Let your life be as multidimensional as possible, don’t live one-dimensionally. Monks, nuns and the so-called priests have all lived, down the ages, one-dimensionally. They live a narrow life; they move as trains move, on fixed rails. They go on doing the same ritual, the same prayer, day in, day out, year in, year out, life in, life out; they go on repeating. Their whole life moves in circles. And they are not rich, they cannot be—richness comes by living life in all its dimensions.
A religious person should explore in every possible way, should try to experience life in all its tastes—sweet and bitter, good and bad. The really religious person will be very experimental. He will experiment with music, he will experiment with dance, he will experiment with poetry, with painting, with sculpture, with architecture. He will go on experimenting with everything…everything that becomes available; he will be a child exploring everything. And that makes your inner life rich.
Do you know, all great discoveries are made by people who are not one-dimensional? One-dimensional people can never make discoveries; it is impossible, because a discovery happens only like crossbreeding. A mathematician starts writing poetry: now you can be certain something is on the way. His whole training is that of a mathematician, his approach is that of mathematics, and he starts writing poetry. Now, no poet can write poetry like this; this is going to be something new, because something of the mathematics is bound to filter in. And mathematics and poetry having a meeting is a crossbreeding.
Scientists say children that are born out of crossbreeding are stronger, more beautiful, more intelligent. But man is so stupid that he never learns. Now, everybody knows that it is good to bring an English bull for an Indian cow; that is perfectly beautiful and that is being done. But as far as man is concerned we remain stupid. It would be beautiful if people marry different races, different backgrounds, different cultures. A Siberian marrying someone in Africa—then something, some miracle, is really going to happen.
Experiment, experience as many dimensions as are available to you. Become a gardener, become a shoemaker, become a carpenter. All dimensions have to be made available, and people have to experiment and enjoy and explore. It is not that when you do some scientific work, something happens only in the outside world. When you are doing some scientific work, something happens inside your consciousness: your consciousness starts taking a form, a scientific form. If this person starts painting, then the painting will have something of the science in it. And if the painter starts becoming a physicist, certainly his vision is going to give birth to new things.
All great discoveries up to now have been made by people who were trained for something else, but were courageous enough to enter into arenas where they were amateurs. Less courageous people remain clinging with the thing that they know best. Then they go on doing it their whole life. And the more they do it, the more efficient they become; the more efficient they become, the less capable they become of trying anything new.
A country remains alive only if people are multidimensional. America is now the most alive country in the world for the simple reason that people are trying every kind of thing. From mathematics to meditation, everything is being tried. In America, people go on changing their jobs—three years is the average limit when people change their jobs. Three years also is the average limit when people change their towns. Three years is also the average limit when people change their spouses. The number three is very esoteric.
When a man has lived with many women, has done many kinds of work—has been a cobbler, a carpenter, an engineer, a painter and a musician—naturally he is rich. Each woman that he has lived with has imparted some colour to him, and each work that he has done has opened a new door into his being. Slowly slowly, many doors of his being are opening; his consciousness expands, he becomes huge, enormous.
You are your experience. Hence, experience more. Before settling, experience as much as possible. The real person never settles; the real person always remains homeless, a wanderer, a vagabond, a vagabond of the soul. He remains continually in search, he remains an inquirer, a learner—he never becomes learned. Don’t be in a hurry to become learned, remain a learner. To become learned is ugly, to remain a learner has tremendous beauty and grace in it, because it is life itself.
Whatsoever you are learning, learn it in its totality. Don’t let it be just a hit-and-run affair, go into it as if it is your whole life. Stake everything! Be total, whatsoever you do, because it is only out of totality that one learns. It is only when you are totally into something that mysteries are revealed to you. If you are totally in love, then love reveals its mysteries; if you are totally in poetry, then the world of poetry opens its heart.
If you are totally in love with anything, that is the only possible way to have a rapport with that certain dimension. So be total, and go to the very depth of it. Don’t just go on swimming in many rivers; become a diver, go to the rock bottom of everything—because the deeper you go into anything, the more and more deep you will become. Depth calls the depth, height provokes the height. Whatsoever we are doing outside, simultaneously starts happening inside. This is a fundamental law of life.
Discipline in many, many things. Be total, go into depth, to the very roots of everything—because the secrets are in the roots, they are not in the flowers; flowers are only expressions of joy. Secrets are always hidden in darkness. You will have to go into dark depths, then only you will know the secrets. And the more you experience life in its multidimensionality, the richer your soul will be. It depends on you, how rich you make your soul, or how poor you live.
Millions of people are living a life of poverty—and I don’t necessarily mean the outer poverty. I know rich people, and so poor that sometimes even beggars are richer than they are. They can afford everything but have never experimented with anything. They are simply vegetating comfortably. Simply dying, slowly slowly…existing comfortably, but not living—no intensity, no flair, no flame, no fire, just a cold life. Comfortably they will live and comfortably they will die—but they will never have lived.
Death is the ultimate mystery. That gift is given only to those who have lived really intensely, who have burned their torch of life from both the ends together. Only then it happens sometimes that in a single moment of intensity the whole life is revealed.
Excerpted from The Book of Wisdom Courtesy: Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com