Five experiences can blossom your life

One day you should spend with the farmers. Morning to night, spend the day with the farmers and see how they sow the seeds, how they water the plants and how they care for the plants. Witnessing this enriches life. When you understand how food is grown and how much toiling has been done by the farmer, you will respect food, you will respect plants and you will respect the environment. So it is necessary to spend one day with the farmers.

One day you should spend in jail. You will understand how somebody has become a culprit, and you will understand that every culprit is a victim in some way. They had no knowledge, they were trapped in a situation, and so they committed a crime. You feel a lot of compassion and forgiveness for them.

One day you should spend in a hospital. You will see how people are suffering, then you will appreciate your own life. You will appreciate how fortunate you are. You will have compassion and you will see that you should put your life into better use, and you will become more health conscious. So one day in hospital gives you that.

One day you should spend in a mental hospital. If you spend a day in a mental hospital you will see how they scold you and how they speak to you. When you get scolded for no fault of yours, then you understand that this is how the whole world is. Then you do not get angry. That ego which says, 'I', 'Me', 'I know it', will simply dissolve. If you act like a mad person for just one day, you will become very natural. All the walls of ego that you have built around you, that ‘I am somebody’, will simply fall off. You are then able to understand people better, and you mingle with everybody. And nobody can upset you because you know the world is like a mental hospital. Everybody lives in their own world and they think only they are right.

If you go to Israel, you will find, in the Israel mental hospital there is a ward called Jerusalem Syndrome. Sometimes when people come as pilgrims, they walk into Jerusalem and suddenly they feel they are Jesus, or they are Mary Magdalene, or one of those characters and start behaving like that. So these people are put into this ward called Jerusalem Syndrome. They go crazy.

So when you go to the mental hospital, you will understand more about your own mind. This experience enriches your life. You will become immune to criticism. If someone criticizes you, you will not breakdown. Often people cannot withstand criticism. They do not understand that people in the world are crazy. So you get the ability to smile at every criticism that you face with just one day in a mental hospital. And then, you have to spend one day in a school. One day in a school and you will understand from where to where you have gone. You will reassess your own growth. You will learn patience. You will see how patiently you have to deal with the kids, and you will start taking responsibility. How you deal with kids, that is how you have to deal with all the people in the world.
-Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
http://www.artofliving.org/five-experiences-you-must-have