Osho - Fame, fortune, and ambition: what is the real meaning of success?

P eople are always thinking the grass must be greener on the other side of the fence because everybody has been distracted. You have been told to go in directions that nature has not meant you to go. You are not moving toward your own potential. What others wanted you to be, you are trying to be, but it cannot be satisfying. When it is not satisfying, the logic says, Perhaps it is not enoughhave more of it. Then you go after more; then you start looking around. And everybody is walking around with a mask that is smiling, happy looking, so everybody is deceiving everybody else. You also wear a mask, so others think you are happier than they are. You think others are happier than you are.

The grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, yesbut from both sides. The people who are living on the other side of the fence see your grass, and it looks greener. It really looks greener, thicker, better. That is the illusion that distance creates. When you go close, then you start seeing that it is not so. But people keep each other at a distance. Even friends, even lovers keep each other at a distance: too much closeness will be dangerous: they may see your reality.

You have been misguided from the very beginning, so whatever you do, you will remain miserable.

Nature has no idea of money; otherwise, dollars would have been growing on the trees. Nature has no idea of money; money is a pure invention of manuseful, but dangerous, too. You see somebody with much money, and you think perhaps money brings joy: look at that person, how joyous he seems to be, so run after money. Somebody is healthierrun after health. Somebody is doing something else and looks very contentedfollow him.

But it is always the others, and the society has managed so that you will never think about your own potential. And the whole misery is that you are not being yourself. Just be yourself, and then there is no misery and no competition and no botheration that others have more, that you dont have more.

And if you would like the grass to be greener, there is no need to look at the other side of the fence; you can make the grass greener on your side of the fence. It is such a simple thing to make the grass greener. But you are just looking everywhere else, and all the lawns are looking so beautifulexcept yours.

Each individual has to be rooted in his own potential, whatever it is, and nobody should give him specific directions, guidance. They should help him, wherever he is going, whatever he is becoming. And the world will be so contented that you will not be able to believe it.

The world is against individuality. It is against your being just your natural self. It just wants you to be a robot, and when you have agreed to be a robot, you are in trouble. You are not a robot. That was not the intention of nature, to make a robot of you. So because you are not what you were meant to be, what you were destined to be, you are constantly looking: What is missing? Perhaps better furniture, better curtains, a better house, a better husband, a better wife, a better job Your whole life, you are trying and rushing from one place to another. But society has distracted you from the very beginning.

My effort is to bring you back to yourself, and you will suddenly find all that discontent has disappeared. There is no need to be moreyou are enough. Everybody is enough.

P eople go on postponing everything that is meaningful. Tomorrow they will laugh; today, money has to be gathered more money, more power, more things, more gadgets. Tomorrow they will love; today there is no time. But tomorrow never comes, and one day they find themselves burdened with all kinds of gadgets, burdened with money. They have come to the top of the ladder, and there is nowhere to go except to jump in a lake.

But they cannot even say to other people, Dont bother to come here; there is nothing, because that will make them look stupid.

I have always dreamt of becoming world famous, rich, and successful. Can you say something that will help me in the fulfillment of my desire?

No, sir, not at allnever, because your desire is suicidal. I cannot help you to commit suicide. I can help you to grow and be, but I cannot help you to commit suicide, I cannot help you to destroy yourself for nothing.

Ambition is poison. If you want to be a better musician, I can help you, but dont think in terms of becoming world famous. If you want to be a better poet, I can help you, but dont think in terms of Nobel Prizes. If you want to be a good painter, I can help youI help creativity. But creativity has nothing to do with name and fame, success and money.