Changes

Of course in many cases there is a true experience first, a touch of the Grace, but it is not something that lasts and is always there, but rather something that touches and withdraws and waits for the nature to get ready. But this is not so in every case, not even in many cases, I believe. One has to begin with the soul's inherent longing, then the struggle with the nature to get the temple ready, then the unveiling of the Image, the permanent Presence in the sanctuary. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/bhakti-yoga-and-vaishnavism#p14</ref>

And, moreover, there are days when one is in contact with the divine Consciousness which is at work, with the Grace, and then everything is tinged, coloured with this Presence, and things which usually seem to you dull and uninteresting become charming, pleasant, attractive, instructive—everything lives and vibrates, and is full of promise and force. So, when one opens to that, one feels stronger, freer, happier, full of energy, and ''everything'' has a meaning. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/26-september-1956#p14</ref>

It makes you sense so clearly that things in themselves don't count. What we call 'things in themselves' are of no true importance! What really counts is the relationship of consciousness to these things. And there's a formidable power in this, since in one instance you touch something and drop or mishandle it, while in the other it's so lovely, it works so smoothly. Even the most difficult movements are made without difficulty. It's an unheard-of power! We don't give it importance because it has no grandiose effects, it's not spectacular. Yes, there are indeed states of grace when one is in the presence of a great difficulty and suddenly has all the power needed to face it—yes, but that's something else. I am speaking of a power active in ordinary life. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/july-18-1961#p63,p6</ref>

As soon as you are in contact with It, there is not a second in time, not a point in space, which does not show you ''dazzlingly'' this perpetual work of the Grace, this constant intervention of the Grace...

If one were in union with this Grace, if one saw It everywhere, one would begin living a life of exultation, of all-power, of infinite happiness.

<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/1-august-1956#p50,p51</ref>

The best meditations are those that one has all of a sudden, because they take possession of you as an imperative necessity. You have no choice but to concentrate, to meditate, to look beyond the appearances. And it is not necessarily in the solitude of the forest that it seizes you, it happens when something in you is ready, when the time has come, when the true need is there, when the Grace is with you. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/miscellany#p20</ref>

If one can see it, feel it, experience its action, so to say, be conscious of its presence and movement, then one has the joy of the movement, the progress, the realisation; but this does not mean that if one doesn't feel this joy, the action of the Grace is not there, the realisation not there. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/10-october-1956#p18</ref>

For, as to this "Grace" [first experience of the Self], we describe it in that way because we feel in the infinite Spirit or Self of existence a Presence or a Being, a Consciousness that determines—that is what we speak of as the Divine,—not a separate Person, but the one Being of whom our individual self is a portion or a vessel. But it is not necessary for everybody to regard it in that way. Supposing it is the impersonal Self of all only, yet the Upanishad says of the Self and its realisation, "This understanding is not to be gained by reasoning nor by tapasya nor by much learning, but whom this Self chooses, to him it reveals its own body." Well, that is the same thing as what we call the Divine Grace,—it is an action from above or from within independent of mental causes which decides its own movement. We can call it the Divine Grace; we can call it the Self within choosing its own hour and way to manifest to the mental instrument on the surface; we can call it the flowering of the inner being or inner nature into self realisation and self-knowledge. As something in us approaches it or as it presents itself to us, so the mind sees it. But in reality, it is the same thing and the same process of the being in the Nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/35/first-experience-of-the-self#p1</ref>