72. *Gratitude and the master*

People ask me, 'Swamiji, what can we do for you in return to show our gratitude to you?'

I tell them, 'The best that you can do for me in return is flower!' That is the best that you can do for me and the best that I can do for you. Understand that. When you internalize these words and make gratitude your being, you have done a lot in return for me.

But, If you feel that you have to do something in return, do some service to society; help others. Help awaken others to the joy that you have discovered. Don't do it out of ego or superiority. Do it for the love of sharing, for the joy of sharing. Give your full energy and enjoy doing it. It will become a joyful meditation for you and an awakening for them.

Every time you feel deep gratitude, you are actually in meditation. So just imagine if you were in gratitude forever! You would be in meditation all the time.

Guaranteed Solutions

Gratitude can never be taught. Of course, the idea of feeling grateful can be told to children when they are young so that they know about it. But it remains social conditioning just like other things, in the same way as you are taught to respect your elders, and to wish your teachers a good day in school. It is just a mechanism of the mind, not an actual feeling inside you.

Even now, be very clear: I am not teaching you to be grateful. I am only trying to create an inner space in you wherein you will feel what I am saying; wherein it will become your own experience. The energy behind my words can create that space in you, that's all.

Whenever you are given freedom, you become a better individual and you are ready to open up. When you are under psychological slavery, it becomes difficult for you to explore and find your inner space.

I always tell people that I am a liberating Guru! I give tremendous freedom when working on people. Only then it becomes easy for them to explore and evolve.

Of course, I am not telling parents that they should give their children complete freedom and watch them without interfering. I am only saying that psychological slavery should be avoided. Just create the conditions for children to evolve. Take the necessary precautions, no doubt, but allow them to experience the truth for themselves instead of stuffing it down their throats. Give them enough space to grow and experience their inner bliss.

Sometimes people ask me, 'Swamiji, how is it that you are so blissful all the time!'

Masters are always in an ecstatic state because of the deep state of gratitude that just continuously bubbles in them; because they are in communion with Existence all the time!

When you feel gratitude only towards me, or just towards anyone else, you miss the whole. Gratitude is not a beam that is directed in a controlled manner towards appropriate people. It is a fragrance. When you wear it, it simply radiates from you. That is why a master appears so blissful all the time. A master is like a fragrance that you can experience and enjoy! That is why you are drawn here again and again!

Understand that every moment is beautiful, if you are ready to receive and see it. It is not only when we are celebrating a function or we have seen success, or we have achieved something, that the moment is beautiful.

Every single moment is beautiful because Existence simply flows spontaneously and joyfully and all events happen in synchronicity all the time. When you understand this, nothing will ever seem 'wrong' to you. You will then wonder what people are complaining about all the time!

When you feel gratitude towards Existence, the whole of Existence becomes a temple to you. Then you are in a prayerful and meditative mood anywhere you are. You no longer need to go to temples and pray. You simply merge with the whole and feel blissful all the time.

When the whole of Existence becomes a temple, the trees, the sky, the earth, everything becomes one. When you bow down before it, what can you ask for? You will simply bow down with gratitude for being part of the profound Existence, that's all.

When this happens, you can relate to the trees, to the sky, to the earth and to everything else. You then move from communication, which is a language of the mind, to communion, which is the language of the heart. You then shift your center from your mind to your heart.