The reason is that everybody is after money, not understanding a simple thing, that money cannot buy anything that makes life a beautiful, blissful pilgrimage. It can buy many things, but they are useless if the man himself loses his soul.
If the cities disappear into villages, much of the pollution will also disappear. The cities are almost like a canceric growth, that goes on growing bigger and bigger. The people in power cannot do anything because their power needs money -- not love, not blissfulness, not joy -- just money.
AND YOUR SO-CALLED WISE PEOPLE are nothing but politicians in another garb of religious heads; their whole interest is also in power. It is a different kind of power, more subtle, but all the same it is power. They would not like the cities to disappear. Their power depends on the boredom of man, his loveless life, his meaningless life, his anguish, because these are the things which bring people to their feet -- to the churches, to the temples, to the synagogues. They may say great things, but basically they don't want these things to disappear. If these things completely disappeared, churches would be empty and nobody would go to the synagogue -- there is no reason to go...you go to the physician because you are sick.
There is a certain vested interest that the physician has in your sickness. I have heard of a young man who had just come home from medical college. His father was not feeling well. He said, "I would like to rest for a few days. And now you are back fully qualified... I am proud of you, that you topped the university -- now you take care of the dispensary."
After three days the son came and told the father, "You must be proud of me! That old woman -- the richest in the city, whom you have been treating for thirty years -- I have treated her in three days. Now she is perfectly okay."
The father said "My God! She is the woman who has paid all your fees and all your expenses at medical college. She is also paying the expenses of your younger brother in college. You have destroyed half of my business!
"You idiot, don't you know that when a poor man comes you should cure him immediately, because he is going to be an unnecessary harassment. When a rich man comes, take time -- there is no hurry. If one illness disappears, let another appear. A really rich man should be a lifelong patient. This is a basic rule of the profession. You have learned medicine, but you have not learned the medical profession."
The priest has a vested interest in man's misery. And it is really unbelievable, but it is the truth: the magistrate has a vested interest in criminals, the advocates have a vested interest in criminals. They are supposed to do justice, they are supposed to be fair; but basically their profession is based on these poor people. If everybody is a nice, good gentleman and there is no criminal anywhere, what are all your magistrates, all your jailers, all your advocates, and all your legal professionals going to do? They will have to commit suicide -- their whole profession will be gone.
Osho: Light on the Path: Talks in the Himalayas
