Man has become awkward for the simple reason that he has become self-conscious; self, consciousness is very destructive to grace.
That’s why if you are talking to a friend you talk gracefully, but if you are talking to a great audience, if thousands of people are listening to you, you lose all grace. You become awkward you start perspiring, you start trembling. You forget everything.
In fact, it is said that the mind starts working the moment you are born, up to the moment you die, except in those few rare moments when you face an audience. In those moments it stops working: suddenly a gap arises. And the more prepared you are, the more possibility there is of a gap because the very preparation shows that you are afraid, that you are trying to cover up, pretend.
What happens to actors on stage? Why do they lose their grace? The same person is so graceful talking to his friends. Nothing is different, so it is the same, he can talk in the same way. But in public he starts forgetting, he starts saying things which are not supposed to be said and everything becomes clumsy.
Wild animals are graceful because they are not self-conscious. All animals are graceful because they are not performing, they are simply living their lives. They are not worried about how they look. It is only man who is worried about how he looks, how he is appearing to others, whether they are appreciating him or not. All those worries destroy his grace. And bliss happens only in a state of grace.
