Intuition

Question 3 

WHEN THAT INTUITION STARTS FUNCTIONING, IS SURRENDER THE ONLY TECHNIQUE FOR THAT INTUITION, OR THE INNER GUIDE? DOES A PERSON LIVING THROUGH INTUITION ALWAYS SUCCEED? HOW DO YOU VALUE SUCCESS AND FAILURE? IS IT NOT TRUE THAT THE PERSON LIVING INTUITIVELY WILL BECOME WEAK INTELLECTUALLY? 

Surrender is the only technique for the inner being to become active. DOES A PERSON LIVING THROUGH INTUITION ALWAYS SUCCEED? No, but he is always happy – whether he succeeds or not. And a person not living intuitively is always unhappy whether he succeeds or not. Success is not the criterion because success depends on many things. Happiness is the criterion because happiness depends only on you. You may not succeed because others are competitors there. Even if you are working intuitively, others may be working more cunningly, more cleverly, more calculatingly, more violently, more immorally. So success depends on many other things; success is a social phenomenon. You may not succeed. Who can say that Jesus succeeded? Crucifixion is not a success, it is the greatest failure. A man crucified when he was just thirty-three – what type of success is this? No one knew about him. Just a few villagers, uneducated people, were his disciples. He had no position, no prestige, no power. What type of success is this? Crucifixion cannot be said to be a success. But he was happy. He was totally blissful – even when being crucified. And those who were crucifying him would remain alive for many years but they would remain in misery. So really, who was undergoing crucifixion? That is the point. Those who crucified Jesus, were they undergoing crucifixion? Or was Jesus, who was crucified? He was happy. How can you crucify happiness? He was ecstatic. How can you crucify ecstasy? You can kill the body but you cannot kill the soul. Those who crucified him, they lived, but their life was nothing but a long slow crucifixion – misery and misery and misery. So the first thing is that I don’t say that if you follow the inner guide you will always succeed – in the sense that the world recognizes success; but in the sense that a Buddha or a Jesus recognizes success, you will succeed. But that success is measured by your happiness, your bliss – whatsoever happens is irrelevant, you will be happy. Whether the world says that you have been a failure, or the world makes you a star, a success, it doesn’t make any difference. You will be happy whatsoever the case; you will be blissful. Bliss is success to me. If you can understand that bliss is success, then I say you will succeed always. But to you bliss is not success; success is something else. It may even be misery. Even if you know that it is going to be a misery, you long for success. Ask political leaders – they are in misery. I have not seen any political leader who is happy. They are just miserable, but still they are trying for higher posts, trying to get still higher on the ladder. And those who are already above him are in misery, and he knows it. But we are ready to be miserable if success comes to us. So what is success to us? Success is egoistic fulfillment, not bliss. It is just so that people will say that you have succeeded. You may have lost everything – you may have lost your soul; you may have lost all that innocence that gives bliss; you may have lost all that peace, silence, that brings you nearer to the Divine; you may have lost all, and become just a madman – but the world will say you are a success.

For the world, ego gratification is the success; for me it is not. For me, to be blissful is success – whether anyone knows about you or not. It is irrelevant whether anyone knows about you or not, whether you live totally unknown, unheard of, unnoticed. But if you are blissful, you have succeeded. So remember this distinction because there are many people who would like to be intuitive, who would like to find the inner guide, just to succeed in the world. For them the inner guide will be a frustration. In the first place, they cannot find it. In the second place, even if they can find it, they will be miserable. Because what they are aiming at is recognition by the world, ego fulfillment – not bliss.

Be clear in the mind – don’t be success-oriented. Success is the greatest failure in the world. So don’t try to succeed otherwise you will be a failure. Think of being blissful. Every moment think of being more and more blissful. Then the whole world may say you are a failure but you will not be a failure. You have attained.

Buddha was a failure in the eyes of his friends, family, wife, father, teachers, society – he was a failure. He had become just a beggar. What type of success is this? He could have been a great emperor: he had the qualities, he had the personality, he had the mind. He could have been a great emperor but he became a beggar. He was a failure – obviously. But I say to you he was not a failure. If he had become an emperor then he would have been a failure because he would have missed the real life. What he attained under the Bodhi Tree was the real and what he lost was unreal. With the real you will succeed in the inner life; with the unreal... I don’t know. If you want to succeed in the unreal then follow the path of those who are working in cunningness, cleverness, competition, jealousy, violence. Follow their path, the inner guide is not for you. If you want to gain something of the world, then don’t listen to the inner guide. 

But ultimately you will feel that although you have won the whole world, you have lost yourself. Jesus says, ”And what does a man get if he loses his soul and gains the whole world?” Who will you call a success: Alexander the Great or Jesus the Crucified? So if – and that ‘if’ has to be understood well – if you are interested in the world, then the inner guide is not a guide for you. If you are interested in the inner dimension of being then the inner guide, and only the inner guide, can help.

Osho: Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, Vol 2