There is an age-old belief that there is no man without some innate talent. In the work spot if someone is found useless for the job, he is relieved. The same thing cannot be done in a family. The family tries its best to put him on his feet. Often they succeed because he does have a talent not fully recognised. If in a class we have different grades of performance, educationists know it is not so much due to different grades of endowments as different levels of application. In schools where everyone receives as much encouragement to apply to studies as he individually needs, the results are more evenly spread out. Sociologists know that within a family the factors of psychological attitude decide the performance of the members. Spirit is equal, not at birth, but long before it takes birth.
Following a different swabhava, they perform differently. When the Spirit is awake, the swabhava is secondary. The Spirit chooses its own performance. In an organisation conceived as a family, a member from another state joined willingly. He could not acquit himself in any work given to him. Nor did he find himself comfortable in any situation. He was shifted several times. He was asked to choose. He chose the very simple job of procuring supplies from the shop. Nothing he bought worked. The scissors he bought would not cut! Whatever could be done with him, if he could not be relieved? Suddenly there was news that he was interested in watch repairing. A watch repair shop was bought and he left them for good. He was happy. Yet that too became a failure. He came back, on his own, to an earlier trade and founded by himself an independent establishment. It has been alive for the last 25 years.
At last he had proved on his own the spiritual rule that there lies dormant in anyone a talent which others may not see. Maybe he himself is not aware of it. When the Spirit awakens, such a talent comes to the surface. It enables him to excel in his career. Language calls these people dark horses. It is in the political field such strange things are witnessed. Even there it is not a frequent occurrence. In the field of Spirit, it is the rule, not the exception. Sri Aurobindo says that one who takes to yoga is capable of turning to any field of his choice and the Spirit will stand him in good stead.