Part I

If there are a few ideas that are of perennial interest to man, certainly Luck is one of them, maybe at the top of the list. Knowing that luck is unattainable by human effort, over the centuries man gave a hot chase to those things of life that brought luck to some. The gold-rush has become embedded in the pages of history. At the dawn of Indian freedom, men in pursuit of miniluck pursued the bus route, even as the dauntless American prospected for oil in the last century. Reader’s Digest once carried a joke which described an American entrant to heaven. As the house was full, the gatekeeper denied him entry. The undaunted soul asked for a pencil and paper. Scribbling something on it, he requested the gatekeeper to drop it in the central hall of heaven. Soon heaven was empty. The intrigued gatekeeper asked the man what he had written on that paper. He replied, “Oil struck in hell”. That is how man pursues symbols of Luck of which oil was the American token. 

Some are born with luck, others are not. Man knows there is nothing he can do about it. But the TRUTH is not so. In India we know of the inexorable karma. No one, not even the avatars, are exempt from it. The gods do not readily come forward to wipe karma off. Karma is a consequence in the field of time. The Overmental plane where the gods dwell does not have conclusive power over the movements of Time. Supermind, which lies between Overmind and Sachchidananda, lies in the plane where Eternity expresses itself as Timeless-eternity and Time-eternity. Forces of this plane can neutralise karma, as this plane transcends Time. Mother is an avatar of this plane. Her Force neutralises human karma, an effect in the mind-life plane of Time created by human causes. Luck is the obverse of the coin of which karma is the reverse. The Force that can neutralise karma can create Luck. If karma is the accumulation of bad past deeds, luck is the accumulation of good past deeds. Even the good deeds of this birth of ours will wait for future births to express as Luck. Mother’s Force, which wipes off the effect of the past births, can make the results meant for future births express now. Her force has created luck in many persons whose horoscopes did not contain any indication of that kind, rather they contained indications to the contrary. 

The Sanskrit word adrishta means something not in drishti, i.e., in sight. What man does not see is luck, not what does not exist. How does luck exist and where? If the good deeds of his past lives and the capacities accumulated in those lives could not bear fruit then, they come to fruition now. As this does not lie within man’s knowledge, he understands it to be something non-existent, sprouting all of a sudden. How then are we to create punya of the past births now?

Punya of the past births waits for appropriate circumstances to come to a consummation. One can offer those circumstances to the punya that lies in wait. Man exists in Time and awaits the issue in the appropriate time. Mother’s Force is beyond Time. Working in Mother’s Force, one can abridge several births of the future into the present one.

Let us go back to the basics, starting from what we know as Luck. When an incapable man accomplishes something contrary to his wont, everyone, including the man, says he is lucky. A good crop in the field, expected questions in the exam, a happy bride, a successful function, success in the election though it is marginal, a coveted job, an honest partner, a reliable capable manager, etc., fit the description of what man in life usually exclaims as luck. But that is a common usage of the word, not revealing its high significances, because the accomplishments here are of a minimum level. There are those at a higher level such as an undreamt of post, unbelievable good fortune or high reputation. All these do fit the description of the word luck. But by LUCK we mean a beggar boy becoming a millionaire, a volunteer becoming a Chief Minister, a bus cleaner turning into a fleet owner, a paper boy sitting in the White House as President. These are the maximum expressions of Luck. Whether maximum or minimum or in between, the process of creation of Luck remains the same, its height being determined by the intensity of energy expressed and the width of the plane in which it finds expression.

The basis of luck is a successful complete act in a plane far higher than the one where the individual lives. The components of a complete act are physical industry, vital enthusiasm, mental knowledge that expresses the skill needed for the work and the accompanying external circumstances that make its accomplishment possible.

Man is capable of work, enthusiasm, and skill that are required for the work, but the external circumstances are simply not in his hands. Rain that spoils a function or harvest, power-cut that ruins your factory production, market demand that decides your commercial fate and a host of other extraneous things that hold the strings of power of accomplishment are just not in MAN’s hands. It is too much for him to ask for it.

