Osho Quote on Living With Courage and Exploring Both the Inner and Outer World

“Those who are courageous, they go headlong. They search all opportunities of danger. Their life philosophy is not that of insurance companies. Their life philosophy is that of a mountain climber, a glider, a surfer. And not only in the outside seas they surf; they surf in their innermost seas. And not only on the outside they climb Alps and Himalayas; they seek inner peaks.”

Osho, Courage (Page 119)

Beyond the Quote (330/365)

What’s most interesting to me is how deeply connected both types of adventuring are. It is very similar to the connection between breathing in and breathing out. Adventuring on the outside is the expansion of the lungs—it is the breathing in of all that the world has to offer. Adventuring on the inside is the contraction of the lungs—it is the breathing out of all that you have inhaled and synthesized from your experiences. One leads to the other and the other leads to more of the one.

We are all doing both types of adventuring every day. It is not possible to be alive and not experience the outside or the inside in some way. Unless, perhaps, you are in a coma—but, that’s beyond the scope of this post. Therefore, the difference isn’t whether or not you are adventuring, but rather, to what extent you are adventuring. When your life philosophy is that of “an insurance company” and you are living as comfortably and securely as possible, your breaths are shallow. You are barely breathing in anything that the world has to offer and so you would, resultantly, end up breathing out “barely anything” in proportion. This is the modern day tragedy of too much comfort and security—it leads to shallowness of experience.

When you are living your life as a “mountain climber, glider, or surfer,” however, you are breathing deeply. You are confronting the challenges of the world “headlong” and are expanding your lungs with the utmost richness and depth of experience that is available. And here’s where it gets even more interesting: when you take a deep enough breath in, what is the unavoidable consequence? A heavy breath out. When you courageously explore the outside world, you can’t help but to consequentially let big breaths out from what you’ve learned in the process. And so it is the other way around, too. One begets the other.

When you forcefully breath out all of the air that’s inside of you, you can’t help but take a deep breath in. When you are exploring your inner depths and are meditating, writing, journaling, conversing, etc., you are bound to hit walls—limits that mark the edges of your understanding. And it is when you hit one of those walls that you must take in new information—it is the only way to broaden the scope of those boundaries. You have to expand your consciousness—your understanding—so that you can “see further,” better navigate the roads within, and improve your skills as an adventurer. And the only way to do that is with, that’s right, breaths of new experience.

Before you ever get to that point however, you need to be willing to find out where your edges even are. You don’t find your edges when you are seated deep within your bubble of comfort—neither on the outside nor the inside. It takes courage and a little “forcing” to get there.

As it is true with breathing, you cannot take a deep breath in or push one out without the force of your diaphragm. In life, you cannot have a deep experience inside or outside without a little conscious force of courage. And remember, one begets the other so order doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s happening in one way or the other. Courageously explore what’s inside and you will find a natural pull to explore what’s outside. Courageously explore what’s outside and you will find a natural push to explore and release all that’s inside.

And worth pointing out, too, is that adventure on the outside is not only limited to the physical experience of traveling. All of the adventures you could ever dream of (and beyond) are all carefully recorded and available to you (for your breathing pleasure) online and in books. Adventures covering the depth of the entire human race, from every corner of the globe, from thousands of years ago to today—all available to you for but the cost of a coffee or a simple meal. So, what are you waiting for? Your adventure awaits. Take a deep breath in or push a big breath out and see what comes next.

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