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If you would know what is the Divine Grace, it is necessary first to realise that it is something which contradicts the law of the world, for it is outside its normal rule and not of its nature. There is here something which does not seem to govern at all the cosmic action, but only to intervene, and yet it is always there; an element without which this universe would be either a tremendous machine or a fortuitously and yet inexorably ordered chance…
...there is probably something else beyond the intellect which alone can give him[man] the Light—something beyond his mind and greater than himself—a Grace that intervenes, the law of a supernormal Light and Will, a help, an opening from above. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p2,p3</ref>
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…but this divine grace, if we may so call it, is not simply a mysterious flow or touch coming from above, but the all-pervading act of a divine presence which we come to know within as the power of the highest Self and Master of our being entering into the soul and so possessing it that we not only feel it close to us and pressing upon our mortal nature, but live in its law, know that law, possess it as the whole power of our spiritualised nature. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-integral-perfection#p12</ref>
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I have said also that the Grace can at any moment act suddenly, but over that one has no control, because it comes by an incalculable Will which sees things that the mind cannot see. It is precisely the reason why one should never despair,—that and also because no sincere aspiration to the Divine can fail in the end.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p22</ref>
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A state of Grace is prepared in the individual often behind thick veils by means not calculable by the mind and when the state of Grace comes then the Grace itself acts. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p4</ref>
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It [Divine Grace] 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. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p6</ref>
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The Divine Grace is something not calculable, not bound by anything the intellect can fix as a condition—though ordinarily some call, aspiration, intensity of the psychic being can awaken it, yet it acts sometimes without any apparent cause even of that kind. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p9</ref>
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The Divine Grace cannot be explained through words and mental formulas. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-divine-grace#p19</ref>
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…no matter how great your faith and trust in the divine Grace, no matter how great your capacity to see it at work in all circumstances, at every moment, at every point in life, you will never succeed in understanding the marvellous immensity of Its Action, and the precision, the exactitude with which this Action is accomplished; you will never be able to grasp to what extent the Grace does everything, is behind everything, organises everything, conducts everything, so that the march forward to the divine realisation may be as swift, as complete, as total and harmonious as possible, considering the circumstances of the world. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/1-august-1956#p49</ref>
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Grace is not an invention, it is a fact of spiritual experience. Many who would be considered as mere nothings by the wise and strong have attained by Grace; illiterate, without mental power or training, without "strength" of character or will, they have yet aspired and suddenly or rapidly grown into spiritual realisation, because they had faith or because they were sincere… Strength, if it is spiritual, is a power for spiritual realisation; a greater power is sincerity; the greatest power of all is Grace. I have said times without number that if a man is sincere, he will go through in spite of long delay and overwhelming difficulties. I have repeatedly spoken of the Divine Grace. I have referred any number of times to the line of the Gita:
In the whole manifestation there is an infinite Grace constantly at work to bring the world out of the misery, the obscurity and the stupidity in which it lies. From all time this Grace has been at work, unremitting in its effort, and how many thousands of years were necessary for this world to awaken to the need for something greater, more true, more beautiful. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/29-october-1958#p11</ref>
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I should like to say something about the Divine Grace—for you seem to think it should be something like a Divine Reason acting upon lines not very different from those of human intelligence. But it is not that. Also it is not a universal Divine Compassion either, acting impartially on all who approach it and acceding to all prayers. It does not select the righteous and reject the sinner. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p4</ref>
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''Q.Sri Aurobindo speaks of the influence of the Divine Compassion and the Divine Grace. But what is the difference between the two?''
There are these three powers: (1) The Cosmic Law, of Karma or what else; (2) the Divine Compassion acting on as many as it can reach through the nets of the Law and giving them their chance; (3) the Divine Grace which acts more incalculably but also more irresistibly than the others. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/sabcl/23/basic-requisites-of-the-path-v#p112</ref>
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The Divine Grace is there, ready to act at every moment, but it manifests as one grows out of the Law of the Ignorance into the Law of Light and it is meant, not as an arbitrary caprice, however miraculous often its intervention, but as a help in that growth and a Light that leads and eventually delivers. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/philosophical-thought-and-yoga#p11</ref>
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It is a power that is superior to any rule, even to the Cosmic Law—for all spiritual seers have distinguished between the Law and Grace. Yet it is not indiscriminate—only it has a discrimination of its own which sees things and persons and the right times and seasons with another vision than that of the Mind or any other normal Power. A state of Grace is prepared in the individual often behind thick veils by means not calculable by the mind and when the state of Grace comes then the Grace itself acts. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p4</ref>
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>
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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>
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But it's so lovely when this Harmony comes. You know, puttering about, arranging papers, setting a drawer in order.... It all sings, it's lovely, so joyous and luminous... so delightful! And all, all, all.... All material things, all activities, eating, dressing, everything becomes delightful when this harmony is there, delightful. Everything works out smoothly, it's so harmonious, there's no friction. You see... you see a joyous, luminous Grace manifesting in all things, ALL things, even those we normally regard as utterly unimportant...
