Amazing Grace
The Majesty And The Mercy of Freedom From Your Pain
Amazing Grace
"I once was lost, but now I am found, was blind, but now I see."
The hymn and popular song "Amazing Grace" was written 250 years ago by John Newton, a former slave trader who in 1748 nearly died in a shipwreck off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland.
The storm was so severe he cried out to God for mercy and his life was spared. Following this experience he became a Christian and eventually abandoned the slave trade and became an abolitionist and a Christian minister.
Folk singer Judy Collins released what became a very popular a version of this song in 1970 and described it as: "a song of hope and healing. It has a feeling about surviving terrible things. But it gives you a moment of hope. Sometimes that's all you need, isn't it?"
I feel that "Amazing Grace" is more than an anthemic song of aspiration, it is a powerful message of spiritual healing and the change and transformation that is possible regardless of the depths of the personal hell in which you have sunk and the ferris wheel of suffering upon which you are stuck.
In this brief article I want to offer some practical suggestions as to how you can experience this amazing grace in your life.
This is not about self help.
This is beyond your ego.
You can not pull yourself up by your boot straps.
This is not about belief.
This is not about your head, it is about your heart.
This is about direct action.
This is about the simple powerful steps you can take when you have reached the end of the line, when you are desperate for release and relief.
The cause of your pain and suffering maybe to do with your response to a situation or a circumstance that has been imposed upon you.
Or it may be that you are suffering as result of your thoughts and emotional states in which you have become subsumed.
Whatever the cause, we are talking about fear, anxiety, pain, failure, alienation, addiction, helplessness, hopelessness and desperation.
So how can you experience this amazing grace and freedom from your pain?
How To Experience Amazing Grace?
There are 3 simple but powerful steps to experiencing this amazing grace:
- Acknowledge
- Accept
- Ask
Let's take a closer look at each of these.
ACKNOWLEDGE
The first step is to be nakedly open and honest and to acknowledge your brokenness and imperfection.
Acknowledge to yourself with humility the exact nature of your pain and suffering, that you are powerless over it - and that your life has become unmanageable.
Write it down and say it out loud.
As a resource, you can adapt and use some of the The 12 Steps of AA
ACCEPT
Ask yourself this simple question and accept the answer:
"What am I feeling now?
I accept that I am feeling...."
Keep it simple. Do not think it, just run with whatever comes up. The full process is set out very clearly here:
The Transforming Power Of Acceptance
ASK
In this third step, I want to suggest to you that the most powerful and direct route to changing your emotional and spiritual state is by becoming humble, and reaching out to your higher power/higher self/God/Buddha [or however you identify with the highest part of you] and asking for help.
Don't get hung up on the 'God dilemma'. Don't put a label on it. As Aldous Huxley put it: "The finding of God is a coming to one’s self."
Drop
your ego, stop thinking, sit down somewhere quiet, better still kneel
down and say this from your heart - as if your life depended on it:
"Please help me.
I can not control my thoughts and feelings I need your help.
Please fill me with your spirit of grace and the feeling of your peace.
Please help me to live a life filled with positive energy.
Please show me what to do and how to lead my life.
Thank you."
Please see: How To Wake Up - Just Ask
The Qualities Of Amazing Grace
There are many qualities of amazing grace and without disapearing down the rabbithole of any specific belief system I would like to focus briefly on two qualities:
- Majesty
- Mercy
Majesty
The majesty of amazing grace is the power, the glory and the magnificence of a life that is deeply connected to a far greater consciousness.
The most fundamental flaw of the human ego is that it comes with an inbuilt, hardwired tendency to assume that everything revolves around "me".
Embedded in most of the world's major belief systems is the idea of dropping the ego or dying to self and living a life that is aligned with a far larger transcendent consciousness.
The Tao speaks of it in this way: "Only in being lived by the Tao can you truly be yourself." [22]
The Buddhist tradition speaks of our Buddha nature and the Christian tradition speaks of our Christlike nature that arises when we "die to self".
This all points to a major realignment of how we normally function.
This is about a 180 degree shift from living MY life to a life that is lived by Consciousness [however you choose to define that].
A life lived this way is full of peace and love and joy. It is a life that is fully present.
This is a life of majesty.
Mercy
Amazing grace is not something that we can earn or that we deserve because of accumulated merit or good behaviour.
It has nothing to do with ego.
If karma is getting what we deserve, grace is getting what we don't deserve.
Amazing grace is a gift freely given.
This is a life of mercy.
I would like to close with this powerful performance by Dan Vasc.
Footnote:
For readers from an exclusively Christian or Buddhist background I would offer this reflection:
"Buddhism focuses on the enlightened mind and Christianity reveals the awakened heart.
Buddhist insight is focused primarily on the realm of non-duality, whereas the Christian insight is focused almost exclusively within the realm of duality.
These insights are complementary and we need both."
Further Reading:
The Transforming Power Of Acceptance
The Greatest Love - The Most Important Relationship You Will Ever Have
Self Dialogue - Working With Your Many Selves
Return from "Amazing Grace" to: Walking The Talk
- What if everything we think…
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