Compilation · Spiritual
Grace: Compilation
Passages from the works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother on grace, each with its source.
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On this page
- Flower that Signifies Grace
- What is Divine Grace?
- A Divine and Mysterious Power
- Decoding Divine Grace
- Experience of the Divine Grace
- Why Divine Grace Matters?
- Grace Saves
- Grace and Justice
- Grace and Karma
- Grace and Love
- How to Receive Divine Grace?
- By Being Aware of the Workings of the Divine Grace
- By Invoking
- By Aspiration
- By Opening
- By Faith and Trust
- By Shedding the Ego
- By Not Insisting on the Grace
- By Being Grateful
- How to Walk the Path of Sadhana?
- By Reliance on the Divine Grace
- By Progress
- By Surrender
- By Peace
- How Not to Distance from the Divine Grace
- By Overcoming Obstacles
- Living in Grace
- Guru’s Grace
- Krishna’s Grace
- Mother’s Grace
- More On Grace
- Sanskrit words for “Grace”
- Stories on Grace
- Sources
There is a Power that no ruler can command; there is a Happiness that no earthly success can bring; there is a Light that no wisdom can possess; there is a Knowledge that no philosophy and no science can master; there is a Bliss of which no satisfaction of desire can give the enjoyment; there is a thirst for Love that no human relation can appease; there is a Peace that one finds nowhere here, not even in death.
It is the Power, the Happiness, the Light, the Knowledge, the Bliss, the Love, the Peace that flow from the Divine Grace.1
Flower that Signifies Grace
The Divine Grace
Hibiscus mutabilis Cotton rose, Confederate rose mallow
Thy goodness is infinite, we bow before Thee in gratitude.
[According to the Mother, each variety of flower has its own special quality and meaning. By establishing an inner contact with the flower, this meaning can be known.
Flowers speak to us when we know how to listen to them, the Mother said. It is a subtle and fragrant language. As if to provide a key to this language, she identified the significances of almost nine hundred flower.]
What is Divine Grace?
A Divine and Mysterious Power
If you would know what is the Divine Grace, it is necessary first to realise that it is something which contradicts the law of the world, for it is outside its normal rule and not of its nature. There is here something which does not seem to govern at all the cosmic action, but only to intervene, and yet it is always there; an element without which this universe would be either a tremendous machine or a fortuitously and yet inexorably ordered chance… …there is probably something else beyond the intellect which alone can give him[man] the Light—something beyond his mind and greater than himself—a Grace that intervenes, the law of a supernormal Light and Will, a help, an opening from above.2
…but this divine grace, if we may so call it, is not simply a mysterious flow or touch coming from above, but the all-pervading act of a divine presence which we come to know within as the power of the highest Self and Master of our being entering into the soul and so possessing it that we not only feel it close to us and pressing upon our mortal nature, but live in its law, know that law, possess it as the whole power of our spiritualised nature.
I have said also that the Grace can at any moment act suddenly, but over that one has no control, because it comes by an incalculable Will which sees things that the mind cannot see. It is precisely the reason why one should never despair,—that and also because no sincere aspiration to the Divine can fail in the end.
A state of Grace is prepared in the individual often behind thick veils by means not calculable by the mind and when the state of Grace comes then the Grace itself acts.
It [Divine Grace] is an action from above or from within independent of mental causes which decides its own movement. We can call it the Divine Grace; we can call it the Self within choosing its own hour and way to manifest to the mental instrument on the surface; we can call it the flowering of the inner being or inner nature into self-realisation and self-knowledge.
The Divine Grace is something not calculable, not bound by anything the intellect can fix as a condition—though ordinarily some call, aspiration, intensity of the psychic being can awaken it, yet it acts sometimes without any apparent cause even of that kind.
The Divine Grace cannot be explained through words and mental formulas.
…no matter how great your faith and trust in the divine Grace, no matter how great your capacity to see it at work in all circumstances, at every moment, at every point in life, you will never succeed in understanding the marvellous immensity of Its Action, and the precision, the exactitude with which this Action is accomplished; you will never be able to grasp to what extent the Grace does everything, is behind everything, organises everything, conducts everything, so that the march forward to the divine realisation may be as swift, as complete, as total and harmonious as possible, considering the circumstances of the world.
Grace is not an invention, it is a fact of spiritual experience. Many who would be considered as mere nothings by the wise and strong have attained by Grace; illiterate, without mental power or training, without “strength” of character or will, they have yet aspired and suddenly or rapidly grown into spiritual realisation, because they had faith or because they were sincere… Strength, if it is spiritual, is a power for spiritual realisation; a greater power is sincerity; the greatest power of all is Grace. I have said times without number that if a man is sincere, he will go through in spite of long delay and overwhelming difficulties. I have repeatedly spoken of the Divine Grace. I have referred any number of times to the line of the Gita:
Ahaṁ tvā sarvapāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ
“I will deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve.”
In the whole manifestation there is an infinite Grace constantly at work to bring the world out of the misery, the obscurity and the stupidity in which it lies. From all time this Grace has been at work, unremitting in its effort, and how many thousands of years were necessary for this world to awaken to the need for something greater, more true, more beautiful.
I should like to say something about the Divine Grace—for you seem to think it should be something like a Divine Reason acting upon lines not very different from those of human intelligence. But it is not that. Also it is not a universal Divine Compassion either, acting impartially on all who approach it and acceding to all prayers. It does not select the righteous and reject the sinner.
Q.Sri Aurobindo speaks of the influence of the Divine Compassion and the Divine Grace. But what is the difference between the two?
A:The compassion seeks to relieve the suffering of all, whether they deserve it or not.
The Grace does not recognise the right of suffering to exist and abolishes it.3
Decoding Divine Grace
There are these three powers: (1) The Cosmic Law, of Karma or what else; (2) the Divine Compassion acting on as many as it can reach through the nets of the Law and giving them their chance; (3) the Divine Grace which acts more incalculably but also more irresistibly than the others.4
The Divine Grace is there, ready to act at every moment, but it manifests as one grows out of the Law of the Ignorance into the Law of Light and it is meant, not as an arbitrary caprice, however miraculous often its intervention, but as a help in that growth and a Light that leads and eventually delivers.
It is a power that is superior to any rule, even to the Cosmic Law—for all spiritual seers have distinguished between the Law and Grace. Yet it is not indiscriminate—only it has a discrimination of its own which sees things and persons and the right times and seasons with another vision than that of the Mind or any other normal Power. A state of Grace is prepared in the individual often behind thick veils by means not calculable by the mind and when the state of Grace comes then the Grace itself acts.5
Experience of the Divine Grace
Of course in many cases there is a true experience first, a touch of the Grace, but it is not something that lasts and is always there, but rather something that touches and withdraws and waits for the nature to get ready. But this is not so in every case, not even in many cases, I believe. One has to begin with the soul’s inherent longing, then the struggle with the nature to get the temple ready, then the unveiling of the Image, the permanent Presence in the sanctuary.6