Grace waits only for your consent
Questioner: Acharya Ji, if the decisions that one takes in one’s life is a matter of choice, then what is Grace?
Acharya Prashant: Grace is that which is available free of cost, grace is that which comes to you unconditionally, grace is not something that you receive unconditionally. There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. Grace is the cup in your hand, it’s free of cost, but whether or not you receive it, is a choice. Even grace respects your choice.
Questioner: So, the right action itself is grace?
Acharya Prashant: You decide. Without your consent, even grace would keep waiting, and if your choice has to change, even that has to be your choice. It’s like getting your car repaired; to repair the car, the car has to go to the mechanic. Let’s say you have a problem with decision-making, even to correct this problem, you have to still decide to go to the right man. Even to take care of your problem of decision-making, still you have to make a decision, to go to the one who may help you, with the correction, it’s still a choice.
You see, we talk so much of incidents of grace transforming people, for example, we talk of the Buddha meeting the old man, the sick man, the destitute, when he was going to inaugurate and participate in a youth festival, and we say,”it was just sheer grace that the Buddha encountered such sights”, but tell me, “Was Buddha the only one who saw that old man?” Grace was available to everybody; it was only the Buddha who decided that it’s time to take action.
Was the sick man visible only to the Buddha? Everybody is watching the sick man and passing by. People reject grace, but grace is always available. So, we need not talk about that; what do we have to talk about? Are you accepting it? And that’s your choice, that’s your decision. You are responsible. You are responsible. If you don’t get it, you didn’t ask for it. Nobody else is responsible. Buddha comes to Angulimala, and Angulimala’s life is transformed. The Buddha is coming to a thousand people; are all of them getting transformed?
If you talk of the Buddha’s failures, his failures are innumerable. If five get transformed on meeting the Buddha, there are five hundred who remain totally unchanged. The presence of the Buddha means nothing to them; the Buddha was available to all five hundred and five. How many received him? Just five, can the other five hundred blame the Buddha? Tell me your choice, and there are so many. Spiritual literature is littered with such stories, so many incidents, where small events have transformed people’s lives.
Udalak is giving away cows, but they are old and feeble cows, and Nachiketa asks his father, “Father, to whom would you give me away?” The father is irritated, the father says, “You go to hell”, the father says, “I will give you to Death." Now this is something that a million fathers have said to a million sons, no? Why don’t you just die? Go to hell. Go to hell is just the same as saying go and die. Are all the sons woken up upon hearing these words? Sons don’t mind the old man, he is anyways blabbering all the time. He just said something, the old fool. But Nachiketa is the one who says, “Now that I have been given to death, I better encounter death.” Grace was there, Nachiketa lapped it up. Are you lapping it up?
Catches win matches. The batsman has logged the ball up, but you still have to catch it, are you catching it? Are you catching it? We keep complaining; we blame even God. You are such a miser, you didn’t send down enough grace. I will sue you, you are rationing grace, you don’t love me, and you don’t have enough of it for me. Hello! Will you catch something? Will you catch something?
Questioner: Acharya Ji, can we motivate someone for this quest, or the quest is always a personal thing?
Acharya Prashant: You can show him the mirror. You can let him know how rotten his life is, and then if he wants to improve and if his time has not yet come, then you can’t do much. Don’t push too hard.
When you paint your t-shirts, one of you, at least one of you, must write —Catches win matches. See what you are catching; catching can very soon turn into matchmaking.
Questioner: Acharya Ji, can a person do the right things without talking of spirituality?
Acharya Prashant: Sooner than later, he will come to the scriptures, out of sheer love. He may begin in his own way sooner than later.
Questioner: Do we have to, like, just now you said, “Do not push too hard,” so do we have to look for, is there anything rotten or do we have to look, our actions are going in the right direction, without hurting anyone and nothing to be corrected. What if everything seems correct behaviorally, but the fellow knows nothing of the scriptures?
Acharya Prashant: Chances are that the rightness of the actions is just behavioral; one has internalized social and moral norms of good conduct and is behaving accordingly. The conduct is not really arising from the core, that is more probable. But one cannot say with certainty, one has to look at the case in person. Most of the times, when the behavior is in conformity with accepted principles of non-violence, law-abidance, humility, morality, and wearing a nice smile, most of the times that is just at the behavioral level. Scratch the surface, and something else oozes out. But I don’t want to generalize the whole thing, exceptions are possible.
Questioner: Scriptures are the real thing.
Acharya Prashant: Lovers of God love each other as well; you cannot love God and not love Kabir. If you love truth, you will fall in love with Kabir, sooner than later. The camaraderie, the bonding that is between lovers of God is unmatched. If you love him, and if he loves Him, you too are bound to. That is why the one who loves Kabir is bound to love Ashtavakra as well, and when given exposure, is bound to love the Upanishads as well. And ofcourse he would love Nanak and Meera and Rahim. Lovers of God all, their mutual bonding is also great. But one need not necessarily start from Kabir. One can start even without the scriptures. Later on, at some point, the student would be naturally attracted to the scriptures.
