Nothing can be more positive than the Gita's statement in this matter. "And by doing also all actions always lodged in Me he attains by my grace the eternal and imperishable status." This liberating action is of the character of works done in a profound union of the will and all the dynamic parts of our nature with the Divine in ourself and the cosmos. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/19/towards-the-supreme-secret#p12</ref>
=How Not to Distance from the Divine Grace=
But it is not the Grace that recedes, it is he himself who pushes It away, that is, he has put a distance between himself and the Grace. In fact, even "pushing away" doesn't give the correct picture... In one case, you see, he has taken this particular attitude, but the phenomenon is the same; that is, there is a kind of psychological distance created between the Grace and the individual. And due to this psychological distance the individual cannot receive the Grace and feels that It is not there. But It is there, in fact; only, as he has established this distance between the two, he doesn't feel It any longer. This is the real phenomenon. It isn't that the Grace goes away, it isn't even that he has the power to push It away, for if It doesn't want to go, no matter how much he tries, It won't go. But he makes himself incapable of feeling It and receiving its effect. He creates a psychological barrier between himself and the Grace. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/7-july-1954#p96</ref>
Our senses can discover no visible presence of the Divine, our intellect can do without any idea of its intervention—but it is another experience than that of the intellect and the senses which once it is there will no longer let us escape from the Presence or refuse to see the intervening Will or Grace. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p2</ref>
Strictly speaking, the Grace does not withdraw; people make it impossible for themselves to receive it. But you have only to take the right attitude and keep it, so that the Grace can once more do its saving work. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/17-july-1936#p2</ref>
Here, for each work given, the full strength and Grace are always given at the same time to do the work as it has to be done. If you do not feel the strength and the Grace it proves that there is some mistake in your attitude. The faith is lacking or you have fallen back on old tracks and old creeds and thus you lose all receptivity. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/1-october-1952#p1</ref>
==By Overcoming Obstacles==
Vital difficulties are the common lot of every human being and of every sadhak—they are to be met with a quiet determination and confidence in the Divine’s Grace. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-difficulties-of-yoga#p13</ref>
The Divine Grace and Power can do everything, but with the full assent of the sadhak. To learn to give that full assent is the whole meaning of the sadhana. It may take time either because of ideas in the mind, desires in the vital or inertia in the physical consciousness, but these things have to be and can be removed with the aid or by calling in the action of the Divine Force. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p11</ref>
There is no reason why suffering should be indispensable for making progress. You bring the suffering on yourself by the wrong ideas of the mind and by the revolts of the vital. The Mother's grace and love are there, but the mind refuses to recognise it. If there is confidence, if the mind and vital consent to surrender and have full faith and reliance, then there may be difficulties but there is no suffering. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/resistances-sufferings-and-falls#p15</ref>
Face all these [''inner disturbances''] things quietly and firmly with perseverance in the endeavour of the sadhana. Trust firmly in the Divine Grace and the Divine Grace will not fail you. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p23</ref>
You must realise that these moods are attacks which should be rejected at once—for they repose on nothing but suggestions of self-distrust and incapacity which have no meaning, since it is by the Grace of the Divine and the aid of a Force greater than your own, not by personal capacity and worth that you can attain the goal of the sadhana. You have to remember that and dissociate yourself from these suggestions when they come, never accept or yield to them. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-call-and-the-capacity#p23</ref>
All the circumstances of life are arranged to teach us that, beyond mind, faith in the Divine Grace gives us the strength to go through all trials, to overcome all weaknesses and find the contact with the Divine Consciousness which gives us not only peace and joy but also physical balance and good health.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-382#p2</ref> [Based on Aphorism 382—For nearly forty years behind the wholly good I was weakly in constitution; I suffered constantly from the smaller and the greater ailments and mistook this curse for a burden that Nature had laid upon me. When I renounced the aid of medicines, then they began to depart from me like disappointed parasites. Then only I understood what a mighty force was the natural health within me and how much mightier yet the Will and Faith exceeding mind which God meant to be the divine support of our life in this body.]
''In the present growing conflict what should be our attitude?''
