There are any number of intelligent and capable people around, but they get stuck at every corner because they operate without lubrication — without Grace.
Many truly scintillating human beings have happened in our history, shining brighter than the stars in the sky. Why are a few human beings of this capability, and why do so many other aimless millions just come and go without a trace? People always say, “He is gifted.” No one is gifted. There is really no gift about anything. You have to earn everything. Either you earn joyfully or you earn miserably. That is the choice.
If you look at yourself as a machine, you have brains, you have body, you have everything, but what you call Grace is the lubrication. Without lubrication, you have a great engine but you get stuck at every point. There are a number of people like this on the planet — they are intelligent and capable but at every corner in their life they get stuck because there is no lubrication, there is no Grace.
What is Grace? In this existence, energy is functioning in many different ways. It is functioning as sunlight, as breeze, as gravity. Similarly, it is also functioning as Grace. Gravity is trying to pull you down, the breeze is trying to blow you off, the sun is trying to burn you up. Grace is trying to pluck you off from the planet. I am using negative terminology purposely so you do not get attached to it. It could also be said, “The Earth is trying to hug you, the breeze is trying to cool you, the sun is trying to warm you. Grace is trying to make you grow.”
In many ways, people may become momentarily available to Grace, and that is when they experience miraculous situations in their lives. In some way, they were not so identified with their physicality, and they became available to Grace. Grace is not something that you practise; it is something that you arrive at. Grace is something that you allow — you allow it to descend upon you. All sadhana in the world, whether it is puja, asana, or kriya, is done only to make you less physical so that you become more available to Grace. Ultimately, the real work is done only by Grace. Your business is to make yourself less and less physical and more available. Grace will do the rest.
To become receptive to Grace so that the process of life becomes graceful, the simplest and easiest way, and also the most self-destructive way, is devotion. But the mind is very cunning. It cannot devote itself to anyone or anything. You can sing songs of devotion, but you have your own calculation, “What will God do for me?” Calculating minds cannot be devout. Trying to be devout will just be a waste of time and life.
If one knows the joy of devotion, devotion is truly for the intelligent, not for the stupid because without devotion there is no profundity to your life. Nothing is worthwhile if you analyse it with your thought. The whole existence, nobody in the world, and you yourself are not worth anything if you just cut it down with the knife of your intellect. Only when devotion arises, depth comes into one’s life.
When I say devotion, I am not talking about belief systems. It does not mean going to the temple and chanting Rama, Rama. Belief is just like morality. People who believe think they are superior to others. The moment you believe something, you don’t get any better. It is just that your stupidity gets confident. Confidence and stupidity are a very dangerous combination. Intelligence and hesitation are natural. The more intelligent you are, the more hesitant you become in many ways because if you start looking at all the dimensions around you, you clearly understand that what you know is so minuscule. There is no way to act in confidence. A belief system takes away this problem. It gives you enormous confidence but it does not cure your stupidity.
I am not talking about belief; I am talking about moving into trust. The question arises, “How can I trust?” That you are sitting comfortably wherever you are, that is trust. Because there have been incidents where the earth opened up and swallowed people. There have been situations where the very air people breathed turned against them.
Create The Creator
The earth is spinning and travelling at a tremendous speed and the whole solar system and galaxy are travelling, we don’t know at what speed. Suppose Mother Earth decides to suddenly start spinning in the opposite direction, you might fly off her surface. For you to sit, smile, listen and talk to someone, you need trust — enormous trust, isn’t it? But you are doing it unconsciously and un-lovingly. Just learn to do this trust consciously and lovingly. Once you learn to sit here, consciously and lovingly, trusting the existence the way it is, that is devotion. A devotee is not someone’s devotee. Devotion is a quality. Devotion means a certain single-pointedness — you are constantly focused towards one thing. Once a person becomes in such a way that his thought, emotion, and everything about him is focused in one direction, Grace will naturally happen to him. He becomes receptive. What you are devoted to or whom you are devoted to is not the issue. “No, I want to be a devotee, but I have a doubt whether God exists or not.” These are all the predicaments of a thinking mind. It is not because there is God, devotion has come. Because there is devotion, God has happened. The power of devotion is such that it can create the Creator. The depth of what we refer to as devotion is such that even if God is not existent, it can bring it into existence.
Just knowing devotion as an emotional experience is one thing. Knowing devotion as an overpowering dimension of life is a different thing. Knowing devotion just as an emotion maybe makes your life a little sweet, but devotion is not intended to make your life sweet. Devotion means dissolution. Devotion is intended to completely demolish the way you are. Devotion is that which is devoid of you; you simply allow Grace of existence to flow through you.
If you walk with devotion, slowly, you will fall into the Lap of Grace.
~ Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
