Grace and Self-Effort
Dear friends,
There has always been an interesting dynamic between the thought of grace and our responsibility for bettering ourselves. Ramakrishna said, "The winds of grace are always blowing, but it is up to us to raise our sails." What a beautiful image and clear exposition. But it may be useful to unpackage it a little bit more. What is "raising our sails" comprised of?
The major root desire for everyone is to find joy and avoid pain. This is in fact true for all living things, not just humans. We get caught because we misidentify what it is that will actually bring us joy. "I just know that fifth piece of chocolate cake will do it!" Hmmm...
Cooperating with grace is first setting aside our own small vision of reality and fully and deeply accepting that God is smarter than we are! You may smile a bit at that phrase because it is so obvious, but deep in our hearts we clearly do not quite fully believe it, nor do we act as though it were always true.
It’s as if we were walking in the woods with a friend who has fabulous eyesight. If he suddenly shouts, "Oh my!” and runs away, we should run! We do not need to see what he sees. We do not need to know why he is running (maybe we can ask him later). We only need to know that his eyesight is better than ours, and that we trust his judgment when he turns and flees.
That is the large majority of the "up to us" part. Setting aside our own preferences, desires, fears, and regrets. These are the things that prevent us from cooperating with Spirit, so with those forces lowering our sails, we too often find ourselves adrift.
Grace can be thought of as a seed that drops to us. Our soil may be well-prepared, or the seed can fall on barren rock. May we each tend our plot to make the best of that seed, and even to attract the Divine Farmer so that he is encouraged to drop the seed should it seem right for us.
Blessings,
David G., manager
For the staff at East West