Faith and total confidence in the Divine's Grace. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/faith-in-the-divine-grace-and-help#p35-p36</ref>
The grace and protection are always with you. When in any inner or outer difficulty or trouble do not allow it to oppress you; take refuge with the Divine Force that protects.
If you do that always with faith and sincerity, you will find something opening in you which will always remain calm and peaceful in spite of all superficial disturbances. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/vigilance-resolution-will-and-the-divine-help#p71-p72</ref>
You answer to all the contrary forces, the contrary movements, the attacks, the misunderstandings, the bad wills, with the same smile that comes from full confidence in the Divine Grace. And that is the ''only'' way out, there is no other. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/11-may-1967#p3</ref>
...it is this attitude; if you can tell yourself, "Good, perhaps the divine Grace deserves our confidence", simply this, nothing else, you will avoid many difficulties, many. In fact this avoids many difficulties even in ordinary life, and many worries. And particularly here, if you can do that, well, you will see things which seemed formidably difficult dissolving suddenly like clouds.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-december-1954#p41</ref>
When, in your life, you meet with a hardship, take it as a Grace from the Lord and, indeed, it will become so. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-divine-grace-and-difficulties#p3</ref>
...the lack of faith of the human mind brings complications and pain where with a quiet faith in the Divine Guidance all could be very simple and easy. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/faith-in-the-divine-grace-and-help#p11</ref>
Do not allow any discouragement to come upon you and have no distrust of the Divine Grace. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/faith#p54</ref>
With trust in the Divine's Grace all obstacles can be surmounted. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/trust-in-the-divine-grace-and-help#p10</ref>
The only question is whether there is something behind all the anomalies of life which can respond to the call and open itself with whatever difficulty till it is ready for the illumination of the Divine Grace—and that something must be not a mental and vital movement but an inner somewhat which can well be seen by the inner eye. If it is there and when it becomes active in front, then the Compassion can act, though the full action of the Grace may still wait attending the decisive decision or change; for this may be postponed to a future hour, because some portion or element of the being may still come between, something that is not yet ready to receive. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p4</ref>
===Illness===
If men had an absolute faith in the healing power of Grace, they would perhaps avoid many illnesses. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-386-387-388-389#p8</ref>
''Are illnesses tests in the Yoga?''
Tests? Not at all.
You are given an illness purposely to make you progress? Surely it is not like that. Actually, you may turn the thing round and say that there are people whose aspiration is so constant, whose goodwill so total that whatever happens to them they take as a trial on the path to make progress. I knew people who, whenever they fell ill, took that as a proof of the Divine Grace to help them to progress. They told themselves: it is a good sign, I am going to find out the cause of my illness and I shall make the necessary progress. I knew a few of this kind and they moved on magnificently. There are others, on the contrary, who, far from making use of the thing, let themselves fall flat on the ground. So much the worse for them. But the true attitude when one is ill, is to say: "There is something that is not all right; I am going to see what it is." You must never think that the Divine has purposely sent an illness, for that would truly be a very wicked Divine! <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/22-july-1953#p18,p19,p20</ref>
Have faith. There is no disease which cannot be cured by the Divine Grace. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/cure-by-the-divine-grace#p3</ref>
The only thing I can suggest about diseases is to call down peace. Keep the mind away from the body by whatever means—whether by reading Sri Aurobindo's books or meditation. It is in this state that the Grace acts. And it is the Grace alone that cures. The medicines only give a faith to the body. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/peace-and-quiet-faith-and-surrender#p10</ref>
When physical disorder comes, one must not be afraid; one must not run away from it, must face it with courage, calmness, confidence, with the certitude that illness is a ''falsehood'' and that if one turns entirely, in full confidence, with a complete quietude to the divine grace, it will settle in these cells as it establishes itself in the depths of the being, and the cells themselves will share in the eternal Truth and Delight. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/fear-and-illness#p7</ref>
===Doubt===
''I aspire for Your Grace to come and lift me from the ordinary consciousness to the spiritual consciousness.''
For the Grace to help you, you must fulfil the conditions, and the very first condition is to reject all doubt, however slight. I repeat again: you would do well to read once more, carefully and attentively, the first two chapters of ''The Mother''.
