Awareness
Awareness leads to grace.
Grace flows from an awareness of reality that transcends our normal, everyday experience.
Grace is the realization that the universe exists! It is the realization that if any one of several universal constants, such as speed of light, gravitational constant, or the energy in quantum of light differed by any amount, we would not be here. Although grace has nothing to say about whether these constants were "designed" or the result of random chance, that life exists is awe-inspiring. Grace is the realization that supernovas exploded with the power to fuse hydrogen and helium into calcium, magnesium, phosphate and nitrogen needed to create the molecules of your body. Grace is the realization that you are immersed in the creative and loving force of the universe, known to some as Nature, or God, or Source or Being to any of a host of other names.
Grace is awareness that your body is a community of 100 trillion coordinated cells that allow you to move and think and sing. Grace is the realization that quadrillions of bacteria, archaea, protists, plants, animals and fungi work together to provide you with food, oxygen and other essentials of life.Grace is the realization that millions of your ancestors expressed their love through billions of small and large acts of kindness so that you exist today.
Every spiritual discipline eventually comes to the realization of supreme gratitude for the gift of life.
Awareness of Oneness of all existence
Awareness that grace flowers under fire. It is the awareness that order arizes out of chaos.
Awareness that awareness is limited.
Awareness of immensity of people's predicatments leads to forgiveness.
Awareness that mood is real and caused by an illusion, the awareness of which dissolves the illusion and the mood.
Grace is the realization that if you, your parents, and your friends, knew better, in general, they would do better. They love you as much as they can, given their knowledge and circumstances.
Grace is awareness of and gratitude for the power of your anxiety and your fears, and the realization that these emotions serve to help you survive. Emotions are messengers. Listen to these messages, but do not act upon them unless they truly serve your needs for the grace and survival of those you love. Grace is the realization that your emotions serve you, and that you need not serve your emotions.
Grace is also awareness of apathy and hostility. Many forces will act against life and against you, particularly if you are unaware of them. One of these forces is dissipation, another way of expressing the second law of thermodynamics. Heat death. Grace is awareness that these perils exist, and the actions to avoid them. Grace is also the awareness that one of the best ways to avoid these perils is to focus on the goodness, on the creative powers that work toward consciousness and cooperation.
Once you are aware that at least a part of the universe works to support you, gratitude naturally follows.
And with gratitude, loving kindness naturally follows.
All paths of awareness lead to grace, to the experience of the friendliness (of at least a part) of the universe.
Grace acknowledges the blessings as well as the sorrows of your life. Paradoxically, when one embraces ones feelings of sorrow, often, one is released from the pain of sorrow. When you realize that your feelings of sorrow are simply an emotion that helps you survive and thrive, you can be liberated from that emotion. Your emotions may block awareness to the many trillions of blessings in your life. And this is a good thing. If you were to fully aware of all the blessings of your life, you would synapses would flood your brain with neurochemicals and you would die. This is why no one has ever seen the face of God. It's too much. Even if every synapse were activated, there are not enough of them to process all the blessings.
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