What Decides Our Success?

— Sadhguru, Isha Foundation

Sadhguru: Fate, God, luck, effort – maybe all of them, but in what proportion? When you say fate, obviously it is something you cannot do anything about. When you say luck, again obviously it is something you cannot do anything about. God is also not something you can do anything about. The only thing that is in your hands is effort. Put your hundred percent into your effort. What happens, happens. Don’t leave proportions of your energy and your capability to luck, God, fate, and all these things – that is not your business. If there is such a thing, it will act. Your business is only effort, and the effort has to be incisive; it should be focused and calibrated. Simply creating effort is foolish. Hard labour alone is not going to get you somewhere. The right kind of action, the right timing, the right place – all are important.

For these things to happen, you need perception and intelligence. That is all you must do in your life – constantly look for ways to enhance your perception and your intelligence. “How do I grow my intelligence?” Don’t worry about that. The important thing is to enhance your perception. If you are able to see life just the way it is, you have the necessary intelligence to conduct it well.

People today are trying to broaden their minds, which may make one socially successful, not truly successful. If you want to be truly successful, you must be able to see everything just the way it is, without distortions. If you can see everything just the way it is, life becomes a play, a game. You can play it joyfully and you can play it well for sure. If you can play it well, people will say you are successful.

You should not be aspiring for success. It is a miserable way to structure your life. You will simply cause pain and suffering to yourself and everyone, because your idea of success right now is that everyone should be below you, while you are on top. This is not success; this is sickness.

Just see how to make yourself into a full-fledged being, and it will find expression. If it finds good expression, people around you will say, “He is a great success!” That is fine. People should recognize that you are a success, but you should not be thinking about how to be successful. That is a very wrong way to approach life.