<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/16-july-1936#p2</ref>
One is either conscious of the power or peace or other force (light, ananda, knowledge, movements of the divine working) or, if not conscious of that, is aware of the results—either of these things is sufficient to show that one is open. To feel the grace descending and yet doubt whether it is not a vital imagination is a folly of the physical mind; a spiritual experience must be accepted as it is; if one questions at every moment whether an experience is an experience or Grace is grace or peace is peace or light is light, one will spend all the time in these useless and fantastic doubts instead of making a quiet and natural progress. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-physical-mind-and-sadhana#p26</ref>
===Falsehood===
But the supreme Grace will act only in the conditions of the Light and the Truth; it will not act in conditions laid upon it by the Falsehood and the Ignorance. For if it were to yield to the demands of the Falsehood, it would defeat its own purpose.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/32/the-mother-i#p2</ref>
If behind your devotion and surrender you make a cover for your desires, egoistic demands and vital insistences, if you put these things in place of the true aspiration or mix them with it and try to impose them on the Divine Shakti, then it is idle to invoke the divine Grace to transform you. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/32/the-mother-i#p6</ref>
''What does the defeat of its own purpose mean?''
Yes. This means that it would be going against its work, its own work. The Grace has come; well, it works for the realisation of the truth. If it accepts the conditions laid upon it by the falsehood, it can no longer do anything. Of this, you know, I could give you countless examples—of people who insist that things should happen in a particular way as far as they are concerned. They implore, at times even demand that things should be like that; and what they ask for is absolutely contrary to the truth; and if the Grace obeyed their demand, it would go against its own purpose and defeat its own purpose, that is, it would go against its own work and aim. It comes here to realise the truth; if it obeys the falsehood, it turns its back on truth. And people, you see, very often put the cart before the horse—most often through ignorance and stupidity; but sometimes it is also through bad will that they insist on having their conditions fulfilled, that they go in for a kind of bargaining in exchange for their surrender, and they do it.... Yes, many do it unconsciously—I said through ignorance and stupidity. There are others who do it consciously, and so they want their conditions fulfilled. They say, "If it is like this and like that..." And finally they go as far as to say to the Divine, "If you are like this and like that, if you fulfil the conditions I lay down for you, I shall obey you!" They don't put it in this way because that would be too ridiculous, but they almost constantly do it. You see, they say, "Oh, the Divine is like this. The Divine does this. The Divine must respond like this." And they continue in this way, and they are not aware that they are quite simply imposing their conceptions and also their desires on what the Divine ought to be and do. And so, when the Divine does not do what they want or does not fulfil the conditions they lay down, they say, "You are not the Divine!" (''Laughter'') It is very simple. "You do not fulfil the conditions I lay down, so you are not the Divine!" But they do it constantly, you know. So, naturally, if to please people, the Divine Grace were to submit to their demands, it would be working entirely against its own purpose and would destroy its own Work. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/7-july-1954#p17,p18</ref>
If you open yourself on one side or in one part to the Truth and on another side are constantly opening the gates to hostile forces, it is vain to expect that the divine Grace will abide with you. You must keep the temple clean if you wish to instal there the living Presence.
If each time the Power intervenes and brings in the Truth, you turn your back on it and call in again the falsehood that has been expelled, it is not the divine Grace that you must blame for failing you, but the falsity of your own will and the imperfection of your own surrender.
If you call for the Truth and yet something in you chooses what is false, ignorant and undivine or even simply is unwilling to reject it altogether, then always you will be open to attack and the Grace will recede from you. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/32/the-mother-i#p7,p8,p9</ref>
Insincerity seems to be an incurable defect which nullifies the working of the Grace in a being. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/2-june-1965#p4</ref>
This is the common idea One says, "God has rejected me", you know. It is not that. You may not be able to feel the Grace, but It will always be there, even with the worst of sinners, even with the worst of criminals, to help him to change, to be cured of his crime and sin if he wants to be. It won't reject him, but It won't help him to do evil. It wouldn't be the Grace any longer. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/7-july-1954#p90</ref>
=Living in Grace=