Success is a topic that interests all people in the world. People want to be successful. Every one of us wants to be successful on his own level, in his own understanding, in the condition that he is living. All of us in some way try to be successful.
The idea of success is usually interpreted incorrectly. People think that they can be successful at the expense of others. This is a widespread idea that has jumped from individuals to groups and from groups to nations. Every individual, group, and nation wants to be successful, but the bottom line is that they want to be successful at the expense of others.
This kind of success, seen from the viewpoint of Infinity or from the viewpoint of the future, is a great failure, because you are creating future obstacles which will cause you to fail. Each of you has various kinds of intentions to be successful. For example, you want to be successful physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Trying to be successful in these four ways, you either fail or succeed.
To become successful, some people try to collect possessions. Other people try to collect positions. Other people search for knowledge. Others try to increase their beingness, their virtues, their true reality. These four kinds of success can work against each other, or they can combine and coordinate with each other and make you really successful.
In the Teaching, to be successful physically is considered very good. You must be healthy, happy, have money and various objects. But if this success becomes a hindrance to your emotional, mental, and spiritual success, you are actually failing. When you accumulate lots of materials, they become a wall on the path of your perfection. To destroy that wall will take another hundred lives, if you do not create further Karma and obstacles.
It is the same way with emotional success. Emotionally you can be successful, but also you can defeat yourself. For example, emotionally you want to be very happy and you wish to drink. You are successful in finding a bottle of whisky, drink it and become happy - but then you drive and have a bad accident. You acted against your own future success, your future happiness. Or in a moment of emotional excitement you do something that in the future becomes a legal case against you.
With mental success you collect lots of ideas, knowledge and formulas to ensure emotional, mental, and physical success, but eventually it becomes clear that you use that knowledge for your personal advantage, for your group's advantage, or for your national advantage at the expense of other individuals, groups or nations. Your success then becomes a failure in your life, and it creates tremendous obstacles for your future growth.
What is the success we are looking for, and how can we be successful physically, emotionally and mentally? It is good to have money, success, and possessions in the world, to have nice cars and nice houses - but all these successes must not stand against emotional success, against mental success, against spiritual success.
I know many people who are successful financially, but their homes are hells. They hate each other, their children are scattered everywhere. They have physical success but no emotional success. In your life you are going to prepare yourself in such a way that you are really successful in four levels.
What is spiritual success? Spiritual success is the ability to use your physical, emotional and mental successes in order to achieve the purpose of your life. Why were you created? Why did you become a human being? For millions of years you have striven to be a human being, and eventually you were initiated into a human being. But what is your goal? Are you going to stay where you are, or are you going to graduate?
Real success is to grow into spiritual beingness in such a way that you become a giver instead of a receiver. That is your success. That level can only be achieved if you succeed in making other people successful. In physical success you may gather lots of possessions, money, jewellery, lands, and so on. The Teaching is not opposed to the idea of people having physical success. Two thousand years ago they misinterpreted this. They thought that a person without possessions was spiritually successful. In this century we must have all that helps us to be better servers! We need cars to travel in; we need clothes, money in our pockets, houses, money for colleges and universities, and so on. To have nothing is a false idea.
How can you really be successful? Wherever you are working - at your business, office, or anywhere - think that whatever you are doing is to help others to be successful. If you keep such a direction in your mind, you will become more successful because "Those who give will be given." What are you giving? You are making other people successful. That is why you are having more success: to make other people more successful.
The Spring of Prosperity by Torkom Saraydarian
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