Failure of Success

hat Osho says below meshes with my own experience.

It was my material successes that showed me that
happiness does not lie in wealth. When I 'achieved'
what I was taught was the "American Dream" I became
so depressed I couldn't drag myself out of bed in the
morning. My world as I had known it ended when that
depression arose, and I began psychotherapy in the 80's.

Osho:
"In a poor society religion cannot be meaningful, because
people have not yet failed. Their search still carries meaning,
the outward search. They think if they can get a good house
everything will be okay; they think if they can get a little money
then everything will be okay. A poor man can live in illusion,
but not a rich man. And if you see a rich man living in illusion,
remember well, he is still poor, he has not succeeded yet.

A Buddha leaves the palace, a Mahavira leaves the kingdom.
They succeeded, and success failed them. They became alert
that the whole direction had been wrong, so they took an about-
turn. They moved into totally the opposite direction: they were
kings, they became beggars; they were clothed in the costliest
clothes possible, they became naked. It became a conversion:
success fails, and failure becomes a conversion.

Buy why does success fail? It fails because you were searching
not for wealth, you were searching not for power, you were
searching not for security and safety; you were not searching for
a house, you were searching for something else. You were
searching for the eternal home, from where there is no going away.
You were searching for eternal rest, you were searching for a peace
which lasts forever, nontemporal. That is what the search is: a
search for the home. It is not a search for any house outside, it
is a search for a state of being where you are at home. You were
not searching for wealth, you were searching for protection against
death; you were searching for a life which no death can destroy"

Melody:
Reading this I also realize that when my seeking for 'reputation
and material success' ended, the era of a seeking in a different
direction began. I began seeking love and acceptance. I began
seeking "unconditional" love and acceptance.

(Knowing, of course, that I was telling myself to take a deeper
look....to find a 'me' that was deeper than material and social
successes.)

Acceptance and admiration had before that always been automatic,
because I was always before 'succeeding' academically, in business,
materially, socially. When I got off the Track though.... I, for the
first time, began experiencing my 'unacceptability'. I was finally
without "power"....no financial power, no sexual power, no social
power, totally power-less.

And in that powerlessness I became very angry. Angry because
I was not 'home', and at the same time no longer 'loveable' to man.
I began essentially "demanding" love and acceptance.

(Demanding, of course, my own unconditionality.)

What I'm starting to 'get' now is that as long as I was seeking
love, I could not experience it....could not taste it. And as long
as I felt love and acceptance was being denied me, I would
keep seeking after it.

The other day I felt unconditional love and acceptance. I really
felt it. And I loved it.....for just a short while. Because as soon as
I felt it, tasted it, wallowed it, bathed in it.....I knew it was not
"That".

And so once again my success has 'failed', and a conversion....a 'turn
around'...begins.

Thank you, HarshaSatsangh and friends for giving me what I asked for,
even though you knew it wasn't *It*. Thank you all for helping me to
taste the "failure of success" even faster.

love,
Melody