A complete act when completed gets accomplished in the plane where man exists and functions. It is not luck, but forms the foundation of luck. Hundreds of such acts do uphold our daily life and keep life from slipping into misery.

The soul of MAN is on a journey through several human births to collect various capacities at various levels. Generally, the soul acquires only one endowment in one birth. When that is over, it leaves the body, choosing the appropriate human circumstance for the next birth. To accomplish a very great act like becoming world famous, one needs a great many human endowments of head, heart and body. For one to become a ruler of a nation, he needs leadership, presence of mind, resourcefulness of mind, expansive vital energies that endlessly keep him up at the desk, physical endurance, great patience with hostile circumstances, equality in the face of a chain of failures and betrayals, a health that is in fine fettle with a little rest, undimmed eloquence, steadfast courage, soaring idealism and a hundred other things all at once. One thing more is necessary. The appropriate external political and social circumstances must arise for his vast basket of endowments to find its consummation. Suppose such a soul is born in a royal family and ascends the throne, it will not qualify as Luck. Maybe it can be described as luck at birth. If the same soul born in the circumstances of a commoner finds his external circumstances changing in such a fashion as to put him onto the throne, this will be understood as luck. Either way, it is all personal endowments supported by external life situations coming to fruition as an act of great accomplishment at the apex of life.

There are several types of luck in several grades. For many, luck shows itself once in marriage or job or education or in some field of life. Then it dries up, never to appear again on the surface.

Behind luck lies an endless effort of ages or even births, a painstaking meticulous effort by any standard. Eisenhower was elected President of the USA twice. But for the constitutional prohibition that no one can be President for more than two terms, it was said, Eisenhower would have easily won all the subsequent elections. While he was President, he was rarely in the office. Instead he was on the golf course. The nation admired the strength of the administration that functioned on its own without the President constantly guiding it and exclaimed that perhaps the nation did not need a President. The truth is to the contrary.

Ike, as Eisenhower was affectionately called, started life in the army. He fell in love with the daughter of an officer who consented to the marriage. The Air Force was being created and Ike applied for a job there. The army officer frowned on the idea of his son-in-law being an officer in the new-fangled air division. He gave the ultimatum to Ike which was either the Air Force or his daughter. It was a costly price and Ike paid it, giving up the idea of joining the Air Force. Life began with an unparalleled sacrifice for Ike. He was a hard worker which drained all his energy during the day. Knowing the vast significance of world history, he joined a course of world history during his off-hours. His walls were adorned with maps of all nations. For an army officer, a world history of events is of intellectual interest. What he needs to know is the terrain, the lie of it, the access to it and even more, ideas of how new access can be created in an emergency. Imagine the scope of study and the depth. It is like doing anatomy and physiology of the medical course in after-hours at the end of a full day of sweating in the field under tyrant masters who are trained to be merciless.

Writing reports in the army is an important duty after an assignment. Ike wanted to excel in it. He wrote thorough reports of 50 or 70 pages. The officers read the reports carefully and spoke back to him their essential central idea in ten sentences. It struck Ike that to arrive at that central idea he had to write 70 pages and he understood it only when the officer extracted it from his report. He tried to arrive at the central idea before writing the report but the assignment successfully eluded it. He tried his hand at other reports and came to know that what gives the central idea is not the experience but the perspective. His was the perspective of work, the execution; the officer looked at his work as part of a whole, the whole at which he was working. To look at his own work from the perspective of his boss would give him the central idea. It was no exercise on the field or exercise in writing, but it was an effort of mind that expands to the horizons of the whole and looks down at this small part. He succeeded and his officers were pleased beyond measure. When he got the perspective of a higher officer, he moved into that post. He vowed that any boss he left should feel the loss and lived up to it.

