Читать книгу From Karma to Grace - John Van Auken - Страница 6

Like karma, the word grace has its origin in the ancient Indo-Aryan language of Sanskrit. It comes from the root words gr and grnati, meaning “warm approval” and “favorable acceptance,” respectively. It finds it way into Latin as gratia, meaning “to favor,” and ex gratia means to give a favor when one is not required—this is where the word gets its greater meaning as an unmerited divine favor given to souls for their salvation, regeneration, and sanctification.

Although the effect of grace is similar to mercy, there is a subtle distinction: mercy is when God does not give us what we deserve, and grace is when God gives us what we do not deserve. Grace comes from God’s awareness of our potential as eternal companions—the purpose for which God conceived us and gave us free will. Seeing this potential, God established leeway in the unfolding of creation and our soul growth. This leeway is the grace of God’s love for us.

Aware of the ultimate potential of the developing soul, the Creator favors the soul even when it does not yet deserve it. Grace is a gift from the Creator to the created, given in a spirit of love and patience.

American writer and theologian Frederick Buechner wrote:

Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.

The grace of God means something like: “Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.”

Grace is also with us because our Creator’s presence is always with us, whether we are conscious of it or not. In conceiving us, our Creator made our deeper portion in its image, after its likeness, and placed a piece of itself within each of us. (Genesis 1:26–28) As a result, the Creator experiences what we experience, knows our most intimate feelings, and is aware of the temptations, tests, and karma that we face in our soul growth. This is beautifully expressed in Psalm 139:

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.

You know my sitting down and my rising up.

You perceive my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You are with me, behind and before. You laid your hand on me.

This knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty. I cannot attain it.

Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Hades, behold, you are there!

If I take the wings of the dawn and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me; the light around me will be night;” even the darkness does not hide me from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you.

For you formed my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my body. In your book [Book of Life; akashic record] they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.

Psalm 139:1-18; brackets mine

Given our present physical reality and limited awareness, it is difficult to see how God is an integral and intimate portion of our being and how we are a portion of God’s being. God is with us, and this naturally showers us with God’s grace.

Ezekiel revealed this when he searched for God, after he had gotten himself in trouble with the authorities and began to feel that he was alone in his quest, and grew weary of his mission. At first, Ezekiel searched for God in the things of power in the earth—thunder, lightning, fire, and earthquake—but not finding God in these, he became quiet and wrapped himself in his cloak, and there, within himself, he heard a “still, small voice.” At last, there was God’s presence. God had been with him the whole time. In Psalm 46 God instructed the psalmist to “be still, and know that I am God.” In Luke 17:11, Jesus taught, “the kingdom of God is within you.” In Exodus 3:14, when Moses asked God for His name, God replied, “I am that I am,” indicating that the great I AM is in that portion of us that has a sense of “I am.” The great I AM and the little I am are one. Our little consciousness is a portion of the vast Universal Consciousness that is God’s mind.

Jesus stated that no one ascends to heaven that did not first descend from heaven. (John 3:13) From our earthly perspective, this is an amazing statement, completely out of touch with our earthly reality. Yet Jesus, preparing to go to our heavenly Father, told Philip that he knew where He was going and that he, Philip, also knew the way! (John 14:4) Of course, Philip was confused by this statement, wondering how he could know the way to the Father and where the Father abides. He asked Jesus to simply show him the Father. We may ask, How can a portion of our being have known heaven and an intimate harmony with the Creator of the entire universe and have no present awareness of this? The answer is that our heavenly self abides on the other side of an opaque veil that divides earthly consciousness from heavenly. However, this veil is not permanent, and we can learn how to move through it, even eventually see through it regularly, uniting our inner and outer awareness. It is an intention of this book to help us diminish the opacity of this veil, making it transparent and no longer separating our heavenly self from our earthly self.

In addition to grace abiding with us because of God’s awareness of our potential and God’s ever-abiding presence, divine grace also accompanies every temptation, test, and karmic response! Our Creator has already prepared a way to overcome and resolve weaknesses, even in the worst of circumstances. For example, despite the clarity of the law of karma, reactions are rarely as exacting as the thoughts, words, and actions that generated the karma. This is because of God’s gracious intention that the law not be used to punish us but to enlighten us. Even in the execution of the law we find divine grace giving allowance and favor.

In the biblical book of Zechariah, the high priest Joshua was brought before God, but Satan, always the accuser, pointed out how filthy Joshua’s garments were, implying that Joshua’s actions made him unworthy to be in God’s presence. God’s response is key to our understanding of grace motivated by love and a deeper awareness of our potential:

Then he [the Lord] showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand accusing him.

And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebukes you! Is not Joshua a burning branch plucked from the fire?”

Now Joshua was standing before the angel of the Lord, clothed with filthy garments.

And the angel of the Lord said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to Joshua he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with clean apparel.”

Zechariah 3:1-4

See how God extended favor to Joshua, even though he may not have deserved it? God even extended favor to the biblical archvillain Cain, saying: “Cain, why are you angry? And why is your face sad? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do wrong, sin is waiting at the door [of your heart and mind], it seeks to possess you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:6–7; brackets mine) Even after Cain murdered Abel, God protected him from revenge by others and allowed him to live and, it is hoped, learn.

Another important point in understanding grace is that the giving of grace reveals something about the nature of our Creator. Grace is a quality of God. In the Kabbalah’s Tree of Life, one of the ten emanations of the Creator’s presence is chesed, which is often translated as lovingkindness and mercy, grace-filled qualities of God. The Fruits of the Spirit contain the seeds of God’s nature, and as we assimilate the fruits into our thinking, speaking, and doing, the Spirit grows within us until we and the Spirit are one. A most amazing effect of living with the abiding Spirit and thinking, speaking, and acting according to the abiding Spirit’s influence is the suspension of the law of karma and the shift to a life in grace. In the life of grace, error does not result in karma to be experienced or lessons to be learned through suffering; rather, the Spirit instructs the soul from within, whispering guidance to the soul through its lessons. The lessons are learned within the heart and mind with the ever-abiding Spirit, not in the outer world of cause and effect, or karmic reaction. When the intention of the heart and mind is to do well, God seeks to strengthen and guide the soul in grace, not karma.

Edgar Cayce’s visionary discourses explain this well, as in this quotation:

Do that which is good, for there has been given in the consciousness of all the fruits of the spirit: Fellowship, kindness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, love; these be the Fruits of the Spirit. Against such there is no law.

Doubt, fear, avarice, greed, selfishness, self-will; these are the fruits of the evil forces. Against such there is a law. Self-preservation, then, should be in the fruits of the spirit, as you seek through any channel to know more of the path from life—from good to good—to life; from death unto life, from evil unto good. Seek and you shall find. Meditate on the fruits of the Spirit in the inner secrets of the consciousness, and the cells in the body become aware of the awakening of the life in their activity through the body. In the mind, the cells of the mind become aware of the life in the Spirit. The spirit of life makes not afraid.

Then, know the way; for those that seek may find.

EC 5752-3

In the next chapters we will explore the Fruits of the Spirit and learn how the law of karma becomes the liberating grace of soulful living.