Twinn Swan

During certain select periods in our lives, everything just seems to go wrong. Our best laid plans go up in smoke. Nothing seems to be in our favour. It seems that the odds are stacked against us. During these periods, one has no choice but to face, confront and grapple with setbacks that are too big to overcome. During this phase, life is plagued by downturns. The outlook is bearish. Why does it seem like you can never catch a break?

What is true–without a shred or shadow of doubt–is that good fortune and luck does not magically come your way without effort. Luck should be and should remain a big part of your daily routine. Tagore once wrote that we all have a realm, a private paradise, in our mind where dwell the deathless memories of persons who have brought some divine light to our life’s experiences.

The concept of divine light is not a difficult one to grasp. We are seeking the good things in life. But we cannot attract them or invite them into our life till all the bad things are gone. Sometimes, one has no choice but to undergo a period of cleansing and purification before the good fortune is able to come.

Luck

Since time immemorial, people have sought to harness the power of luck through either a ritual, a talisman or a charm. Some individuals are said to possess luck, while others are deemed to be unlucky. Does being told that someone or something is ‘lucky’ improve our chances of success?

What are the steps that an individual can take to improve their luck? Do lucky people expect good fortune to come their way? Is it the placebo effect; that if you think that things are going to be in your favour that things will actually be in your favour? If you change your outlook on luck–and convince yourself that you are lucky–could it lead to a better outcome?

When you find the person or the place that can give you that divine light, then, you will know that you have found your luck.

A Story of True Renunciation

A seed which transforms into a bud has no choice but to abandon its old way of life to become a flower. We have to release and let go of the ‘bad’ if we want to welcome the ‘good’. We have to renounce and let go of all our bad habits, all our attachments and all of our grief, pain and loss.

Real abandonment will lead us to a more abundant and fuller expression of our True Self. True renunciation–which is the goal of abandonment–should lead us upwards. We should do it in order to improve our luck and our lot in life.

At the same time, we cannot simply abandon people or circumstances because we do not want to suffer. We cannot spend our lives seeking pleasure and sense-gratification. This lifestyle has no reward and will bear no fruit. The Bhagavad Gita stresses, time and again, the importance of fulfilling one’s duty based on one’s circumstances.

A man of abandonment discovers, in himself, a faculty with which he is able to abandon the identification he has with his lower desires. In order to renounce the false self, Medha-Shakti is required. The majority of the world is either identified with the body, the mind or the intellect, all in varying degrees. Such a man or woman is conditioned either by their ancestors or by the environment around them. He has not transcended his circumstances and that is why he thinks they are against him. That is why he thinks he is unlucky.

Medha-Shakti represents our power and our innate ability not to forget the importance of Brahman in our lives and in our day-to-day existence. By taking time each day to acknowledge the living presence of the Infinite within, one begins to self-realise the divine light.

When one begins to acquire Medha-Shakti, one begins to understand the activities that they must do and the ones that must be avoided, at all costs. By bearing in mind the relationship that he has with the world of sense objects around him, he can transcend them and become enlightened.

It is this very light that is his luck.