Destiny or Free Will

Destiny and Free will:

I have seen many eminently successful people claiming that their success is due to their efforts. Like-wise, I have also seen many people who are failures in life blaming everything on destiny. "Thalai Vidhi" is what would say about their failures.

It is true that we measure success with the material wealth accumulated during our life time.This is true both in the East and the West.

I have often wondered whether late Dirubhai Ambani!s success is due to his efforts or due to destiny. Who created the circumstances and the environment for his over-whelming success?. Or is it he chose the right people at the right time. I was fortunate to work with Ruia brothers of ESSAR.When I was interviewed by Shashi Ruia, I found a board behind him with the word "Dreams come True". The brothers, through hard work and steely determination, exemplified the statement "Nothing ventured, nothing gained". They did not believe in destiny. However they took the blessings of their mother every day before leaving for office.

Mr Nani Palkhiwala, a famous lawyer of Mumbhai compared destiny and free will to a dog chained to the hands of the owner. What can the dog do? Its movements are restricted to the length of the chain. It cannot move beyond this unless the owner lets go the chain.According to Palkhiwala,the chain is the free-will and the leash on the hands of the owner is destiny.
Do I agree with this view? I personally felt that Mr Plakhiwala came to this conclusion because he had no children. He was a very successful lawyer and he had everything but children. He must have tried various ways to become a father , consulting doctors all over the world. He must have come to the conclusion about free-will and destiny after this. He donated all his wealth to Shankar Nethralaya in Chennai before his death.

As I believe in Karma, I should believe in destiny. But can we do nothing hoping that destiny will take care of itself. It would be foolish to adopt this attitude. We should have dreams and we should make efforts to achieve those dreams. Even when are met with obstacles/failures, we must be mentally tough to overcome these difficulties.If we constantly give our best,someday our dreams will come true.

I have also heard the story of how Arujuna lost his battle when he was a eunuch, though he had the same bow and arrow. It is said "samay,samay bahilwan,no manush bahilwan. Kove Arujun lootiyo, ohi Danbush and ohi Bann".

I am reminded of a story. One person prayed to God for long asking for wealth. Ultimately God appeared before him and blessed him stating he will get his wealth through a lottery. After some time when he did not win any prize, he prayed to God yet again and complained about non-fulfillment of his desire. God replied to him " For winning a prize, you must at least make the effort of buying a lottery ticket". This story makes the point very clear that must make all the efforts and leave the rest to Karma or destiny.
There is this famous statement:
"Some are born great (destiny),
Some achieve greatness (free-will).
and some have greatness thrust upon them (destiny again)",
Are we to assume that it is two-thirds destiny and one-third free will.
Frankly, I do not know,
All I know is that all of us should have ambitions and work hard towards fulfilling those ambitions.