World War II came and the question of the European theatre was uppermost in the mind of the President. The President consulted Marshall who had the unofficial habit of maintaining a diary of promising army officers. Ike’s name was on top of the list. He became the Commander-in-Chief of the European forces, and won the war; later he won the Presidency too.

The U.S. President daily receives several long reports which he has to read himself and cannot delegate. Presidents generally bury themselves in the reports. Ike refused to receive long reports and asked for ten sentences instead. The officers struggled hard to find the gist which would reveal itself to the President only from his wider national perspective. They were forced to learn to extract the gist of their reports and Ike played golf!

When Rajaji was chief minister in Madras for a second time, there were several I.C.S. officers whose reports of a page or two he would summarize in one or two sentences. The secretaries wrote their reports on one half of a page, leaving the other for the chief minister’s comment. I.C.S. officers, in spite of their Oxford education, were administrators who were work-oriented, whereas Rajaji approached work from the nation’s point of view. Rajaji was no mere politician, but a statesman of high calibre.

Man lives in the consciousness of life and matter, governed by Time and Space. Mother’s Consciousness is above Time and Space and therefore can abridge them into a speck. No meaningful analogies can ever be given to Mother’s way of life, but I can make a feeble attempt. Two hundred years ago if one had to communicate with the USA or Canada, it was a breathtaking exercise. He may have accomplished it in a year or in a few years. Today the phone rings in a second across the earth. This is what technology does. Mother has come on earth to hasten the advent of Superman by 30,000 years. Without humanity participating, She can do it in 300 years. With the willing cooperation of humanity, She can achieve it in 30 years. Once, in explaining the emergence of the psychic, She said that one was lucky in tapasya if it emerged in 30 years when the tapas was at its peak. Simultaneously She assured that anyone living in Her aura, with Her help, could accomplish it in two or three months. That is the extent to which Her consciousness can abridge Time. To a tantric guru who meditated with Her She said that She gave the yogic accomplishment of several births. Stationing oneself in Her consciousness, one can abridge several births into the present one.

Let us consider what happens to us. Suppose after birth we have to grow on our own into manhood without the fostering of the family, or the support of the society, what will the result be. We need not ask that supposed question. It happened to a child lost in a forest. After 15 years, someone came upon him and brought him into the town. He walked on all fours, howled for speech, behaved like animals behave. It is the family and the society that nourish us into manhood.

Suppose a boy refuses to go to school and wants to learn everything himself without looking into any printed material, he may require a hundred or a thousand years to learn. The society has collected all its wisdom into several departments of knowledge and devised a system of education which can impart to the boy in 20 years what was collected over 1000 years in one field. Not only that, he can go on to become an expert in that field. Today society does abridge 1000 years or thousands of years of civilised knowledge into a 20 year curriculum in the school.

If you want to know what your family has done to you, compare yourself with people of your own age who were brought up in families that do not have the culture of your family. The difference will be self-evident. When the Chola king wanted an honest minister and could not get one, he desired to find someone from a spotless family for three generations on both sides. That was how he stumbled upon Sekkizhar at Kunnrathur. Families can produce men of miraculous character and integrity.

A man over sixty years of toil accumulates wealth, power and status. His son inherits the father’s talents through blood. After education while his friends are selected as clerks, he gets selected as an officer. It takes 60 years of accomplishment for one man and when he passes it on to posterity, the child has an advantage. One of his friends from an ordinary family, for some inexplicable reason, joins a public school and he too gets selected easily for the post of an officer. What 60 years of accomplishment did in one case, the school does in another case.

A boy lives in the United States or France for three years and when he returns has the ability of one who is about to retire. Advanced countries are like a university. Living there is an education. In any country, however backward it is, society is a great teacher.

As the family, school and society abridge centuries and decades into a capsule, Mother abridges several births into several years. For one living in Her consciousness, he can accomplish in several years what might take several births otherwise.

