[Advaita-l] PrasAda

[Jaldhar H. Vyas via Advaita-l]

[was Re: [Advaita-l] What the solution at Bad Times]

On Sun, 21 Sep 2014, Ravisankar Mayavaram via Advaita-l wrote:

> The word grace is a christian term - what is that in our tradition 
> karuNa (compassion) or anugraha?

The closest Sanskrit equivalent to "grace" is prasAda.  It is the gift of 
of love that BhagavAn bestows not as any kind of "commercial" transaction 
but purely as part of His nature.  Or Her as we remember at this time of 
year.  In our tradition we stress the purNa aspect of the supreme shakti. 
As symbolized in the ShrIchakra, starting from an infitesimal point we 
meditate on Her as She expands outwards until the entire brahmAnDa is 
filled with Her presence.  This prasAda we call mAtA because isn't our 
first memory of unconditional love from our own mothers?  As our Acharya 
says kuputro jayeta kachidapi kumAtA na bhavati.

In the external realm as well what we offer of ourselves (niveda) is 
called prasAda because it is returned to us full of the grace of our 
iShTadevatA.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>