The Sanskrit word for it is shaktipata, and it means “bestowing the energy” or “lighting the lamp.” In Buddhism, we learn from the Udâna of “an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an uncompounded” which provides us an escape from all that is “born, become, made and compounded.” From there we can learn that to the Buddhist, perhaps grace is transcendence. In the Christian faith it is more or less defined as the unearned mercy and love of the divine. I love the Sanskrit definition because it gives us a working image. Grace allows room for the soul to have a say in our lives. It gives us a sense of life that runs deeper than that sense of it we get from the stories we tell of our lives, our suffering and our victories. Somehow, from somewhere comes this lighting of the lamp, this bestowing of energy and we are alive, if even for a moment, in a whole new way. What does this mean? And is there a way to access this “it” more readily? Want to know more? Don’t miss this show.
