“Grace has been flowing always, that is already the case. It is there right now, flowing around you, but you don’t give a door to it. All your windows are closed, all your doors are closed; you are closed, imprisoned in yourself, you don’t allow any winds to blow. Grace is not something special that is going to happen to you. Grace is the very existence itself, it is grace-filled.” – Osho
What Grace Is Not
It’s so easy, especially in today’s world, to get caught up in the ego mind of doing, having, achieving. We often like to feel in full control, perhaps projecting a personal sense of false bravado, habitual or conventional approaches to thinking, or feeling we must act rashly, usually out of fear, to intervene in order to solve our problems. Who wouldn’t agree that we humans like to ‘make things happen’ and to prove ourselves through our brilliant intellect ad nauseam? This behavior is likened to closing all the doors and windows as the above quote states.
True Grace Is Felt When We Let Go
True grace on the other hand usually enters our life as a result of realizing the power of simplicity (both in thought and action), acceptance, and an utter dependence on something bigger and wiser than us. Some might call this a Higher Power, God, Creator, the Unknown, or the Cosmos, and when we can learn to surrender to the idea that only the Unknown understands how to bring about that miracle we need or the best set of circumstances without us interfering, we are learning to tame the ego and allow grace to flow in.
Relying on Simplicity And Humility
It takes a great deal of taming and the silencing of our ego to realize we don’t have all the answers and to fully accept that we don’t need to have all the answers. This makes the ego crazy, but the more we learn to walk in the light of the dignity, humility, and simplicity of our inner sage, the more we begin to feel our way into movement when the way is open, and backtracking when the way is closed. This comes too, from listening to our body’s wisdom, from getting quiet inside, and from caring for, feeding, and nurturing our bodies so that we can become more receptive to the flow of intelligence speaking through our cells in every moment.
What Does A Grace-Filled Life Look Life?
Nowhere was I witness to the profound energy of Grace in such magnitude as when I was in India for the month of January this year. In fact, it was Grace itself that swept into my life and whispered to me to take the trip, a gift of immense generosity and kindness from a dear friend who lives there. Grace was a palpable beauty there that I could feel in almost every place my feet tread and I became a silent observer of just what Grace felt like in motion. In any life it can look quiet or busy, full of material possessions or humbly sparse. It can be expansive and larger than life or it can go pretty much unnoticed by anyone. Or, like I saw in India every day smack in the middle of the busy streets, it can be a pile of stinking, steaming cow shit strewn with fragrant beautiful blossoms that fell from the trees above.
Grace Flows From Our Inner Balance and Harmony
The simple truth is it doesn’t have so much to do with outward appearances and everything to do with an inner flow, an inner ease of being, a synergistic coming together of events, situations, people, or circumstances. It has the flavor of harmony and balance, reserve and dignity, poise and humility, beauty and a deep inner silence. It can be sensed that a grace-filled being is free of all inner conflict, completely free of any doubt of who or what is running the show. In India, I experienced Grace as something that was felt more than it was seen, though it can certainly be both.
Surrendering to The Grace of The Cosmos
I love this description of surrendering to Grace by the Yoga Journal writer, Sally Kempton. She writes, “Most transformational moments—spiritual, creative, or personal—involve a sequence of intense effort, frustration, and then letting go. The effort, the slamming against walls, the intensity and the exhaustion, the fear of failure balanced against the recognition that it is not OK to fail—all these are part of the process by which a human being breaks out of the cocoon of human limitation and becomes willing on the deepest level to open to the infinite power that we all have in our core. It’s the same process whether we’re mystics, artists, or people trying to solve a difficult life problem. You’ve probably heard the story of how Einstein, after years of doing the math, had the special theory of relativity downloaded into his consciousness in a moment of stillness.”
Falling On Our Knees Kind of Attitude
The more we are willing, and/or pushed, to open ourselves up to an infinite power, and not out of the arrogant ego’s fear, or either with a lackadaisical attitude of half-assed interest, but rather with a total falling on our knees kinda surrender and reverent humility where we are willing to be led blindly, then the gentle winds of inner truth and grace will show us the correct way. We don’t have to wait for adversity to strike before we learn the workings of the flow of grace in our lives. We can begin right where we are if we are willing to give up the notion that we are remotely in charge of anything. Grace is right here, right now. It’s up to us to let it in.
With much love,
Heather xo
P.S. If you have friends, clients or colleagues who you think may be in need of allowing grace to flow into their lives, send them this blog. Nothing feels better than knowing you’ve helped a friend out.
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