God’s Grace, Karma, Self-Effort
God helps those who help
themselves. God’s grace will descend only on those persons who exert. The
Lord’s grace will descend in proportion to the degree of surrender. The more
the surrender, the more the grace. You cannot expect the Lord to do
self-surrender for you. Be up and doing. Strive. Plod. Persevere. The Lord will
shower His grace upon you.
Do Japa. Do selfless service.
Pray to God from the bottom of your heart (Antarika). Have Satsang. Meditate.
Read the Gita and the Upanishads. Live alone. Live in seclusion for six months.
Take Sattvic food. Give up meat, fish, eggs, liquors, chillies, oil, black
sugar, onions and garlic.
Karma is likened to the wheel.
It has to work out; because the force that set it in motion has to be spent. It
is a cycle of action and reaction. Just as the arrow once discharged from the
bow cannot be withdrawn, even if the hunter feels that he has aimed at a wrong
target, Prarabdha Karma, the fruit of those Karmas performed in previous births
that have come up for experience in this present birth, cannot be annulled.
How then does God help His
devotee? The all-merciful God does help His devotee by strengthening his
will-power, his power of endurance, to bear the Karma-Phala with a cheerful countenance.
The devotee is certainly not left to the mercy of his Purva Karma; he is
beautifully clothed in the protective shield of His grace. Just as in the worst
winter and violent storm, you remain unaffected in your own house and in your
warm clothing, the devotee (though to the onlookers he is poor, sick or
suffering) does not feel that he is suffering at all and is ever happy and
blissful in His remembrance.
Karma does not compel a man to
do wrong actions. Samskara does, to a certain extent. But God has bestowed free
will on man, with which to make or mar his career. Man has no Bhoga-Svatantrata
or the freedom to enjoy or suffer, which factor is governed by Karma. But, he
has got Karma-Svatantrata or freedom to do good or evil. He can substitute good
Samskaras in place of the old vicious Samskaras by Vichara-sakti, will-power
and continued practice of good actions.
That, evil seems to give
immediate happiness is the greatest temptation and the greatest obstacle to the
cultivation of virtues; and it can be removed only by discrimination and
experience. Contemplation over the ultimate and permanent damage done to the
very soul of man by the evil actions, and the harm he is causing to the entire
society itself by his evil, ought to compel a man to desist from evil action—
however pleasant it might appear superficially. Constant association with the
wise and spiritually evolved persons alone can remove these wrong notions from
the mind of the wicked one.
There must be Purushartha
also. Only when you do Purushartha, the grace will come. A professor will not
answer the questions for you and make you pass. The Gita says, "Uddharet
Atmanatmanam". One should raise oneself. Grace only helps one to raise
oneself. Everybody should work out his own salvation. You may ask, "What
is grace then?". If good books are available for Svadhyaya (study), it is
grace. If one enjoys good health for doing Sadhana, that is grace. If God so
wishes, He can give Mukti to the whole world in an instant; but He does not do so.
Grace descends only when there is Purushartha.
How will you get God’s grace?
When you discipline yourself. How will you know how to discipline? By observing
others that had walked the path successfully to the goal of perfection. These
men who had walked to the goal are known as Gurus. So you need their help,
their personal example, their encouragement and their grace. Thus, we have come
round to the answer that a Guru is necessary as well as his grace. Everything
is necessary— Atma Kripa, Guru Kripa and Isvara Kripa.
Feel, as you do your daily
duties, that you are only a witness of all that goes on around you, of even
your own actions. This is called Sakshi Bhav. You should inwardly realize that
you are different from the active principle in you. This is the method of Vedanta.
There is the other— easier,
but equally potent method of Nimitta Bhav. Feel that the Lord alone is the real
doer of all actions and that you are an instrument in His hands. Your actions
will be transformed into worship of the Lord, and you will not be bound to
them. Work without expectation of any reward and without egoism. Root out the
idea of agency; feel, "I am not the doer". You will be freed from the
shackles of Karma. You will not accumulate new Karma. Allow your Prarabdha
Karma to work out; and you will attain liberation.
The law of Karma is
inexorable. Every one reaps the fruits of his previous births. A good man only
will suffer a lot, because he is hurrying up in the spiritual march. Many of
his evil Karmas have to be worked out and purged out quickly to hasten his
salvation in this very birth. But, God gives him extraordinary power of
endurance through His grace. An aspirant or a good man gets many difficulties
and sufferings. But he rejoices even in sufferings and destitution on account
of the descent of the Lord’s grace. He voluntarily welcomes these sufferings.
The only best thing in this world is pain or suffering, because it is the
eye-opener towards God.
The notion that Isvara ordains
things only sometimes and not always and that He would be too busy if He
ordains things all the time is a puerile one. Isvara can look to everything at
one stroke of His Being. There is no such thing as His ‘being too busy’, for He
is not like man, using his senses for the purpose of acting. Isvara does not
act with a changing mind as man does, for Isvara’s action is inseparable from
an undivided, ever-vigilant, all-powerful, all-pervading Consciousness which
neither sleeps nor takes rest. Isvara is essentially this sovereign
Consciousness itself. The whole universe is determined by Isvara’s creative
Will. But this is no determinism in the sense of a denial of free will to man.
Man has a comparatively clear consciousness of himself and of others related to
him outside, and he is possessed of the power of discrimination and willing.
Isvara is the basis of cosmic activity as well as individual action, and yet,
He is not involved in the actions of the individual. To Isvara, everything is
determined. The past, the present and the future are all Isvara’s Being alone.
But from the individual’s own limited standpoint, there is, in spite of the
fact of a changeless universal law, a sort of apparent freedom of action
imposed upon himself by his own individuality. Though the individual’s freedom
of thought and action is not the final truth about it, it assumes a relative
importance and begins to affect the individual with its reactions, as a result
of the individual’s notion of the reality of a limited personality and its
thoughts and actions. On account of this self-created bondage the Jiva suffers
and this suffering comes to an end the moment the Jiva realizes its identity
with Isvara in consciousness, in activity and in its very existence itself.
Man becomes free only when his
individual will becomes merged in the Divine Will. By becoming a tool (Nimitta)
in the hands of God, the Bhakta destroys the egoism or the little false ‘I’,
but gains all the Divine Aisvarya or the Siddhis of the Lord. He becomes
perfectly free. He has become one with God now.
Excerpts from:
God’s Grace, Karma, Self-Effort
- May I Answer
That by Sri Swami
Sivananda
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