Killing Time

 

 

What is the point of going to the beach? Nobody is seeing the sea, nobody is seeing the sun. Nobody has time.

 

And these same people think that when they are retired they will rest -- they cannot. Sixty years of habits, how can you drop them? Impossible. They have become so deep-rooted that people suffer more when they are retired than they have ever suffered, because nobody knows how to rest, how to relax. This is sheer madness!

 

And these people go on saying beautiful things. They say, "Time is money." They have beautiful proverbs to drive you crazy: "Time is money, so save time." And everybody is always looking at his watch -- as if they are missing something. They have to reach somewhere, and there too they will do the same thing. If the train is five minutes late everybody is complaining, all are angry.

 

I had been traveling for twenty years all over this country and I was puzzled. Just if the train is one hour late, everybody is so angry and condemning the government and the society and everything. Why can't you rest? If the train is one hour late it is a great opportunity. One hour is yours! -- you can rat. You have at least one excuse: "The train is late, what to do? So I rested, relaxed." But no, they cannot; they become more and more boiled up. They start spitting fire.

 

And these same people when they reach home will sit before the idiot body -- TV -- for five hours. The average American is doing that for five hours per day. There is a great danger for America through this idiot box. If you look at an idiot box for five hours it has a hypnotic effect -- you are bound to become idiotic! And only an idiot can look at a box for five hours. And they are glued to their chairs; they cannot Ret up. I have heard they will take their food just sitting before the TV. Not only that -- they will even ma}e love just before the TV so they can do both the things, making love and watching the TV, because something may be missed!

 

Now these idiots are in the majority. And they will play cards and if you ask why they will say, "Killing time." One minute the train is late and they are angry, and then what do they do with the saved time? They kill it! Going to the movie, killing time... sometimes going to see the same picture again! Stupidity seems to be infinite. Now what are you going for? The same picture again? But the time has to be killed.

 

They will go to the Rotary Club, to the I,ions Club. And all these clubs exist for people to kill time, to meet the same fools, to say the same foolish things, to gossip about the same old nonsense -- to kill time. They will go to the restaurants, to the hotels, to the parties -- to kill time.

 

And look at their faces -- they are bored everywhere. Whatsoever they are doing they are bored, obviously, because they are not into it. They are trying somehow to finish it to save time, And then they have to kill time. Killing time, saving time, killing time, saving time.... The whole life is gone! And you come empty-handed into the world and you go empty-handed.

 

-Osho, "Guida Spirituale, #1“