Does a person living through intuition always succeed?
No, but he is always happy — whether he succeeds or not. And a person who does not live intuitively is always unhappy. 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 may working more cunningly, cleverly, calculatingly, violently, immorally. So, success depends on many other things; success is a social phenomenon. You may not succeed.
Who can say that Jesus succeed? 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, prestige, 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.
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 Jesus recognizes success, you will succeed. But that success is measured by your happiness, 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 misery. Even if you know that it is going to be 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 — your soul and silence that brings you nearer to the Divine — but the world will say you are a success..
For the world, ego gratification is 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.
