170

Iris Murdoch was having a chat with Krishnamurti once, and voiced the opinion that he was “in a state of Grace,” implying that he was different from the milling crowd.  K was rather irritated by this, protesting at first, but then saying, “Call it Grace if you wish, but be in a state to receive It.”

What potential confusion lurks in this response!  (Perhaps this explains K’s irritation.)  Grace is not a thing that gets sent from somewhere and is received by someone.  I’ve been blessed to be in the company of sages who were resting in/as Grace, and what I noticed was that if I was open enough, still and soft enough, that Grace could be felt in the energy field called my body.

To be in a state of Grace is to embody this openness, this fluid movement of Life’s livingness – and to be unburdened by any desire that IT be different than it is, exactly as it is now, in what-is.  It sounds simple, but it’s a very big ask.  Yet we all know what the state of Grace feels like.  Perhaps we know it best by its absence, those painful times when we argue with Life and second-guess ITs incomprehensible order.

She-who-scribbles is a very slow learner in the Grace-stakes. It gets easier … but at the same time ever more challenging. I don’t remember who said it, but it’s spot-on: “As the water gets calmer, the fire gets hotter.”

~