But it's so lovely when this Harmony comes. You know, puttering about, arranging papers, setting a drawer in order.... It all sings, it's lovely, so joyous and luminous... so delightful! And all, all, all.... All material things, all activities, eating, dressing, everything becomes delightful when this harmony is there, delightful. Everything works out smoothly, it's so harmonious, there's no friction. You see... you see a joyous, luminous Grace manifesting in all things, ALL things, even those we normally regard as utterly unimportant...
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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
It is only the Divine's Grace that can give peace, happiness, power, light, knowledge, beatitude and love in their essence and their truth. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-divine-grace#p21</ref>
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The complete consecration is undoubtedly not an easy matter, and it might take an almost indefinitely long time if you had to do it all by yourself, by your own independent effort. But when the Divine's Grace is with you it is not exactly like that. With a little push from the Divine now and then, a little push in this direction and in that, the work becomes comparatively quite easy. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/surrender-self-offering-and-consecration#p1</ref>
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The boon that we have asked from the Supreme is the greatest that the earth can ask from the Highest, the change that is most difficult to realise, the most exacting in its conditions. It is nothing less than the descent of the supreme Truth and Power into Matter, the supramental established in the material plane and consciousness and the material world and an integral transformation down to the very principle of Matter. Only a supreme Grace can effect this miracle. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/12/integral-yoga#p97</ref>
The boon that we have asked from the Supreme is the greatest that the earth can ask from the Highest, the change that is most difficult to realise, the most exacting in its conditions. It is nothing less than the descent of the supreme Truth and Power into Matter, the supramental established in the material plane and consciousness and the material world and an integral transformation down to the very principle of Matter. Only a supreme Grace can effect this miracle. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/12/integral-yoga#p97</ref>
==Grace Saves==
The Divine Grace is with us and never leaves us even when the appearances are dark. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/faith-in-the-divine-grace-and-help#p19</ref>
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At each moment of our life, in all circumstances the Grace is there helping us to surmount all difficulties. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/faith-in-the-divine-grace-and-help#p23</ref>
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In failure as well as in success, the Divine's Grace is always there. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/faith-in-the-divine-grace-and-help#p25</ref>
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Man is a mass of imperfections—it is only by the divine Grace that he reaches the Divine. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/religion-and-yoga#p6</ref>
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The Divine Will works in all things—it may work out anything whatever. The Divine Grace comes in to help and save. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-grace-and-guidance#p1</ref>
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The difference between knowledge and ignorance is a grace of the Spirit; the breath of divine Power blows where it lists and fills today one and tomorrow another with the word or the puissance. If the potter shapes one pot more perfectly than another, the merit lies not in the vessel but the maker. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-master-of-the-work#p12</ref>
The difference between knowledge and ignorance is a grace of the Spirit; the breath of divine Power blows where it lists and fills today one and tomorrow another with the word or the puissance. If the potter shapes one pot more perfectly than another, the merit lies not in the vessel but the maker. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-master-of-the-work#p12</ref>
==Grace and Justice==
An act carried out has always a consequence and this consequence brings along another and so on. And this is absolutely ineluctable. That is universal justice. You have a bad thought, it has a result. And that result has yet another. And you cannot escape it except through the intervention of Grace. Grace is exactly something which has the power of changing all that. But only the Grace can change it. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/18-november-1953#p23</ref>
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If you make a mistake without knowing that it is a mistake, that does not protect you, you are punished. Well, in Nature it is the same thing. If you take poison without knowing that it is poison, it will poison you all the same. Do you understand?... Unless the Grace intervenes. And as the Grace is omnipotent, it can change everything. That is what I have explained. But without the Grace there is no hope. For precisely it is ignorance that's the constant factor of mankind. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/18-november-1953#p23</ref>
If you make a mistake without knowing that it is a mistake, that does not protect you, you are punished. Well, in Nature it is the same thing. If you take poison without knowing that it is poison, it will poison you all the same. Do you understand?... Unless the Grace intervenes. And as the Grace is omnipotent, it can change everything. That is what I have explained. But without the Grace there is no hope. For precisely it is ignorance that's the constant factor of mankind. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/18-november-1953#p23</ref>
==Grace and Karma==
Destiny in the rigid sense applies only to the outer being so long as it lives in the Ignorance. What we call destiny is only in fact the result of the present condition of the being and the nature and energies it has accumulated in the past acting on each other and determining the present attempts and their future results. But as soon as one enters the path of spiritual life, this old predetermined destiny begins to recede. There comes in a new factor, the Divine Grace, the help of a higher Divine Force other than the force of Karma which can lift the sadhak beyond the present possibilities of his nature. One's spiritual destiny is then the divine election which ensures the future. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/fate-free-will-and-prediction#p2</ref>
<center>~</center>When one does not repeat one's past mistakes, the divine power, the power of the divine Grace, abolishes their consequences—their karma—in the being. But as long as mistakes are repeated nothing can be abolished, because one re-creates them at every minute. When a person has made a serious error, say, a serious mistake (it can be serious or not, but we are concerned primarily with the serious ones), such mistakes have their consequences in life, a karma which has to be exhausted. The divine Grace, if you call upon it, has the power to abolish that karma, to cut short the consequences—but the Grace can only do this when you, within yourself, don't begin all over again, when the mistake committed is not renewed. The past can be completely purified and abolished, on condition that one does not keep making it into a perpetual present. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/june-2-1961#p2</ref><center>~</center>
...the Divine Grace completely contradicts Karma; you know, It makes it melt away like butter that's put in the sun…
...if you have an aspiration that's sincere enough or a prayer that's intense enough, you can bring down in you Something that will change everything, everything—truly it changes everything. An example may be given that is extremely limited, very small, but which makes you understand things very well: a stone falls quite mechanically; say, a tile falls; if it gets loose, it will fall, won't it? But if there comes, for example, a vital or mental determinism from someone who passes by and does not want it to fall and puts his hand out, it will fall on his hand, but it will not fall on the ground. So he has changed the destiny of this stone or tile. It is another determinism that has come in, and instead of the stone falling on the head of someone, it falls upon the hand and it will not kill anybody. This is an intervention from another plane, from a conscious will that enters into the more or less unconscious mechanism.
