Grace Happens

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

 

On the road today, I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Grace

Happens." And my immediate conditioned response was, what

can I "do" to manifest Grace more abundantly in my life. Ah...

modern spirituality. Think and grow rich through Grace. What the

bumper sticker should have said is, Grace Just Happens.

Undeservedness is the whole point. Grace can't be earned or

caused in any way. It comes of its own volition. It's the current

that knows the way. Grace is definitely in alignment with

non-duality.

 

Cause and effect, on the other hand, is duality in motion. Yet it

seems such a fundamental spiritual law that it's hard to even

contemplate that cause and effect could actually be a "belief. It

feels like a fact. Like unchangeable reality. But if reality is here

and now, is all one, then, as Nisargadatta Maharaj said, the law

of cause and effect is a way of thinking.

 

Cause and effect is the carrot that the ego dangles in front of the

mind to keep the mind spinning in its endless circles of thought.

My ego tells me that if I think about my desires, then something

will come of them, because thought is causative. And, as a

consequence, I have the fear that if I let go of my thoughts (my

mind), nothing will ever happen again in my life. Yep, the ego

definitely likes playing the cause and effect card. That idea is so

powerful, in fact, that I imagine successfully changing my

identification from mind to Self will merely change the causative

factor from ego to Self.

 

But if the idea of cause and effect is just a thought, then how

does life unfold?

 

Spontaneously.

Mysteriously.

 

Life is.

Love is.

Grace is.

Joy is.

Truth is.

 

Non-duality says that every moment is fresh and new, without a

past. Causeless. And without a future, this moment will produce

no effect. That's it. Without past and future, there can be no

cause and effect. Therefore, let go of the mind and there is no

cause and effect. It's simply a way of thinking, a way of looking at

the world and categorizing it.

 

Let go of the mind and all is Grace. Oops! That sounds a lot like

cause and effect to me. The only way I can see to get out of this

box is to recognize that the mind is, and has always been, an

illusion. So, in reality, Grace is all there is, was or will be.

Maybe

that bumper sticker should have read, Only Grace Happens.

 

Namaste,

Julie