Gratitude Is The Greatest Attitude

Again and again people ask me, Swamiji, when I have so many problems, how can I be grateful?' See, we continuously pray, 'Oh God, please give me a diamond ring.' Do we feel grateful that He gave us this finger to wear the ring? No! The finger is not our birthright. There are thousands of people who don't have hands or fingers. It's not our birthright.

We continuously pray intensely, in all possible ways, 'Oh God, give me this. Oh God, give me that.' But we never feel grateful for the things that are showered on us. This very life is a blessing!

Can we say that our life has been given to us as payments for some job that we did in Vaikunta (abode of Lord Vishnu) or Kailash (abode of Lord Shiva)? No! It's not as if we worked for one hundred years in Kailash, and earned a check that says, 'Alright, have seventy years of life.' If we work in that army, they give us money to study. It's not like that; we did not get life as a salary. It's a pure blessing showered on us.

Every breath is a blessing! This very life is a blessing. Continuously we miss things that are not part of our possession. But we never experience the things that are showered on us by the Divine.

Each of us has a big list of things that God has not given us and we also have a big list of things that God has given us. If you take a paper and pen and start writing these lists, both lists will be endless. Every moment of our life is a gift from the Divine.

If we honestly list the things that are not given to us, it will be an endless, infinite list. If we earnestly make a list of the things given to us, that will