Notes on Grace…anugraha shakti

anugraha shakti: (Sanskrit) “Graceful or favoring power.” Revealing grace. God Siva’s power of illumination, through which the soul is freed from the bonds of anava, karma and maya and ultimately attains liberation, moksha. Specifically, anugraha descends on the soul as shaktipata, the diksha (initiation) from a satguru. Anugraha is a key concept in Saiva Siddhanta. It comes when anava mala, the shell of finitude which surrounds the soul, reaches a state of ripeness, malaparipaka. See: anava, grace, Nataraja, shaktipata.

(See also: Anugraha shakti, Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

http://www.experiencefestival.com/anugraha_shakti

Grace is not only the force of illumination or revealment. It also includes Siva’s other four powers – creation, preservation, destruction and concealment – through which He provides the world of experience and limits the soul’s consciousness so that it may evolve.

“Grace is the revelatory power of spirit” – John Friend

Grace

Listen to your life.

See it for the fathomless mystery

that it is. In the boredom and pain of it

no less than in the excitement and gladness;

touch, taste, smell your way to the holy

and hidden heart of it, because in the

last analysis of all moments are key moments,

and life itself is grace.

-Fred Buechner