Can you tell me what Grace is?

[Xan]

...I’m struggling to understand it.


Very simply, Grace is your essence, your true nature. Grace is what you really are, and Grace is all there is. Specifically and practically speaking, Grace is the intelligent, optimizing movement of life.

This optimizing force is what unfolds every moment in the direction of greater truth and love and greater functioning and fullness of life. Grace is the nourishing Presence that holds us and supports us in the unfolding of our life. You have experienced Grace directly many times, when things just fell into place or you were touched by a deeper understanding and awareness.

While Grace is obvious in moments when the seemingly miraculous occurs or when a profound opening into the depths of Being happens, Grace also knows when a difficulty or obstacle has the potential to lead to a greater depth of awareness and a fuller expression of our limitless potential. This means that Grace can show up as a flat tire on the way to work or a broken heart or any of the minor and major difficulties we face in everyday life.

In understanding and appreciating Grace, the challenge and the opportunity is to see that Grace is always here and always bringing us the exact experience that is most useful and helpful.

Sometimes only in hindsight can we see the Grace in our struggles and suffering, but Grace is always here. Recognizing the Grace in our challenges often allows a challenge to be resolved more naturally and effortlessly, or at least allows us to be at peace with it. The healing of our suffering comes when we see the bigger truth that even suffering is a part of the unfolding of Grace.

When you see that there is Grace even in your own problems, then it no longer matters if some difficulty occurs as the situation is no longer as much of an experience of suffering, but just what is happening.

Understanding Grace doesn’t require an intellectual grasp of what it is or even insight into how it works. Understanding Grace only requires that you be open and curious about your experience just as it is right now.

Are you willing to see Grace as she is appearing right now this very moment? Can you recognize her even if she is artfully disguised as pain or discomfort? Can you open your Heart to the gift she is offering you today?

The understanding doesn’t come as some final insight or as an answer to all your questions. The understanding comes as a felt sense of trust that life is safe and good and worthwhile. The understanding comes as the unfolding of life moment to moment. This is the miracle of Grace, touching you in every moment and always as close as your own breath.

Because you will never be done discovering all the infinite ways that life and Grace can unfold and express itself, the complete understanding of Grace will take forever. What an adventure and blessing it is to be shown the many dimensions and possibilities of your true nature as intelligent, loving, infinite Grace.


- Nirmala in "Meeting the Mystery"


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Am not sure I share this same meaning of grace being our true nature. My experience of grace is that it is a feeling that comes over you when you are in touch with beauty, e.g. when you are in love, the way you carry yourself, do things - has more care, more flair, more awareness. For instance, a simple thing like placing a glass on a table can be just plonked down, or gently lowered like you had all the time in the world, like you are in harmony with love that affects everything you do.

Nice Xan.

When we "understand"...... we "stand under" grace.

When you have seen grace as part of the unfolding of suffering.....in receiving this essence......you realize that it was always their waiting.

[Xan]

amy... As I see it, grace is here all the time. We just feel it more in some moments than others.


Xan

to me grace is beyond unconditional love.

[psychoslice]

Grace is your true SELF, its when it is nudging you, and you begin to take notice, when you are not under grace, your not taking notice of the nudging, your too dualistic to notice. Well that's my version anyways.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Gracey

to me grace is beyond unconditional love.

Beyond unconditional love?

Could you expound a bit on that theme?

Unconditional love seems to be the epitome of ...of....well, something - but
you say it is beyond - I will anxiously await this - it should be like poetry.

Originally Posted by Gracey

to me grace is beyond unconditional love.

Yes I sense that too...not sure why...but I do.

[Xan]

That depends on what you mean by unconditional love.

Is it something you think people sometimes feel but rarely, or could it that love without conditions of any kind... love itself = Grace?


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