<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/3-june-1953#p24,p25</ref><center>~</center>Imagine the world as a single whole and, in a certain sense, finite, limited but containing potentially innumerable possibilities of which the combinations are so numerous that they are equivalent to an infinite (you must be careful with words, however; I am very much cramped by words, they do not express exactly what I mean). So, the universe is objectified by the Divine Consciousness, by the Supreme, according to certain determined laws of which we shall speak later. The universe is a single whole, in the sense that it is the Divine—it does not contain the whole of the Divine, but it is as though the Divine deployed Himself so as to objectify Himself; that is the ''raison d'être''of the manifestation of the universe. It is as if the divine Consciousness wandered into all divine possibilities following a path it had chosen. Imagine then a multitude of possibles of which all the possible combinations are equivalent to an infinite. The divine Consciousness is essentially free—It wanders therein and objectifies Itself. The path traversed is free in the midst of an infinite multiplicity which is at the same time pre-existent and absolutely undetermined according to the action of the free divine Will. It may be conceived that this Will, being free, is able to change the course of the deployment, change the path and, although everything is pre-existent and consequently inevitable, the road, the path is free and absolutely unexpected. These changes of the route, if one may say so, can therefore change the relations between things and circumstances, and consequently the determinism is changed. This change of the circuit is called "the effect of the Grace"; well, through the aid of the Grace, if the Grace decides it, things can change, the course can be different. Things can change their places and instead of following a certain circuit follow another. A circumstance which, according to a particular determinism, should occur at a certain place ahead, for instance, would instead occur behind, and so on. The relations between things consequently change. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/1-march-1951#p4</ref>
Imagine the world as a single whole and, in a certain sense, finite, limited but containing potentially innumerable possibilities of which the combinations are so numerous that they are equivalent to an infinite (you must be careful with words, however; I am very much cramped by words, they do not express exactly what I mean). So, the universe is objectified by the Divine Consciousness, by the Supreme, according to certain determined laws of which we shall speak later. The universe is a single whole, in the sense that it is the Divine—it does not contain the whole of the Divine, but it is as though the Divine deployed Himself so as to objectify Himself; that is the ''raison d'être''of the manifestation of the universe. It is as if the divine Consciousness wandered into all divine possibilities following a path it had chosen. Imagine then a multitude of possibles of which all the possible combinations are equivalent to an infinite. The divine Consciousness is essentially free—It wanders therein and objectifies Itself. The path traversed is free in the midst of an infinite multiplicity which is at the same time pre-existent and absolutely undetermined according to the action of the free divine Will. It may be conceived that this Will, being free, is able to change the course of the deployment, change the path and, although everything is pre-existent and consequently inevitable, the road, the path is free and absolutely unexpected. These changes of the route, if one may say so, can therefore change the relations between things and circumstances, and consequently the determinism is changed. This change of the circuit is called "the effect of the Grace"; well, through the aid of the Grace, if the Grace decides it, things can change, the course can be different. Things can change their places and instead of following a certain circuit follow another. A circumstance which, according to a particular determinism, should occur at a certain place ahead, for instance, would instead occur behind, and so on. The relations between things consequently change. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/1-march-1951#p4</ref>
==Grace and Love==
A total surrender, an exclusive self-opening to the divine influence, a constant and integral choice of the Truth and rejection of the falsehood, these are the only conditions made. But these must be fulfilled entirely, without reserve, without any evasion or pretence, simply and sincerely down to the most physical consciousness and its workings. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/12/integral-yoga#p96,p97</ref>
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Say―"I have received his Grace: I must be worthy of it", and then all will be well. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-divine-grace#p27</ref>
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Let us offer our will to the Divine Grace; it is the Grace that accomplishes all. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/faith-in-the-divine-grace-and-help#p50</ref>
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The Grace is always there, eternally present and active, but Sri Aurobindo says that it is extremely difficult for us to be in a condition to receive it, keep it and make use of what it gives us. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/17-october-1960-1#p3</ref>
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In the final analysis everything really depends on the Divine Grace and we should look at the future with confidence and serenity, progressing at the same time as quickly as we can. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/faith-in-the-divine-grace-and-help#p43</ref>