Message #41302

[Jitendra Hydonus]

We are blessed 😇 or graced by certain environmental factors due to karma. We also are cursed by some wicked things we have done in the past. This results can at times be seen as changing opinions or lifestyles associated with cognitive dissonance. There is also a strong element of free choice in the matter, which is somewhat of an enigma and paradox because even the free choices we are able to make are a karmic factor determined to a large degree on the free choice and support we have given others in their life goals and creativity.

However visiting or being in the presence of a Master or recruiting their presence through prayer, meditation and many other spiritual practices can give grace. All these factors can bestow and give someone grace. Grace, which  is an element a Master can give to an individual or country through circumstances and friendships or directly from the Master in for instance Miracles. Such events can strongly affect behavioral change and alter the direction of life permanently to those who have experienced the grace of a Master or Masters. 

I remember asking Brother Turiyananda how he decided to become a monastic he told me that when he was a young man, he was up in the Swiss Alps, and it was getting dark and he was lost. It gets very dark and very cold in the Swiss Alps and survival is not likely by morning.  So he prayed to God and asked him Lord ‘if you have anything you want me to do in this life, You are now going to have to help me because I’m not gonna be able to make it by dawn.’  And so he felt a large push in his back in a certain direction, and followed that direction and found his way out of the forest. This single event changed his whole life, and since he felt that there was no other way of surviving the night, he felt a strong proclivity to do something in life that was spared to him by God. This is a strong example of grace.