Questioner: All those who are successful are not intelligent. All intelligent people are not successful. Why?

Sadhguru: First of all we need to determine what success is. What is your idea of success? Right now maybe by Indian standards, you think if you have ten crores, you are very successful. Somewhere else ten crores may not be a big success. Your great-grandfather may have had only a thousand rupees, but he was the most successful man in your village or town. Today, every laborer has a thousand rupees. He is not considered successful.

So, success is a social parameter and has nothing to do with the basic intelligence of a human being. Intelligence is something that finds its way through life. Finding your way through life need not necessarily mean finding approval from society. An intelligent person might have found a way for himself which other people are not even able to see.

Social and financial success can happen irrespective of one’s intelligence because there are many trends and situations happening at different times of history and in different societies. Right now, there is an IT wave. Anybody who starts an IT company becomes successful. That does not mean that somebody who is running a different kind of industry and is struggling because the situation is not right, is not intelligent. So being socially successful is subject to various chances and situations and is definitely not decided by one’s intelligence. But success in terms of life – how successful you are within yourself and outside of yourself – is definitely decided by one’s intelligence. There is no question of success without intelligence.

If one has to live a life of fulfillment, it takes a certain amount of intelligence. Intelligence does not mean education or accumulated knowledge. Intelligence essentially means that your intellect is sharp enough to cut through life and see life the way it is. Unless you see life the way it is, you cannot act sensibly. You will only act by chance. So intelligence is of paramount importance to live life sensibly and with clarity because without intelligence, there is no clarity.

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