O Grace, where art thou

   

   















     Today I exchanged few words with my godsister. The topic was grace coming to us from above. She very nicely presented her sentiment in a poem, I will let myself to share it here, it’s beautiful:

To come across a friend of the soul

is the reassurance

of ten thousand loving arms

wrapping themselves around you.

     It made me realize that I don’t feel it in my life. I dream about it, have longing for it, imagine how it would be, even try to stimulate this sentiment by telling myself how lucky I am, to find Krishna consciousness, Guru Maharaja, etc. But deep inside I feel like a beggar, petitioning God to give me that experience (to no avail). Sometimes I’m challenging him. “I did enough. Now is your turn – prove your love. Why the burden of proving it should be laying only on my side?” I know – we are baddha jivas, the love is not our right, it’s a gift, we need to attract Krishna, anukulyena krsnanu, etc. But this is philosophical knowledge for me. Deep down inside I feel unfairly bereft of God’s grace, I feel like a lonely, lost, orphaned soul thrown into the cold ocean of the Universe.

     I envision loving, personal God, because without this idea the emptiness of the world would be very difficult to bear, if not impossible. I’m attached to Gaudiya Vaisnavism, because it makes very convincing case for this dream of mine (loving, personal God, eternal spiritual home), but I lack the experience. I’m not talking now about experience of my spiritual nature, I know I’m not the matter. I’m talking about the direct experience of God’s grace filling up my heart. To feel “ten thousand loving arms wrapping themselves around me”, as Tadiya put it nicely.

     I wish it came some day. There is something optimistic in all that (don’t think that I’m just being depressed here:). As I get to a certain age, it becomes more clear to me what are my deepest dreams and desires. And because of that I start to know what’s important, and also I have something to look forward. The grace must come at some point. It’s like waiting for Christmas.