Gratitude is Enough!
Gratitude makes you resonate with Existence and transforms you into a beautiful human being.
When we recognize that we are part of the total scheme of Existence, and that we are lovingly taken care of by Existence every minute, we are overcome with gratitude. We become truly thankful for what we receive every moment, even if it is as basic as the use of our very limbs and senses.
Gratitude is your response to recognizing the abundance of Existence. It is a wonderful flowering energy within you.
If there is one energy that takes care of everything in your life, it is the energy of gratitude! If you ever feel that there is something missing in your life, it is because you feel less gratitude.
Gratitude should become your very breath. Gratitude is a transforming energy. It transforms the happenings in you and around you. It is an energy that harmonizes you with the energy of the universe and brings back tremendous prosperity to you. With gratitude you will see that Existence simply responds to you – as if it is a live being. It is the channel to commune with Existence!
When gratitude happens, it works beautifully through the law of attraction and attracts great prosperity to you. How is this possible?
A small story:
Akbar, a great king from ancient Bharat, and Birbal, his advisor, were walking together on the street one day.
They passed by a sandalwood dealer and Akbar told Birbal, 'I don't know why but I feel like hanging this man.'
One month passed and the two of them walked past the same sandalwood dealer again.
This time Akbar said, 'It's strange but I feel like giving this man some endowment today! How is it possible?'
Birbal replied, 'O King! A month back, the sandalwood dealer's business was suffering and when he saw you walking past he thought to himself, 'If the king dies, the courtiers would come to buy a lot of sandalwood from me for his funeral pyre.'
He sent out these negative vibrations which prompted you to feel hatred towards him. That is why last time you felt like hanging him without any real reason. I immediately purchased a lot of sandalwood from him to make tables and chairs for our kingdom. It made him very happy. Today, he feels very grateful to you for it. You are now struck by these positive vibrations from him and therefore you feel like giving him some endowment!'
According to the Law of Attraction, like energy attracts like energy. How does this apply to gratitude? Understand this: when you feel gratitude towards everything, it means you feel fulfilled, you feel blissful. So when you radiate gratitude, your energy of fulfillment attracts fulfillment back to you in the form of material gains, good relationships, good health and so on. This is how it works.
The main thing is that gratitude makes you resonate with Existence and transforms you into a beautiful human being.
Psychologists have studied the effects of the feeling of gratitude on people. In their first study, two researchers, Dr. Michael McCollough of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis, California, concluded that gratitude played a major role in a person's well-being.
The results of the study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism, energy, lesser depression and stress. They further suggested that anyone could increase their sense of well-being and create positive social effects just from counting their blessings.
Be grateful for just being
When I tell people to live with a sense of gratitude, they immediately start looking for reasons. Real gratitude can never have a reason. It happens as a causeless flowering within you. Does the flower bloom for a reason? No! It blooms because it is its very nature. Gratitude is our real nature. It has been covered by layers of conditioning from society.
The problem is, society doesn't know the language of gratitude. It knows only the language of utility. It straightaway instills greed and fear in you so that you will give it the needed results. Society doesn't know there is a path of gratitude that will give much better results than the paths of fear and greed.
There are endless reasons to feel gratitude. This life itself is a gift that we have received. Did any of us work for it and receive it? No. To be born with human consciousness is the first blessing we have received. Our gratitude should start right from there. Just for being we should feel grateful.
A young girl sat at the dinner table to eat. She started eating when her mother suddenly stopped her. She asked her, 'Did you say grace before eating?'
The girl replied, 'But there is nothing on this plate that I have not already thanked god for at least once.'
Understand, if ever you feel life is dull, that it is not as juicy as it should be, it is because gratitude has not happened in you. Gratitude is the energy that makes your life intense and exciting every moment. This is a basic secret of life.
The main reason why you miss experiencing gratitude is that you take everything for granted. You feel anything that people do for you is your birthright. Understand, people could be doing something else instead of doing things for you. So it is really a gift from them to you. You have to thank them for it.
Receive every small thing in life as a gift. When you sit down to eat, have you ever thanked your fingers? There are people who don't have fingers with which to eat! Have we ever thought about that? Never! We only look at those who have a diamond ring on their finger. We never look at those who don't have fingers.
When we start feeling grateful for small things, our whole sensitivity will increase. We will become more refined.
A small story:
A man was narrating to his friend how he got lost in a desert one day.
He told the friend, 'In sheer despair, I knelt down and prayed that I should be guided out of the desert.'
The friend was awed by the story and asked, 'So did god answer your prayer?'
The man replied, 'Oh, no! Before that an explorer appeared from nowhere and showed me the way.'
This is how insensitive we are in life! We keep taking everything for granted. If we sensitized ourselves with gratitude, we would never take anything for granted – not our fingers, not our wealth, and not the timely benevolence of Existence. When sensitivity happens, every moment passes in deep awe of the happenings in Existence.