'Divine Grace' (Contd.)

   As of now, it seems that there is no way of getting the divine grace, daiva anugraha. In fact, how can get what he/she has already got right at birth, as a gift of the Lord!This grace of God is not even felt by us since we are actually enjoying it! Our birth itself is the 'divine grace'; but for His grace where is our life, existence? Do we ever know that the life we enjoy is His grace! The food we enjoy, the drinks, the varieties of entertainment that we enjoy are all His grace! Everything that we find here is His grace and nothing else but His grace! The very fact that we curse God when our plans fail, when we do not get what we want, or for every failure itself proves that He is there behind our success and failures, attainments and disappointments, our happiness, joy or misery. These experiences in life make us turn to God in adversaries, difficult times, seek His help. It is also true that all successes, achievements, attainments, worldly acquisitions, etc. also make us look to Him with awe and wonder! Both ways, we find the presence of god. There may be a few fools who do not understand these and deny His existence. Bhagavan Shree Krishna calls them 'mudha', fools! He says, "these fools do not know Me!" The Hindu belief system gives highest priority to the supreme power that creates, sustains, and develops and merges the universe and holds Him in high esteem. The great sages go to the extent of conducting 'yajnya' with sacrificial offerings. The Veda suktas abound in these! With all these, there is no end to sufferings of the jivas, the mortals. The jiva asks why, why? The answer is simply the avidya, ignorance, undue indulgences in attachment, and definitely not the absence of 'divine grace'! It is the  ego, the sense of- I, me , mine, the body, and the mind that suffer, not the soul, Atman! Everything that is me and mine are not the real 'I'; it is the ego, emotional attachment to the body, feeling of loss of possession (that is not actually there?), that makes the jiva suffer.

   There are scriptures that explain the cause of misery and offer solutions to mitigate them, if not totally get rid of them. The fundamental principles that govern our life have already been explained in the earlier blogs. Time, Space, and Causality (Cause and Effect) are the limitation imposed by prakruti on the jiva. There is no way to escape the maya, the limitations imposed on the jiva. This calls for yoga, by means of which one can transcend the limitations and enjoy the bliss, the divine grace. The task of spiritual pursuit begins here. The Gita explains the various steps toward attainment of divine grace. The journey ends with the attainment of Atma-jnyan. The Blessed Lord smiles on the ardent seeker! The jiva has transcended the maya by the grace of the Lord. Hence, divine grace is the beginning and end of jiva's journey on this living planet, earth. The jiva finds liberation from the shackles of repeated births and deaths. The jiva transcends from its mundane existence to a divine existence!