How can one be successful in life in the areas of finance and career? by Osho

"Richness, wealth, treasure -- divine treasure -- is there and you have not claimed it yet -- and it is yours, just for the asking. You need not spread your hands anywhere before anybody. The treasure is hidden within your own heart.

And people go on searching everywhere else except in the heart. They can go to the moon and to mars; and that journey seems to be easy. Man seems somehow to be very stubborn about going into his own heart. Maybe he is afraid that he may find it there.

Psychologists say that there is a very deep-rooted fear of success in the human mind. It looks absurd when you hear for the first time that man is afraid of success, but when you ponder over it, slowly slowly it dawns on you that it has some deep relevance.

Man is afraid of success, because if he succeeds, then what? That is the fear: then what? So in a subtle way he tries to succeed and yet creates such obstacles that he cannot succeed.

On one hand he tries to succeed, on the other hand he disturbs his own success so the game can go on. Just think of a day when you have succeeded and all that you desired has been attained, all that you always longed for is in your hands. Then what? -- that is the fear. Then what will you do? -- because all doing is searching, all doing is desiring, all doing is possible because there are goals which we have not attained yet. One is occupied, happily busy.

Just think of it a moment and even in thinking you will start trembling inside: if all is fulfilled, then what? Would you like to succeed to that point? And when you think about that you will see the point of what psychologists mean when they say there is a deep-rooted fear of success.
And it does not happen only as far as the inner success is concerned: outer success also. It almost always happens that when a person is at the last rung of succeeding, something goes wrong. And he thinks something has gone wrong from the outside, no. He does something -- he takes a wrong step, he moves in an opposite direction. He blames god and he blames fate and he blames society and others, but if you search deep down you will find that people fail only when they were just going to succeed.

There seems to be that deep fear which at the last moment says to them 'What are you doing? Avoid it.' It is very unconscious. They fail, and then they are busy again. That's how people keep themselves busy; life in and life out they keep themselves busy. This is called the wheel, the samsara, in the East; this is the world. That's why people don't go into the heart, which is the closest point to go to. They go on great journeys and pilgrimages, but they don't search within.

Somewhere, hidden, they know perfectly well that if they search there they are bound to find it -- then what? But sannyas means dropping that fear of success. The goal is very near... and within everybody's grasp."