Daily Devotion -Mar 22, 2026 (English)- Grace or Effort
Is the love of God attained through devotional practice, or through grace? The scriptures, the Vedas, Puranas, and other religious texts state both.
Gauranga Mahaprabhu said -
nitya siddha kṛṣṇa prema sādhya kabhu naya
That is, the love of God is eternally established in the heart of the living being; it cannot be attained through any spiritual practice. It is received only through grace.
And yet, Gauranga Mahaprabhu also said -
sādhana binu sādhya kabhu nāhiṃ mile
That is, without spiritual practice, the goal can never be attained.
From the Vedas to the Ramayana, every scripture instructs you to do sādhanā. Tulsidas, Surdas, Meera, Kabir, Nanak, Tukaram - the saints who practiced devotion - transcended māyā and became filled with divine bliss. And those who did not practice devotion did not attain God.
If God's grace or a saint's grace could be attained without any effort, then why would the world continue to exist at all?
God possesses eight qualities -
apahṛtapāpmā vijaro vimṛtyuḥ viśoko avijighatsaḥ apipāsaḥ satyakāmaḥ satyasaṃkalpaḥ
One of these qualities is satyasaṃkalpa - whatever God wills comes to pass; He does not need to act.
When you perform any action:
i) you first think about it,
ii) then acquire the necessary knowledge,
iii) then develop the desire to act,
iv) and finally bring it into execution.
Only then does an action take place.
God, however, does not undergo this process. He simply thinks, "Let infinite universes be created," and they come into existence. He thinks, "Let infinite universes dissolve," and they dissolve. He does not even need to speak - mere thought is sufficient.
If everything could be accomplished solely through God's grace, then He could have simply thought, "Let all the beings in infinite universes transcend māyā and become blissful" - that alone would have sufficed. But this has not happened. Countless saints have descended - and even they have not been able to accomplish this.
A saint, in his lifetime, draws some people toward God and leads some far along the path. On the rest, there is little or no effect. Just as a magnet instantly attracts a pure iron needle but has little effect on an impure one, so too, when a person comes into contact with saints, the purer the heart, the stronger the attraction, the deeper the sense of belonging, and the faster the progress toward God. One whose heart is impure is affected little or not at all.
So which of these two apparently opposing views is correct?
If it is said that devotional practice alone accomplishes everything, consider this: such practice is performed through the senses, the mind, and the intellect. You possess five senses of knowledge, five senses of action, and a mind, and through these alone you undertake any practice, whether related to God or to the world. But all of these means are material, whereas God is divine. A divine God cannot be grasped through material means. This is why, when Lord Ram and Shri Krishna descended to this mrityulok -
jākī rahī bhāvanā jaisī, prabhu mūrati dekhī tin taisī
mallānām aśanir nṛṇāṃ navaraḥ strīṇāṃ smaro mūrtimān
People perceived them according to their own disposition and point of view. Whatever the object may be, these material eyes perceive it only as material. God is divine, and therefore He cannot be seen with these eyes, no matter how many crores of ages of spiritual practice you may undertake.
Material ears cannot hear the divine words of God. The material nose, tongue, and skin can only perceive worldly objects. Therefore, through spiritual practice alone, nothing related to God can be obtained.
God can be attained only through His own grace. When He bestows divine vision and divine hearing, only then can one truly see and hear Him.
This raises a question: if everything depends on His grace, why does He not bestow this divine power upon everyone?
The answer is - worthiness.
This is the condition - if your vessel is fit, He bestows His grace. At present, your mind is impure; it is filled with the accumulated sins and merits of countless lifetimes. For this reason, you have met God countless times, met countless saints, and yet you have rejected them all, saying, "This person is no saint," or "He knows only a little." And you remained exactly where you were - unaffected. You did not surrender, or even if you did, it has been partial - ten percent, twenty percent, or fifty percent. You did not offer a 100% surrender. And even that limited surrender does not remain steady - it fluctuates - sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, and sometimes neutral. The three qualities of māyā keep changing in your mind throughout the day. Sometimes the intellect is sāttvic, sometimes rājasic, sometimes tāmasic - and you experience the external world according to the state of your mind.
Therefore, purifying the mind is your responsibility. Practice devotion to Shri Krishna or to a genuine saint, and through that, your mind will become purified. This practice must be done by you. When the mind is purified, the grace of God and the Guru naturally descends. Then you receive divine treasures - freely, without price. In truth, no one can pay for them, because they are divine, while anything you could offer is material. What can you offer to God? Your body is impure, and your mind is burdened with sin. There is nothing you can give Him that would be of any use to Him. Your duty, therefore, is to purify your mind through devotional practice. This is your duty. Whoever has fulfilled this duty has received grace, has received divine power, and has attained God.
Therefore, both the grace of God and the grace of a saint are necessary, and your own devotional practice is equally necessary. Through practice, your mind becomes purified, and then, through grace, you attain divine love, divine vision, and divine power. This is the conclusion.
Recommended books by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj related to this topic:
