Grace of God is showering uninterruptedly on us

God's Amazing Grace

 Grace of God is showering uninterruptedly on us, but we simply do not look towards that!  We disregard this grace, we disrespect it,  we dishonor it,  then too God does not leave His compassionate and merciful nature.  He continues to shower His grace.   A child does not disrespect the mother any less, for he urinates and excretes somewhere, he spits other times,  but mother constantly protects him. Similarly, we too are clever like the child in following the wrong path.  But God is not any less sharp than the mother in showering His grace,  rather he is very quick.  Therefore we must have faith in His grace. 

Even if the worst of all situations befalls,  in that too His grace is ever the same.  If illness overcomes us, if we suffer financial losses,  if someone dies, if sickness takes hold,  if we are dishonored or disgraced, in all of these situations, there is God's grace.  We must have faith in His grace. 

Laalane taadane maaturnaakaarunyam yathaarbhake |

Tadvadeva maheshasya niyanturgunadoshayoh ||

Just as while caring for the child and also while  reprimanding the child, in both these incidents, there is never a time that mother's is never not gracing the child, similarly God who is governing our good and bad qualities, can never not be gracing us.  

In this way,  sometimes without any cause God showers His grace on us and gives us this human body - 

Kabahunak kari karunaa nar dehi

Det is binu hetu sanehi ||  (Manas, Uttar.  44/3) 

Sins amassed in the past (sanchit) never come to an end;  because every being has been committing these sins from time immemorial.  However, in between, inspite of  being sinful, God blesses us with a human body, and in the midst He gives us an opportunity for our salvation.   This is God's extra-ordinary grace.  God's nature is such that he continues to shower His grace without any cause, then this is His two-fold grace!  On having faith in His infinite grace, if one engages in spiritual disciplines, then there will be much blessedness, unique and natural, self-evident divinity and progress.   We do not take shelter of that grace, therefore that grace is less fruitful.  If we yield to that grace, then the grace will bare abundant fruits.  Therefore while offering praises to the Lord,  Brahmaji says - 

Tatte-nukampaam susameekshamaano bhunjaan evaatmakrutam vipaakam |

Hrdvagvapurbhirvirddhannmaste jeevet yo muktipade sa daayabhaak ||  (Srimad Bhagwat  10/14/8) 

He who while enjoying the fruits of his actions,  at every moment continues to look only towards Your grace, and with his heart, speech and body, time and again prostrates to You, he becomes the one eligible to Your Eternal Abode, just like a child becomes the rightful heir to the father's wealth! 

From "Bhagwaan aur Unki Bhakti"  by Swami Ramsukhdasji

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18 Texts 36 to 40 informs us about happiness:

O best of the Bharatas, now please hear from Me about the three kinds of happiness which the conditioned soul enjoys, and by which he sometimes comes to the end of all distress. That which in the beginning may be just like poison but at the end is just like nectar and which awakens one to self-realization is said to be happiness in the mode of goodness.

That happiness which is derived from contact of the senses with their objects and which appears like nectar at first but poison at the end is said to be of the nature of passion.

And that happiness which is blind to self-realization, which is delusion from beginning to end and which arises from sleep, laziness and illusion is said to be of the nature of ignorance.

From the above one can deduce that "as is the state of the mind so is the nature of one's happiness." Thus, seeking happiness from another person (or mind) will fail. Bhagavan tells us about the Dull, the Passionate, and the Good mind.

To the Dull mind, living in an utterly deluded world of make-believe is happiness. He lives in an artificial state of bliss.The constancy because of which a foolish man does not abandon anger, violence, fear, grief, depression, lust, possessiveness, egoism, and also arrogance and conceit, that fortitude, O Partha. is Tamasic
(Dull).

To the rajasic nature of mind, happiness consists of sensations and excitements - at first it is like nectar, but in the end it becomes poison. The fortitude, O Arjuna, by which one holds fast to duty, pleasure and wealth, from attachment and craving for the fruits-of-action, that fortitude, O Partha, is rajasic (Passionate) .

For the Good or sattvic state of mind, the happiness is like poison at first then like nectar at the end. When the happiness is unconscious then it results in a condition of bliss. Bliss is not of the mind, but in the supreme state of unconsciousness the experience of bliss comes. One is detached from that which appears to be poison. The man of sattvic quality is detached in the midst of favorable conditions of life and so in the end he is supremely happy. It is happiness born of detachment and not dependent on another human being.

Seeking happiness from others results in disappointment and unhappiness. Cultivate and nurture the sattvic state of mind that will lead to Eternal Happiness - the happiness that endures, not the one that decays in the process of time or is dependent on the whims and fancies of others..

How can we develop this Sattvic state of mind? One has to return to the original rather than the acquired nature of the mind. We must observe the mind by conducting an inquiry into the processes of the mind that would enable us to see how we have built up an acquired nature due to which we are caught up in the Para-dharna and have lost sight of the Svadharma.

To become aware of the acquired nature is to start the process of being free from it. To discover one's original nature is to be initiated into a new dimension of living, a revolutionary event in the journey of life. By the Grace of Bhagavan, I will have a another post on this topic in the next day or two.