"Leave God's job to God. You are to do what is in your hands. When the time is ripe, God's grace which is always operating, would be felt by you also. Grace would work automatically."
Bhagavan advised that three things should be kept in mind --
i) individual effort,
ii) the appropriate time,
iii) God's grace
He graciously observed:
"Keep at your practice. There is no need to remind God about his business, which is to keep an eye always on our welfare. The mistake one is prone to make is to abandon effort under the mistaken impression that God's grace is absent. But one should not slacken, for God's grace is bound to operate at the ripe time."
-- Sishtla Subba Rao on Bhagavan. UY p121.
http://end-to-suffering.blogspot.com...god-grace.html
The conversation turned upon the question as to whether Iswara
Prasad (Divine Grace) is necessary for the attaining of
samrajya (universal dominion) or whether a
jiva's honest and strenuous efforts to attain it cannot of themselves lead him to That from whence is no return to life and death.
The Maharshi with an ineffable smile which lit up His Holy Face and which was all-pervasive, shining upon the coterie around him, replied in tones of certainty and with the ring of truth; "Divine Grace is essential for Realisation. It leads one to God-realisation. But such Grace is vouchsafed only to him who is a true devotee or a yogin, who has striven hard and ceaselessly on the path towards freedom."
D.: It is said that Divine Grace is necessary to attain successful undistracted mind (samadhi). Is that so?
Maharshi: We are God (Iswara). Iswara Drishti (i.e., seeing ourselves as God)
is itself Divine Grace. So we need Divine Grace to get God's Grace. Maharshi smiles and all devotees laugh together.
D.: There is also Divine Favour (Iswara anugraham) as distinct from Divine Grace (Iswara prasadam). Is that so?
Maharshi: The thought of God is Divine Favour! He is by nature Grace (prasad or arul). It is by God's Grace that you think of God.
D.: Is not the Master's Grace the result of God's Grace?
Maharshi: Why distinguish between the two? The Master is the same as God and not different from him.
http://talks-with-ramana-maharshi.bl...4/talk-29.html
A person begins with dissatisfaction. Not content with the world he seeks satisfaction of desires by prayers to God; his mind is purified; he longs to know God more than to satisfy his carnal desires. Then God's Grace begins to manifest. God takes the form of a Guru and appears to the devotee; teaches him the Truth; purifies the mind by his teachings and contact; the mind gains strength, is able to turn inward; with meditation it is purified yet further, and eventually remains still without the least ripple. That stillness is the Self. The Guru is both exterior and interior. From the exterior he gives a push to the mind to turn inward; from the interior he pulls the mind towards the Self and helps the mind to achieve quietness. That is Grace.Hence there is no difference between God, Guru and Self.
(Source:
Talks with Ramana Maharshi, vol. 1 published by Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, Tamilnadu.
Question: How is a Guru found?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: God, who is immanent, in His grace takes pity on the loving devotee and manifests himself according to the devotee's development. The devotee thinks that he is a man and expects a relationship between two physical bodies. But the Guru, who is a God or the Self incarnate works from within, helps the man to see the error of his ways and guides him on the right path until he realises the Self within.
Question: What is the significance of Guru's grace in the attainment of liberation?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Liberation is not anywhere outside you. It is only within. If a man is anxious for deliverance, the internal Guru pulls him in and the external Guru pushes him into the Self. This is the grace of the Guru.
A spiritually minded man thinks that God is all pervading and takes God for his Guru. Later, God brings him in contact with a personal Guru and the man recognises him as all in all. Lastly the same man is made by the grace of the master to feel that his Self is the reality and nothing else. Thus he finds that the Self is the master.
http://www.kundalinisupport.com/guru.htm
God's grace is the beginning, the middle, and the end. When you pray for God's grace, you are like someone standing neck-deep in water and yet crying for water. It is like saying that someone neck-deep in water feels thirsty, or that a fish in water feels thirsty, or that water feels thirsty.
http://web.ionsys.com/~remedy/MAHARS...i%20Ramana.htm
Take the case of bhakti. I approach Isvara and pray to be absorbed in Him. I then surrender myself in faith and by concentration. What remains afterwards? In the place of the original 'I' perfect self-surrender leaves a residium of God in which the 'I' is lost. This is the highest form of parabhakti (supreme bhakti), prapti (surrender) or the height of vairagya.
http://www.murugan.org/bhaktas/maharshi.htm
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