Question: Is it God's Grace that is responsible for all our action?

Sri Chinmoy: If we think that on the strength of our own capacity we have made progress, that is the worst possible lie; it is a Himalayan falsehood! If that is our belief, then at every second we will dig our grave very nicely! It is God’s infinite Compassion, God’s infinite Grace that enables us to make progress.

I am sure you remember what some of your friends were doing in your school days and college days. You were praying to God to become a good instrument of His, to become a good citizen. They were taking drugs; they were absolutely inundated with worldly problems and all kinds of wrong forces attacked them. Perhaps these forces also started to attack you. Now who has saved you? It is God’s infinite Compassion that has brought you into the spiritual life.

You may say, “I tried, I tried to become a good person.” But we cannot do this kind of thing on our own. At every second undivine forces are there to halt our progress. Self-doubt will enter into you. You will say, “What good does it do if I become a good person? Nobody is going to believe me.”

When we have a good thought, immediately self-doubt comes and we think, “I will never be able to do it.” Or another kind of thought will come and that is, “Nobody will appreciate what I have done; nobody will believe it.” These negative forces come in a clever way to destroy your good thought before it can manifest itself.

But if it is God’s Will, then from the beginning to the end you will feel His Grace working in and through you. In the beginning, we always feel that it is one per cent God’s Grace and ninety-nine per cent our hard labour. That is what our stupidity tells us. Then gradually we change our philosophy. We say that it is ninety-nine per cent God’s Grace and one per cent our labour. Then we come to the point where we say, “Are we sure that our labour is even one per cent?” We dive deep within for just a few seconds and we see that it is all one hundred per cent God’s Grace.