This week on Healing at the Edge, RamDev teaches us about receiving grace and accepting the blessing of our boundless nature.
Defining Grace
We kick off this episode with a reading of What Is Grace, a poem by Saint John of the Cross. Essentially, the poem describes grace as anything that happens. Existence is the arms of God hugging us, no matter what each moment brings. It is all grace. This sentiment is difficult to appreciate when we look at the pain of planet earth. How can war, death or anguish be grace? We can begin by having acceptance for all things, expanding our hearts, and knowing that we are all worthy of receiving grace.
“Grace is available in each moment, and yet when our heart isn’t pure when our mind is too conflicted with psychological conditioning, it is very difficult to understand that this too is grace.” – RamDev
Check out this discussion on Grace with Krishna Das: Call of the Guru, Desire, and Grace
Worthy of Grace (13:39)
One of the pitfalls of being human, especially in the west, is the pervasive sense of self-doubt. How can we be open to receiving grace if we think that we are not worthy? Each of us is worthy of grace and love. We do not have to earn God’s love. We do not have to perform for God’s love. The more we can accept this, the more open we will be to the grace that is available to us in every single moment. None of us are broken or incapable of being loved or receiving grace.
“At the deepest level, spiritual healing (whether it is healing ourselves or healing someone else) is not about working with what is broken. Its not about working with the person who feels broken. It is working with the belief in brokenness.”– RamDev
Learn more about developing worthiness in Ep. 34 of David Nichtern’s Creativity, Spritituality & Making a Buck: Worthiness and Empowered Humility w/ Pete Holmes
A Guided Meditation (20:00)
RamDev guides us in a meditation to reveal our deepest longing to witness grace, presence, and emptiness. We meditate on each of us being worthy to receive grace. None of us needs to do anything or be anything, we simply need to have the yearning to open up. You can have faith that there is something you can trust, something that goes deeper than all of your fears. You are right where you need to be, right now. We envision being made out of pure light and consciousness and becoming one with the body of the beloved.
“We are infinitely larger than the good or bad stories we tell ourselves about ourselves or about each other. Grace reveals our boundless nature.” – RamDev
The Relationship of Karma and Grace (45:13)
After we are woken from our meditation, RamDev responds to viewer questions. One person asks about the relationship between karma and grace. RamDev says that what makes sense to him is that we all have to go through everything eventually. We are all the victims and we are all the perpetrators until everything has been unfolded and is perceived as grace. Karma is working through all of this and letting go of our identities. No matter who we are and what karma we have in this life, it is all grace.
