Most of us have our own version of God’s grace. When the events of life appear favourable to us, we feel the grace of God but when it is not so, our faith in Him is shaken and we feel that the grace of God is missing. I feel that it is not fair to blame God and by thinking this way, we show our complete ignorance about Him. The fact is that all acts of God or Nature are blessings only and they have a positive purpose behind them. Even the so-called unfavourable events fall in the category of blessings. It is a different matter that we fail to understand the purpose behind them. Quite often they happen for setting our karmic account in balance and the sooner it happens, the better it is. I am sharing here a personal incident to establish this fact.
Once, I was visiting Mirzapur in eastern UP with a good friend of mine who belonged to a political party and had been a minister in the state government. We both had a spiritual leaning and any interaction with him was always a joy. We travelled together in the same car from Lucknow to Mirzapur, which took about six hours. This period passed very pleasantly on account of our common interest. We reached straight to a guest house and took some rest after lunch. We stayed in the same room.
In the afternoon, the attendant brought tea for us with separate milk and sugar. First, he asked my friend whether he would take sugar or not. To this, he said that he would because he had no sugar problem by the grace of God. At that time, he did not realise that I was diabetic, a fact which was very well known to him. Then the attendant turned towards me and asked the same question. I had very carefully noticed the reply of my friend and so in the same tone I said that I won’t because I had sugar problem by the grace of God. This answer immediately drew the attention of my friend who realised the narrowness of his definition of God’s grace. He also regretted his words, which of course was not necessary, as far as I was concerned. Then our discussion turned to the subject of God’s grace and we realised the true impact of it. He fully agreed with my version which has been mentioned in the beginning.
The reason for this narrow version of God’s grace is that we don’t consider ourselves a part of Nature and in the process stop following its laws. When we do so, Nature only tries to amend us and if we still don’t pay heed to it, the laws of Nature operate and this operation appears to us as the lack of God’s grace. Also, life cannot be seen as a close- ended process, and so our sense of time may not match with the timing of Nature’s process. That is why, at times, good persons appear to be suffering and not so good prospering. Once we understand this secret of Nature, we start seeing God’s grace in all the events of our life.
Rakesh Mittal IAS
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