Grace of God & Guru

I was asked this question yesterday how does the grace come on to a person? Is there any specific requirement for getting that?
The answer is not so easy to understand so just know a few things first.
The method prescribed by the ancient texts are quite a lot. You may follow some paths to reach that lofty place called God-Realization or Self Realization.But then it is not at all an easy one. So you require the grace of God and Guru.
It takes us millions of lives to get there but it can be facilitated by the God and Guru.
The paths prescribed are Karma yoga, Dnyan yoga, Bhakti and many more but then just by reading some books of doing a zillion japas can never get us there. Consider this if by reading the holiest of books could give us Self Realization, then the proof reader or the printer would be. Similarly Ganga is a holy river and anyone who steps into Ganga gets all their sins washed, so the crocodile which lives in Ganga must be the holiest. But that is not so.
This brand of Self Realization is all wrong since you can never get there at all.
The grace of both these special beings are necessary since these are the only things that matter.
The grace does not descend because of any special fulfillment of conditions.
It descends only by the will of God and the special will of Guru.
There are no qualifications for earning that grace.
God and Guru have no yardstick to consider to give you realization with.
It is this free will of theirs which can give us that special grace.
Take the case of Raidas-he was a cobbler, Ramakrishna was a temple priest and Saibaba was a mendicant. Shri Ram was a king, Krishna was a prince too.
Meerabai was a princess, Tukaram was a shopkeeper, Kabir was a weaver.
You maybe a prince or the vilest creature but that grace has no criteria for descending on you.
All the above needed a Guru to reach their destination of Self Realization.
Their Guru must have given His grace and then God must have facilitated it too.
So how does one know that they have the grace of Guru or God?
When you realize that because of these two in your life you have started to learn about the three essential requirements.
These are Detachment, Dispassion and Discrimination.
When the Guru enters your life, He brings about the changes which may appear subtle but later they become so intense that the only thing that interests you is liberation and reaching God. God Realization becomes our One and Only focus. Nothing interests you and everything looks like bondage and useless.
The intensity of this longing grows by leap and bounds and then the grace flows like water and we are on our way.
Those that are born realized come with the grace and those that get realized later in life are given that grace. Those that get by merit are few and that happens rarely or never.The grace of Guru is foremost and Namdev's story proves it.
Namdev thought by having the grace of God he was realized but he had to meet his Guru Visoba Khechar to get his grace, then only he could reach realization.
So when you get the grace of Guru and later the grace of God, know that you are on your way.

Comments

in Pursuit of a quest said…
How do you test a genuine guru? What are the metrics to separate husk from rice, water from milk?
September 11, 2010 at 6:29 AM
Unknown said…
Good question.The true essence of a Guru can only be experienced when He gives you that grace of an experience of what you are seeking. Testing the Guru is a must for all sadhaks. He should not be seeking money or other benefits. He does not have any ulterior motives of building ashrams or hospitals,etc.He does not create ash or some such hocuspocus. Compare Him to Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Saibaba(shirdi-btw he never produced ash from air) or Kabir or Meerabai. Does he stand the test? They never built anything and neither did they have a billion students.They taught one on one and never charged for it.They never advised body contortion exercises or some such thing. So I guess you have to test Him to the best of YOUR ability. And God bless you in your quest.
September 14, 2010 at 4:33 AM
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