THE HARMONY BETWEEN GRACE AND DIVINE POWER

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

61. THE HARMONY BETWEEN GRACE AND DIVINE POWER
The advent of great spiritual teachers who come with a guiding light to lead mankind from
misery to joy, from asanti to santi, from ignorance and bondage to illumination and liberation is the
working of cosmic grace. They are a manifestation of divine grace.
In the context of the Indian philosophy of qualified non-dualism, whose greatest exponent
was the great bhakta-vedantin, Sri Ramanujacharya, the Divine Mother is regarded as the symbol,
the very embodiment of that divine grace. Even as Jesus said, “No one can come to the Father
except through Me,” even so the devout qualified non-dualist will say: “It is impossible to attain the
feet of the Lord except by the benign grace of Divine Mother Lakshmi. It is only if you surrender to
Lakshmi that She, through Her compassion, takes you and graciously presents you before the
supreme Narayana.”
In contrast to this, in eastern India, in Bengal and other places, the Divine Mother is
regarded as the great cosmic Power. The Saktas regard Her as Adi-Sakti, the primal Power, as
Para-Sakti, the transcendental Power, as Maha-Sakti, the great Power. It is She who has brought
about the multifariousness of the phenomenal existence of countless universes. And so it is the
Divine Mother’s power that is the object of worship, the highest supreme factor in spiritual life and
liberation. She is the grantor of liberation in the context of the Sakta philosophy.
Is there a conflict, a self-contradiction, in these concepts of the Divine Mother, who is the
dynamic aspect of the actionless, supreme para-brahman who, being all-full, is beyond all action?
Can these views be harmonised, reconciled and shown to be perfectly valid and tenable with no
element of self-contradiction? Can the concepts of grace supreme and the great intelligent power
that brings about everything in a marvellous way—creating, preserving, destroying, guiding,
binding and at the same time liberating (binding as avidya maya, liberating as vidya maya)—be
reconciled? Yes, they can be.
Even the very high, superfine, penetrating intellectual analysis and the keen perception of
recognising the true need of a guru and becoming aware that you are recognising such a need can
only come when grace makes you aware that there is no one standing in your way except yourself:
As long as the “I” in any form, whatsoever it may be, persists, that itself becomes the one factor
making liberation a far cry. Even this penetrating, very subtle analysis is also an exercise of sakti.
Because sakti need not necessarily be something gross, something external. It is sakti alone
that enabled Albert Einstein to expound the Theory of Relativity. All exercises by great thinkers are
manifestations of the Divine Mother. It is sakti in a very highly subtle form, but it is sakti. It is not
only the movement of the hands and feet and the body that constitutes an exercise of force, but even
the subtlest of all Vedantic enquiries is also but a manifestation of the primal sakti.
Therefore, it is grace working—in the form of this inner movement towards light, towards
immortality and liberation. It is grace working—in the form of your penetrating analysis, your
discrimination, viveka, and enquiry, vichara. Thus, you find that the movement of power within
you and the concept of grace in your life seem to be identical. They perfectly coalesce to form a
certain twin stream of the same plenum.

The ultimate declaration of the Yoga Vasishtha, the Bhagavad Gita and of all modern
teachers is: “Liberation does not come to one who longs for it but fails to implement his longing in
the form of self-effort.” Self-effort is a manifestation of sakti. It is what they call purushartha. The
will to satchidananda, the will to fulfil all the conditions, everything that is required to be done for
liberation, is a manifestation of sakti.
All sadhana is a manifestation of sakti and grace combined. Whether it is jnana yoga
sadhana or bhakti yoga sadhana or karma yoga sadhana, it is at once a combined manifestation of
grace (what is it if it is not grace; if it is anything at all, it is grace) and the Divine Mother as a
dynamic movement towards liberation.
Here they perfectly harmonise. There is no contradiction. They are two-in-one. Both are
equally present. At one time, this grace looks like dynamism. At another time, the dynamism is felt
and known to be grace. Uttishthata jagrata prapya varan nibodhata is a rousing call for
purushartha, to stand up, be awake and do all that is necessary to attain illumination. It is a call to
manifest sakti within you, and responding to that call, standing up and shaking off the slumber of
ignorance is a manifestation of grace.
It is only when grace is there that when the call comes one responds. If grace is not there,
even if this call is blared into your mind and heart a hundred times, it will be a mere call in the
wilderness. No one will respond. However, if grace is there, it manifests as immediate wakefulness,
immediate needful action.
We are the product, therefore, of this mysterious, indescribable combination of these twin
factors of grace and dynamism. And in the ultimate analysis they are not two. They are but two
aspects of one. Divine activity proves the presence of grace. Grace manifests as divine activity.
And the source of all this is the indwelling Divinity within you—your eternal companion,
your never-failing guide, friend and philosopher, who is ultimately known to be your own Self. All
power, all grace reside within you as the centre of your spiritual being. You live, move and have
your being in that Being. And that Being ever indwells you as the very centre of your existence, as
your antaratma. This is a great mystery. We should ponder this great mystery and become the field
for the play of this sakti, become the field for the manifestation of Its grace.
The manifestation of these twin factors, two-in-one aspects, is fully manifest in the life of
each and every one of you. That is why you happen to be here considering these lofty, sublime
truths. Had it not been for grace dynamically manifest in your life, you would not be here today. Just
think of it! Just think of it!