There used to be an old plaque in the foyer of my childhood house. It said "Faith can break the sky in two and let the face of God shine through."
I read it again and again, putting on my shoes, taking off my shoes, sitting and waiting for someone or sometimes standing there just read it. I understood it the way a child understands anything. Maybe that has somehow formed a substratum in me, im not really sure.
I find my self looking deeper and deeper into the idea of faith. I have many questions and ideas that i would like to put out to the members of this forum so that i may see some more light on this topic.
I listened to peoples beautiful stories of faith and i have a few of my own but i'm still not clear.
In Vedanta before studying,the concept of Sadhana Chatushtaya is given. These are the four-fold qualities of a seeker, attempting this particular path. Please note that im not an authority on this nor do i profess to have any of these qualites, i don't even know if im on this path or any ! I am also going to use the shocked emoticon
whenever i say something nerdy, because it looks a little nerdy to me, and i am also like that most of the time 
The fourfold qualities are
Vivek
Vairagya
Shat Sampatti (consisting of shama, dama, uparati, titiksha, shraddha and samaadhaana.
Mumukshutva
As im trying to figure out faith im not going to go through the other qualties and most of you are already aware of all of that anyway.
So Shraddha as one of the qualities of a basic adhikari i think i can understand that. When a teacher is giving knowledge its probably necessary to have faith in the topic. I say probably because i usually go in to something as a skeptic but as things become clear i have faith. Also if your teacher is awesome, the way mine was i got faith from questioning everything and he could answer any doubt.
So fine shraddha to learn i can buy that. Then what happens after? After you've learned and learned and learned and prayed and prayed and prayed!
I tell you razors edge path man is the right way to say it!
So aside from learning and aside from praying the world goes on. There have been things in my life that have caused crises of faith. I have to say crises because there have been many many times. During one of these times i had gone to Tiruvannamalai, a sannyasi friend of mine was there and he was kind of irritated that i hadnt read any of the things he had told me to. I told him "see i don't know anything to read this stuff and i also don't know how much i believe."
In an irritated way he quoted Bhagavad Gita and said "shraddhavaan labhate jnanam" (the one who has faith attains knowledge) and i retorted much to his irritation, "i don't know about that, it seems to me shraddhavaan labhate kick(am).
He stopped talking to me for a while.
So life tests you and eventually you find your faith again, that never left you in the first place. (Please bear with me i promise im getting to my point soon which is not all deep and quite anti-climactic).
In Mankuthimmana Kagga there is a verse that says:
"Which child learnt to walk without falling down?
This is how the mind learns too.
To slip, to fall, and to shake oneself and get up:
Isn't this what everyone does?"
So yes i have done it. But is that all that's there? After learning and praying? Falling down getting up like a chumba wumba song?
If the one who has shraddha gets knowledge then which knowledge is it? I want to know because i want the real thing, not just to get knocked down learn something and start again. I want to SEE!
So when does that grace kick in?
just some thoughts
suniti
shrutam me gopaaya
just dont worry about grace....it comes when it comes...!!!
But knowing the above helps to a certain extent.... 
find it too complex...though many of my friends tried to teach me the basics...( i just got on this forum because of them... 