Why and how does Mother’s consciousness help us to create luck? The constituents of luck are industry, energy, skill and the all-embracing support of the external circumstances. Industry is of the physical, energy is from the vital, skill comes out of knowledge and the external support is the sanction and endorsement of the spirit in us. When man comes forward to offer industry, enthusiasm and skill, he finds the external circumstances elusive, often treacherous. At this point, if he consecrates his acts and every step of his acts to Mother, She takes charge of the circumstances. The work is fulfilled. Mother begins where man ends. In ordinary life ten persons who offer their best to the work produce one man who is successful. They call him lucky. If ten devotees of Mother undertake a similar effort, ALL of them, without fail, will meet with success. If one devotee embarks on ten projects, ALL the ten projects will be rewarded with success. That is the difference between life and Mother.

It is not given to man, however high-placed he is, to command the forces of nature, the unforeseen circumstances. Hence he is at the disposal of unknown forces. For the one who fulfills his part to perfection and consecrates each of his steps to Mother, putting his work in Her hands, She brings him the favourable circumstances as luck of the lowest type. But certainly this is luck. Not one project of devotees that answers to this description has met with failure. Rather, they have been successful at a higher level than anticipated. They have never been known to fail. Granting that there is a case of failure, it can be immediately restored to success by supplying the missing element that brought about the failure. Without such a missing element, success is the only issue.

Diverting from theory, let us come to a small practice. It is an experiment in the creation of Luck. As I said, the components of Luck are four, representing the four parts of our being. There are hundreds of people who are capable of untiring work, infectious enthusiasm and all the skill needed for the work on hand. Not all of them have met with success. Not all their projects have met with success. Let one such person come forward to experiment with luck. He has to secure a mastery over the circumstances. This is done by invoking Mother at every step. Let him start a project now and do it in the consciousness of Mother. He will meet not with success but with luck, because he has supplied all the constituents of luck to his work.

A boy who had never secured pass marks in English until he came to SSLC sought help for his March exam at the end of December. He was one who could give his all for the exam and having done it in Mother’s consciousness, he not only passed the exam but came out first in the class in an examination in February. As he supplied all the ingredients of work fully and as the work was done in Mother’s atmosphere, Luck came to him who had sought mere success. This is a token act, small in itself; but the principle and process of creation of luck is the same, irrespective of the size of the project.

Anyone can make an experiment in an area of his life where industry, energy and skill abound, but success is elusive. In any profession in a town there will be one or two lucky people. A dozen others with capacity will find themselves unlucky. As capacity is already there, if they supply the missing element of spirit by now invoking Mother, they would find themselves landing in the zone of luck.

A day labourer in a factory who was unaware of any of these processes became a devotee of Mother, exhibited enthusiasm and eagerly learnt all the skills his job required. He ended up buying his company. 

Occasionally talented people come to Mother. Mother’s blessings on a single occasion pitchforks those people into luck for the rest of their lives. By dint of hard work, they possess all the ingredients of luck except the spiritual part. Mother’s Blessings supply it.

A musician of talent came to the Ashram to learn bhajan songs. At the end of the course she sought Mother’s blessings. From that day, her fame rose steadily and she not merely reached the top of the profession but set higher and higher standards of excellence. A colleague of hers with the same talents and similar reputation disappeared into oblivion. A sportsman visited the Ashram. His aim was to reach fame all over the state winning the state medal. Mother blessed him, and played with him. He attained all-India fame and extended it all over the globe. Not only that, the luck extended to the next generation at the same intensity. A political volunteer rose to be the leader of her state and rose further too.

Luck comes to many in life by previous preparation. However, luck invariably comes to all Mother’s devotees who possess the necessary human endowments. That is why several people were able to create luck in their lives. That is also why it is possible for anyone to usher himself into luck, if he is willing for the effort.

