GRACE IS ALWAYS SIMPLE

 

DIVINE PLAN AND FREE WILL

Most people in the world today, everything they do they have to do it with thought and deliberation. That is not necessary. That is living an unnatural life. Sometimes it is expedient by all means. But we have to bring our lives to such a stage where every action becomes spontaneously good, and that is how we alter the course of karma.

Because of the happenings of our past lives, we get born into this life with certain tendencies. Those tendencies could be called “divine plan.” A divine plan is there that gives you certain tendencies. If you proceed through this road, you will reach San Francisco. That tendency is there. If you proceed through this road, you will reach Los Angeles. That tendency is there. But with that tendency, which is divine will, man also has free will. If we want to reach Los Angeles, for example, which is within the scope or framework of the pattern that we have set for ourselves, free will can tell us, “Shall I go there by motor car or by train or by bus or by donkey cart?” That is where free will comes into play.

We can expedite this journey. We can reach home faster. We can reach the goal quicker by proper spiritual practices and right thought, and right action. Right thought and right action have to be cultivated. Most people are living in a rut.

If you go to the backwoods of India, in those Indian villages, you have roads that are grooved. Those oxen carts going on the path over and over again form grooves. In those grooves, when a driver wants to go somewhere with his cart, he can fall asleep, and the cart will keep on going. The ox will keep taking it because of the grooves, and that is how our lives are. What we need is to put a little boulder or stone in the groove. So, when the cart comes along and the wheel bumps against the stone, the driver wakes up. That is what we need. Awakening. Awakening to these supreme factors of life and they are not impossible.

GRACE IS ALWAYS SIMPLE

To find happiness is the simplest thing in life. It is so simple to be happy but so difficult to be simple. When we bring upon ourselves this simplicity, and through spiritual practices, it just comes; the simplicity dawns and simplicity is another name for Grace.

Grace is always simple. It is our cunning minds that make things complex. We make things complex. We add on complexities to a life that could be so beautiful, spontaneously simple. We make it complex. In everything we do, we always think of all the negative things that could happen to us next week or next month or next year. You might have a beautiful job today, but even while doing your job, you are thinking, “Oh, what shall I do if I get the sack next month?”

Why? This little story which is quite amusing, tells of a woman that heard that the world was coming to an end in two million years, and she committed suicide. What has two million years hence to do with you now? People either live in the past, or they live in the future. But never in the moment, and if we live in the past, Grace closes her door to us. If we live in the future, Grace closes her door to us because the Law of Grace is not interested in the past or the future! The past is past, and the future is still to come. It might never come in this little lifetime. We do not know what is going to happen tomorrow. But if we think only of the present moment, then Grace just dawns upon us if we live in the present. Grace is supportive of the present. Tomorrow looks after itself – always.

THE PRESENT IS SO BEAUTIFUL

We linearly measure things from A to Z. In a linear fashion. A horizontal fashion. Never in the vertical fashion. At the crossroads of the horizontal and the vertical, at the cross where the two points meet, that is the present. When we are in the present, we can look up. When we are in the past, we can only look horizontally forward, and if we live in the future, we can only look horizontally backwards, and we miss the point of the present, and the present is so beautiful.

It is all these little presents, all these little present moments that make up the entirety. Like for example, in a movie or film, it is made up of little frames. Because of the projector, the machine and the flywheel in this machine make it look like a continuous run on the screen, a continuous moment. But in reality, in the film, these are just all a series of squares, a series of frames. If we can live a frame at a time, continuity looks after itself, and that is what Grace demands of us. That beautiful girl, Grace, demands of us that we live in the present.

THE TENDENCY CAN BE CHANGED

As we have said before, the tendency we have brought with us can be changed, and man is not born to suffer. What brings suffering is our deeds, our actions, our thoughts. If we can consciously alter them, then there is always a silver lining behind every cloud. So, we try to see the glory and not the gloom, for Grace lies in the glory, and in the gloom lies the rat race. That is what happens.

The Law of Grace is forever there like the air around us, and if we become receptive through the unfoldment of the Heart, expansion of the Heart, and greater expansion or awareness of the mind, then it is there. It is like going to a well. You go there with a thimble, you get a thimbleful, and if you go to the well with a big bucket, you get a big bucketful. It is entirely up to us. If we do our practices regularly and properly, then we make ourselves conducive to the Law of Grace, and she comes running to us.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1977 – 03

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