October 27, 2018
This thing called 'mineness' or the sense of possession is so pervasive that it is not possible for the human mind, however brilliant it may be, to comprehend it. You give up what you think is an obstacle but carry the obstacle with you. The man who has renounced his wife thinks of her more often now than he used to before. So, what has he renounced? Nothing. That is the mistake we commit, but for grace. Grace is necessary to see that this 'mineness' can come round and round and round - it has so many forms. Gurudev used to say that you cannot directly see maya but you can detect maya through her own lieutenants. For instance, if you are jealous, tackle that jealousy. It has its root in egoism, but the ego is not seen. Tackle this jealousy and the ego will come out. You are craving, tackle that craving, the egoism comes out. In the same way one has to deal with all the different manifestations of the ego.
No one can convince another that this sense of possession is demoniacal or that it even needs to be dealt with. We have not only accepted the sense of possession - 'mineness' - as truth, as fact, but we have also crowned it by saying that it is perhaps the greatest savior in the world. "It is because we are attached to each other" we don't say attached, we 'love' each other - "that we serve each other and promote each other's welfare and that is what has made the world what it is." You might add that the mess in which we find the world is due to this attachment also. It demands grace to even see this for what it is: a danger to peace of mind, sanity, happiness and enlightenment.
When Grace descends into us and we are able to observe this, then we don't see grace or the reality of God or consciousness. What we see are our own defects and weaknesses, the million ways in which we cheat ourselves, justify and rationalize our actions, our behavior, our mode of life. And very often we shy away from it. It frightens us and we think that merely turning our gaze from it will make it go away. It doesn't go away. The very fact that we have to rationalize it shows that there is something wrong there. We never rationalize a fact. I don't justify myself for breathing. Similarly, why must I go about saying "I am an instrument in the hands of God"? If I am an instrument I may not even know it, only He will know it. So, without getting into all these traps, grace enables you to be aware all the time.