No man is without an area in his life where he is endowed with talents to saturation. That is a fit place for such an experiment. In addition, there are projects in the lives of people that failed in spite of capacity and skill. The experiment can also be made in that area to rectify a past failure. These experiments will enable one to learn the process of creation of luck.

Mother’s Force is all-comprehensive. It can create not only luck but beauty too. In fact, one who prayed for beauty was granted it.

In life, we can say there is a line dividing the level of survival from the rest. The able are above the line. Those below the line struggle to survive. Some who are below the line undertake great efforts to cross it and reach the level of social, physical survival. This is an act of great importance which is rarely realised. Those who move from one meal a day to comfort; those who move from being an uneducated rural family of lumpen workers to being an urban, middle class family and such others generally give up the effort after crossing the border of survival. Their effort is a comprehensive human effort in social survival and advancement. Hence it qualifies for creation of luck when Mother is added to it. It is equally true of all who successfully move from one social level to the next higher one, be it at the bottom or at the top. As the human effort is present here in its rich fullness, when Mother is evoked, SHE is able to act in such a fashion that it turns into luck.

Luck can be created by those who understand the process, not by those who merely receive the results. The process is an integral human endeavour where each part exercises itself to its rich fullness rising to levels of art.

Luck seeks a man in life. This is the only phenomenon we know of. I am trying to explain how man can seek luck or create it. Man has created education, a wonderful instrument that capsulises millennia into a couple of decades. He has created science which has abridged future centuries into present decades, apart from making earth a paradise in terms of human comforts. Physical drudgery, pain from disease, comfort in living or travel, ease of communication all bear testimony in their changed status to the achievements of science. Now man can create luck too, and if he succeeds, he is sure to find votaries to the cause of luck.

Tom Peters was a director of the world-famous consultancy company McKinsey in the U.S.A. He and Waterman studied 64 excellent companies and compiled a report for their company. The famous publishers Harper & Row, in their hunt for publishable material, landed on Tom’s report and sought his permission to print and publish it. Tom liked the idea but he knew the report was full of unreadable dry facts and frankly told Harper & Row that it would not sell 10,000 copies. Nevertheless, the publishers had their way and sold three million copies. Today Tom is on top of the management world and is booked for the next six months at $ 20,000 a day, which, in reality, reduces to a speech of one and a half or two hours. The whole world is seriously researching the cause for his fame.

Tom is a ‘baby-boomer’, a child of the post-war, US baby boom. During his college days he was a hippie, breaking all rules, ranting against the establishment. Today the hippies are in their forties, hence the ruling age group of the USA. His report advocates abolition of bureaucracy, breaking all rules, wiping off committees, removing the registers,  rewarding those who commit mistakes, etc., etc. Whatever the merit or otherwise of his approach, it is the aspiration of the national leaders of thought. As Tom represents a national wave, his book caught the imagination of the nation and sold in millions. In India too, it happened in a different fashion. The Green Revolution came to meet a national need. All those associated with the Green Revolution received a boost in their careers, two of whom won the World Food Prize.

Luck is consummation of a work at a high level through an individual’s life for the benefit of the community at large or for the world. As such a work is being prepared by nature at every point of her action, it is possible for us to locate these points and hasten their expression. Man works by the body. It is the slowest member of his being. Compare a man who can only toil with his compeer who is able to utilize the occasion of his work and exercise his mind. At the fag end of their careers, the first will still be cleaning the lorry he started with, while the other may have become a driver or a lorry broker or even a lorry owner. The first man takes the fullest effort even as the second man does, but while one thinks with his body, the other toils with his mental faculties. Is it not common that the latter is described as lucky?

Let us consider white collar citizens. Life changes. New ideas come once in a way. Several citizens keep quiet, some disregard the new ideas, while a few pursue them. All of them are from the same level of life but with different attitudes of complacency, secure indifference and innovation. Regardless of man’s response, Life does move ahead. The innovators become pioneers, the rest join the new stream of life in time. The innovators exercise their minds, risk their possessions, brave danger, challenge circumstances, try new ideas and many succeed, while others fail. Now the new way of life gains respectability, sometimes becoming a symbol of luck too. Others move in for competition or for material gain. Some in their attitude of conservatism meet with failure and frustration, which push them ahead. The effort of the innovators is full, because all their faculties are fully involved. Their thought is new, release of energy is for an unknown ideal, and skill is new by its nature. As all the faculties are involved, the endeavour is TOTAL and therefore when they succeed with the endorsement of external life, it turns into Luck. When the camp followers imitate another, no new thought is involved in their project; they walk along a beaten track. Therefore, what the pioneer gains is luck while what all these people gain will be of a lesser order. Suppose these men, instead of resisting the idea and waiting for someone to succeed, come forward to think and accept the new idea, their effort will become a total effort, and with consecration at every step, the project will usher in Luck. The pioneers always move ahead while others gain very much. Luck stays with the forerunners.

Two beginners in a field had great welcome. An aged man who had the knowledge of the field but not the expertise of the youngsters joined them as a partner. In the course of their work, they wrote reports for their clients and charged $15,000 with hesitation, fearing they were overshooting the mark. It went on for some time. One day the elderly man passed a comment on the side. “These young people are throwing away their talents for $15,000. For the same report, McKinsey would charge $150,000.” Talents remaining the same, the rewards vary according to the plane where you are working. Sometimes the talents to be the CEO of a 100 million dollar company or a 10 million dollar company are the same. This is not true always. One simple circumstance decides whether you are here or there.

The talents of C. Subramaniam were proverbial. He took over three portfolios as an entrant. Had he not caught the eye of Nehru in Avadi Congress, he would not have moved to the Centre at all. The oratory of Raghunatha Reddy in Parliament made Indira include him in the cabinet. Often whether you are a local luminary or a national star depends upon one event, one trait, one idea or one something. For many it comes, for others it comes but fails, for most it never comes. With that something, man rises to the top; without it, he brings up the rear. These are all cases where the human endowment is there to saturation and external chance is described as luck. When all such people with their part full take to Mother, the first thing they get is the coveted chance. She is able to act because the human part is complete.

The difference between Gandhiji and Rajaji is only a hair’s breadth. So is the difference between Bharati and Tagore. Often we hear of a man winning the Nobel Prize or a high international prize. Later comes the report that another man has simultaneously worked in the same field, producing the same result. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and patented it. Another man also invented the phone and went to the patent office ten minutes after Bell’s registration. It was too late for him. Today we do not know of him. That ten minutes mattered. It made the difference between world fame and oblivion and the accompanying millions. The world calls it luck. Such a thing happens every day in hundreds of small things and decides whether you retire as a clerk or an IAS officer, whether you are a small farmer or a big zamindar, whether you revel in your petty wealth or become a fleet owner, whether your fame is restricted to the state or extends to all India etc., etc. All those people do miss the spiritual part, the endorsement of the external atmosphere. When they take to Mother, Mother gives it readily to them.

We see another phenomenon too in lucky people. Luck comes to them but they are not aware of their endowments that brought the results. Results repeat several times and in overwhelming measure too. Only then they wake up to the reality of their innate capacities and inherent talents. A strange thing happens. Luck comes to an end. In all lucky people, this is seen. The moment you are aware of your capacity, it dries up. Conversely, if one can become consciously and genuinely humble, luck will begin to come and stay forever. We can as well say this is a method of creation of luck. Humility is rare. The purpose of humility is not to create luck even as the purpose of Akbar’s musician is not to call the animals to his audience. For humility, luck is incidental. This is one way of understanding luck.

Mother has four powers, twelve aspects and hundreds of ways of functioning and expressing Her Force. Each man understands the point at which he receives Her Grace or relief for his problem. Of the many things She has — in fact everything is in Her — Luck is one. Trying to understand how luck is created and expresses and how MOTHER ACTS AS A BRINGER OF LUCK to you and then accepting Her as such will enable luck to find a permanent place in your life. With that in view, I am trying to explain as many things as have a bearing on luck from Mother’s side.

