Grace and Gravity

All these years I have experienced and believed that people when they meet me for the first time, either don't like me that much or not too impressed by me. Some of my friends say that they even underestimated me during their first encounter (?). Some Europeans especially men were exceptions, as they thought I am extremely brave (asattu thairiyam), independent (yes true to some extent) and exotic. Hahaha…don’t know what is so exotic in me except my brown skin.
Now these three months in India, I am seeing people openly admiring me during their first meetings. Especially, when I went for the school tour I was told they were so scared that someone from the ashram coming for school evaluation. Later they found me extremely friendly and sisterly (I did have some problems because of this also). Some even came to me and opened their entire life history, personal and professional problems. I convinced a teacher whose husband didn’t allow her to attend the Inner engineering program and she is at ashram right now. All the school “aayaas” just took care of me like their own daughter, admiring all the outfits I wore. One even asked me “where is dupatta” when I was wearing a jeans-kurta. For the next school I threw away my jeans and took all my sarees and salwars. :D
Wow. Everything works, my wisdom, the way I talked to people, handled issues within the schools and the advices I rendered. I thought Sadhguru’s grace was with me always. Especially during difficult times when I heard complaints from the people, I was surprised hearing my own voice. One even told me “Akka, you were sent here by Sadhguru for me”.
!!!!!
Now for the past one week, things are happening totally in a different way. Even my casual talks to the fellow volunteers inside the ashram were misunderstood. Sometimes I myself realised that my talk was foolish and stupid. A Swamy who works with me told me to practise “awareness” when I shared this experience with him. He himself blasted me yesterday for some statements I made to a Bramacharini about maintaining our money transfer server. Ooops….he called me later once I finished fixing up the server and thanked me in an apologising tone. Today the same scene happened with another isha vidhya volunteer.
What happened to my wisdom, intelligence etc? I don’t know. The more careful and aware I try to be, more issues comes up. One thing nice was I never got angry with anyone (when they were unreasonable) and never hesitated to apologise when I realised my mistake. I remember Sadhguru’s words about the ashram life in his book.
“I will never allow you to settle comfortably in this place, you are not here to feel at home. Once you come here life goes at fast forward mode…you will have more confusions and problems around you…..”
Sadhguru also had talked about Grace. I remember his one statement “How can I define Grace, to put it in a simple way it’s just the reverse of Gravity”……….
Now, past one week I think Gravity is just another form of (his) Grace. :-)