Have faith, but first do your work

The concluding stanza (18, 78) of Bhagavad Gita is on the invincible combination of the ���lord of yoga���, Krishna and the ���bow wielding��� Arjuna, which would always bring about prosperity, success and established morality. The adjective, ���bow wielding���, presupposes that human aspirations have necessarily also to go with that willingness and capacity to persevere, working not merely hard but also intelligently and with a sense of direction.

It is in this situation that external situations or developments, nature���s support and divine grace also join in as allies in the aspirant���s pursuit. Rightly was it said that God helps those who help themselves.

The capacity for infinite patience and intent, thus, also has to go with capacity for taking infinite pains ��� the concept of 98% perspiration and 2% inspiration. H W Longfellow���s concept, in his A Psalm of Life, ���learn to labour and to wait���, is preceded by his earlier lines, ���Let us, then, be up and doing,/ With a heart for any fate��� and also his own supreme lines in The Ladders of St Augustine, ���The heights by great men reached and kept/ Were not attained by sudden flight,/ But they, while their companions slept,/ Were toiling upward in the night���.

It is in the above regard that these lines of W E Henley (Invictus) assume immense significance ��� ���I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul���.

No doubt, limitations of situations around, including compulsions, commitments and also lack of means could act as stumbling blocks. Some believe that destiny, karma and planetary positions, beside certain occult influences, are actually insurmountable obstacles.

But then, free will and intensity of the yearning within could overcome these through right application through obtaining that glowing wisdom (jnanagni), which, as Gita notes, (4,37), reduces to ashes, the binding effects of all karma.

Fatalism or inaction, under the cover of destiny are thus, often, alibis for failure and escape routes for the weak in spirit. Dynamic optimism, on the other hand, and that willingness ���to labour and to wait���, besides that abiding capacity to smile even ���when everything goes dead wrong��� (to use the inspiring expression of Ella Wheeler Wilcox) ��� these are the all conquering weapons in the armoury of the great to transcend barriers.

It is in this manner that, to a seeking mind, in spite of frustrations on the way, answers will come ��� slowly and in stages perhaps, but certainly, surely and clearly.