When the income is low, people have a simple meal. Often it is crude, meeting the demands of quantity. Sometimes when their fortune changes for the better, not all people give themselves a better fare, for the simple reason that a crude filling meal is all they can make and no one at home has any objection to it. One man before his own employment was treated by his stepmother like that. He started life on sixty rupees a month and retired on 10,000/- a month. The meal is one of those aspects of his life that never changed. Not only meal, but dress too exists at many levels rising from outrageous crudeness to utter elegance. Work of any description like maintaining an office, ploughing a field, feeding the guests, delivering a speech, printing a book, keeping house, rearing a family, etc., starts from a crude elementary stage and rises to the stage of being an art.

The next element that is required is energy. Some have less energy for the work than is needed; others have boisterous great energy; rarely we meet in a work expanding energy that is gently expressed in joy. The same is true in the knowledge and skill needed for a work. A bar council chairman and a state public prosecutor crossed legal swords over the distinction between daybook and ledger while the great sitting judge was ignorant of both. For a long time they went through clumsy, silly arguments which any client would laugh at. Knowledge of the work one has been doing for long, and the skill in it are rarely found in adequate measure even in experienced people. Sir S. Radhakrishnan was a student of the Teachers’ college. At the end of the course, students requested their teachers to give a synopsis of the various lessons. Teachers assigned it to Radhakrishnan. In twelve able lectures he captured the essence of the year’s lessons which his friends marvelled at. That is skill which is striking.

Work rising to the level of art, energy expanding in expressive joy, understanding that strikes everyone as a marvel, results in completing the project with miraculous benefits. Then work rises to Luck. Even that is only the first stage of Luck. Successive stages of Luck remain to follow.

I spoke about a token experiment in creating Luck in an area where one’s endowments are in saturation. That is the best and ideal. We can also think of a second best. It is in your profession. You may be a shopkeeper or auditor or petition writer. Maybe you are an M.L.A. or an advocate general or a surgeon or even a principal or a vice-chancellor. Presently your position may be unenviable or above the average. Whatever it is, the simple fact about all these professions, some of which are socially low and others highly respected is that, in fact, they are ordinary professions. Professional knowledge is not something that requires genius or even precociousness. That is an exception and it is not our topic. Professional knowledge requires hard work and consummate interest. Those who have it can acquire professional expertise. If you closely watch those who have earned that reputation and speak to them about the secret of their success, they always reply, “sweat”. In writing a book on business management, our Society collected personal experiences from the CEOs of billion dollar companies to this effect. It supplemented them with Edison’s testimony from literature.

Our theme here is how to create luck. Its first half is the human endowment. I am trying to argue that human endowment can be acquired by all those who are willing to sweat. This means:

—   you must have a little more knowledge of your work than those around,

—   you must have a little more enthusiasm than your compeers,

—   your industry and skill should be better than everyone else in the locality.

If one acquires this much, which is open to all, success is not sure because the externals are not at your command. Also, there are several others in the profession who answer to this description. Then we say, “No luck”, or “The time has not come”. It is the spiritual element which is missing. Having the human endowments in saturation, one can make an experiment. He can embark on a project consecrating every step of it to Mother which means thinking of Her before the work commences. Now that all the four components of Luck — physical work, vital enthusiasm, mental knowledge and spiritual endorsement that bring the externals under control — are there, it is sure to succeed.

A man at the age of 45, having terminated six successive ventures, practised this method and was ushered into success. Another man whose astrologer wondered how the family ever existed and held together took one project of simple service for sometime. He had a windfall, raising the eyebrows of his community. The household, which had not seen three full thousand rupees in one lump, received 300,000 by changed circumstances. One who was doing a million dollars of business a year found this suggestion acceptable and