There is no step-by-step guide to attaining grace, there is only an opening of the soul. Open the door. Step in.
- Oprah Winfrey
To live in a state of grace is to go beyond the behaviour and attitude of gratitude, and to let gratitude and grace become our way of being and living in the world.
In the past, feelings of grace may have been rare and fleeting moments. To make grace permanent, we need to establish gratitude as a habit, so it becomes our default mode of relating to others.
When gratitude is the natural way we approach life, it is no longer an activity we try to remember to do. Gratitude is simply how you express who you are and how you feel. The practice of gratitude naturally and invisibly becomes a life lived in the state of grace.
“Grace is perfect even when my life isn’t”
Living in grace is for everyone, not just for those who feel called to a secluded life of prayer and devotion. Society has assigned grace to saints, sages, spiritual masters and holy people who have led their lives outside of society, but grace is not about who walks away from society and who stays behind.
Living in a complete state of grace happens when we we allow our true self to shine forth, that is the only requirement.
Now that you have experience first hand how beneficial it is to express gratitude, you are ready for a new role.
Having seen the big picture It is time to become the big picture…for your personal story will unfold on a much larger canvas.
This sounds difficult, but it isn’t. You have already taken the most important step, you have a wider perspective than before. You can look around and see how everything is interconnected, you have felt how nature’s abundance is ready to give everything, you understand that grace exists in every moment.
These are truths to live by, but how? The how actually comes second, what comes first is to have a generous spirit.
Generosity of spirit mirrors grace itself: you are simply acting from the same attitude that grace has shown you. Generosity of spirit means that you are open with everyone. You accept and respect their point of view, you see them with kindness instead of judgement or criticism you don’t pass up a chance to show appreciation – these things don’t make you a saint, they make you a person who knows grace is real.
The most natural way to be generous of spirit is to follow your inner feeling – speak and act when you feel something inside tap you on the shoulder, giving you a slight encouragement to say or do something kind or appreciative. In this way you become an agent of grace – you are doing its work. This is the highest form of the phrase, pay it forward. Now you embody grace which is the most fulfilling way for anyone to live.
- Deepak Chopra
Resplendent with Grace
Greetings from my heart
to you who are always with me,
hidden inside as the heart.
You are the compass of my life.
My course is your way,
no matter where I go.
You exist everywhere and in everything
always watching over us.
My soul brightens in the darkness
when I speak your name.
Far beyond the body,
there is an opening from my heart into yours.
Through that opening,
I send you secret messages like the moonlight.
I polish the mirror of my heart
to be your reflection.
I make my ear the receiver
for the tenderness of your words.
You are in the ear.
You are in the mind.
You are in every burning heart.
What am I saying? You are “I”.
This is my way to describe you!
- RUMI
Is it difficult to see your magnificence? Without a mirror the size of a galaxy, how could you possibly witness all that you are? You must just catch glimpses of your truth now and then. Oh, if you could see yourself as I see you in all of your glorious fullness of being! You are swathed in robes of grace, so light and freeing that they do not weigh you down, and yet so luscious and full that you cannot help but stir the movement of all of creation as you step this way and that.
Of course it matters not to grace whether you see or do not see, for grace simply is, without witnessing being required. Yet you might live rather differently, my beloved, should you realize you are not only worthy of grace, but are actually dripping with it, saturated with divine presence so rich it leaks out of you and causes sunlight to pool at your holy feet. Oh yes, you are resplendent in holiness and sanctity. Should you come to know this as I do, you would take each step with awe and reverence. You would decide that not a thing in your world could be classed as mundane, and decide, with bold fervour, that you are living in godliness and must create your world through choices that honour love.
You may be wondering if you can attain this next stage of growth in your life. You are already well-equipped to do so, no matter what you might believe about the situation, circumstances, or others involved, even yourself. You have within your soul possession more than enough grace to see you through anything you are bold enough to envision for yourself, or for any vision you feel life has bestowed upon you. So pray, through unconditional love to access all that you are, to be supported by those beings that love you without condition. Pray to realize that you are so drenched in sacred grace that the well of your being is full. All that is needed to nurture you onto the next step of your life path is within you now. How could it be otherwise, for you are one with grace.
- Rumi Oracle: Invitation into the Heart of the Divine by Alanna Fairchild
To see Grace
is to see the stillness behind all that moves.
To hear Grace
is to listen to the silence in between the sounds.
To feel Grace
is to find the softness in what feels hard.
To live in Grace
is to know
what the mind will never understand
and for that to be enough
indeed
for it to be everything.
- Patti Wardlaw