Once a self-help term becomes shopworn, it needs to be refreshed. I think this is true of terms like faith, compassion, unconditional love and gratitude. Let me address the last one. How is gratitude a useful expression of spirituality? No one argues that it makes others feel good if you are grateful, but is that useful to their personal growth and yours? Many people find it much easier to give than to receive, for example, which makes it hard for them to feel grateful when they are on the receiving end of a gift, favor, appreciation or love. They look embarrassed and uncomfortable instead.
Until we get to the bottom of why gratitude is so hard, we cannot really understand what gratitude actually is. A few points need to be made.
These points focus on gratitude as a state where "I, me and mine" has been set aside. In a grateful state you are vulnerable, as the ego sees it. In reality, this feeling of openness must exist in order to receive grace, love, beauty and inspiration. More than one painter and composer has thanked God formally, knowing that there is a higher source -- something beyond the isolated individual -- that brings inspiration. There is a spiritual reason for such a sense of receiving from "on high," and it doesn't need to involve God or religion.
I'm talking about connection, feeling joined to and upheld by a higher intelligence. "Intelligence" is a more neutral word than God, and to me a more appropriate one, because we all possess intelligence, and if it suddenly expands or brings us an unexpected gift (such as insight, inspiration, a creative leap), it's only natural to feel grateful. You know at those special moments that something beyond your control has made itself known. The ego dislikes this loss of control, which is why you see people frown when surprised by a sudden gift or even the unexpected words, "I love you."
So the state of open receptivity needs to exist before gratitude has any spiritual usefulness; that connection is precious. Of course, there is polite gratitude, a social gesture that is nice in its own way. There is the gratitude of survivors who have narrowly missed death and disaster. There is passing gratitude for getting satisfaction from extra money, status, possessions and praise. All of these things count, but not nearly as much as gratitude for your very existence.
That kind of gratitude is truly spiritual, since it sets up a feedback loop -- the more grateful you are, the more your soul can give. Herein lies a trap, however. I recently caught a TV thriller set in a prison where a convict tells the warden that he is spiritual but not religious. The warden asks him to explain. "You can speak your mind," he says, and the convict replies, "Spirituality is for those seeking understanding. Religion is for those seeking reward." If you use gratitude as a ploy to get more gifts and gains (We are all guilty of this at one time or another), you are not experiencing a soul connection but an imitation set up by the ego. The ego is always out to get more, and if gratitude oils the machinery, all the better.
Will gratitude help you form a soul connection? This isn't a "fake it until you make it" issue. Gratitude, being a virtue, does help to put the ego in its place. A few moments of humility is all to the good, for anyone. But in a way your discomfort when being at the receiving end will prove more useful, because it indicates that you have obstacles and resistances to move inside yourself -- if you can resist sweeping your embarrassment under the rug but use it instead for self-examination, then the true bonding with your higher self begins.
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Why Living a Life of Gratitude Can Make You Happy :zenhabits
TEDxSF - Louie Schwartzberg - Gratitude - YouTube
Spirituality & Practice: Spiritual Practice Homepage: Gratitude
Thank you for sharing your spiritual teachings and life lessons, I am truly grateful!
-Lorraine Miller
nourishbynature.com
Showing gratitude is different though. A spirit of gratitude lasts 24/7. That has been more challenging for me.
I also realized reading this that it is a gift to receive with gratitude. This allows the one who gives to do some of their inner work. Many deny others that opportunity believing it is only in giving that we grow as people.
Muhammad, pbuh, used to encourage giving gifts to each other. He would gratefully accept them and give in return. I see that now with more depth. Its not just how he gave the gifts, but also how he allowed others to give them to him.
Peace be with all.
I've been thinking a lot about the other end of the equation, that is, how to be more effective when faced with ingratitude. I'd love to share my thoughts with you someday!
Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries
www.thechakras.org
When we speak or write, we use the vehicles of words to carry meaning, as well as energy, from ourselves to another person or group of people that creates waves in the same way that a note of music creates waves. And like musical notes, our words live in communities of other words and change in relation to the words that surround them. When we are conscious of the energy behind our words, we become capable of making beautiful music in the world. If we are unconscious of the power of words, we run the risk of creating a noisy disturbance.
Some of us know this instinctively, while others come to this understanding slowly. Most of us, though, speak without thinking at least some of the time, blurting out our feelings and thoughts without much regard for the words we choose to express them. When we remind ourselves that our words have an impact on the world at the level of energy, we may find within ourselves the desire to be more aware of our use of language. Hearing the voice of Jesus accepts that of our true power of knowing that he exists in other time dimensions, as our energy of divine love is so very powerful, in sharing our gratitude, as co.-creators of his love.
"Many people find it much easier to give than to receive, for example, which makes it hard for them to feel grateful when they are on the receiving end of a gift, favor, appreciation or love." I would argue that it is not that it is easier to give than receive that underlies most inability to feel grateful when on the receiving end of a gift of some sort. It may be that we feel undeserving of such a gift. It may be that believe the gift to be inappropriate. And so our reaction is embarrassment or discomfort.
This doesn't necessarily correlate to having "obstacles and resistance to move inside yourself", but that sometimes the gift, while perhaps well intentioned, isn't really a gift that we can or want to accept.
And the first thing to understans is that it is not synonymous with "belief."
"Faith" comes down to us from the Greek word "Pistis" which, in classical rhetoric means "proof" or conviction". As the Apostle Paul used it in his epistles it could be translated as "an action based upon a conviction supported by confidence."
You can't actually live without faith. Even when you walk across the room you are exercising faith that you won't fall through the floor because you've walked across it enough times in the past that your conviction that you'll make it across safely is supported by confidence from the past.
So we'll keep that word for a bit. If you don't mind.