Now, this is what makes people monks, makes people move into monasteries. They are against success. They want to go out of the world where there is competition – they want to escape from it all so that there will be no provocation, no temptation, they can rest in themselves. And they try not to desire success – but this is a desire! Now they have an idea of spiritual success: how to succeed and become a buddha, how to succeed and become a christ, how to succeed and become a Mahavira. Again an idea, again the distance, again the desire – again the whole game starts.

I am not against success, that’s why I am in the world, otherwise I would have escaped. I am not for it, I am not against it. I say: Be a driftwood – whatsoever happens, let it happen. Don’t have a choice of your own. Whatsoever comes on your way, welcome it. Sometimes it is day, sometimes it is night; sometimes it is happiness, sometimes it is unhappiness – you be choiceless, you simply accept whatsoever is the case. This is what I call the quality of a spiritual being. This is what I call religious consciousness. It is neither for nor against – because if you are for, you will be against; if you are against, you will be for. And when you are for something or against something you have divided existence into two. You have a choice, and choice is hell. To be choiceless is to be free of hell.

Let things be. You just go on moving, enjoying whatsoever becomes available. If success is there, enjoy it. If failure is there, enjoy it – because failure also brings a few enjoyments that no success can ever bring. Success also brings a few joys that no failure can ever bring. And a man who has no idea of his own is capable of enjoying everything, whatsoever happens. If he is healthy, he enjoys health; if he is ill, he rests on the bed and enjoys illness.

Have you ever enjoyed illness? If you have not enjoyed it you are missing a lot. Just lying down on the bed doing nothing, no worry of the world and everybody caring about you, and you have suddenly become a monarch – everybody attentive, listening, loving. And you have nothing to do, not a single worry in the world. You simply rest. You listen to the birds, you listen to music, or you read a little and doze into sleep. It is beautiful. It has its own beauty. But if you have an idea that you have to be always healthy, then you will be miserable.

Misery comes because we choose. Bliss is when we don’t choose.

“What is your view of being successful in ordinary life?” My view is: If you can be ordinary, you are successful.

The patient was complaining to his friends: “After one year and three thousand dollars with that psychiatrist, he tells me I am cured. Some cure! A year ago I was Abraham Lincoln – now I’m a nobody.”