Gratitude is Enough!🔗

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 India, 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 von 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.

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.

The first thing we need to understand is that no person has taken birth only to serve us. Every other person is also on the path of life just as we are. As a kind gesture, out of love, they do things for us.

Especially between partners, a lot of things are taken for granted. Somehow, this idea has taken root very deeply in our society. Because of this, many marriages fall apart today. I tell you, even during a physical relationship there can be such deep gratitude for the other person’s body. It will make the whole thing a divine experience instead of mere physical pleasure. When you can derive so much pleasure because of the other, why not feel gratitude towards the other for it? If the other is deeply respected from the beginning, many marriages can be saved.

A small story: One man prayed to god, "Oh lord, please have mercy on me. I work so hard while my wife stays at home. She enjoys staying at home while I slog the whole day. Please grant me a boon whereby I become my wife and she becomes me. I want to teach her a lesson on how tough a man’s life is.

God granted his wish.

The next morning, the man who was now the woman, woke up early in the morning, packed lunch for the children, made breakfast, got the children ready and drove them to school. She then came back and put the clothes in the washing machine, went to the bank and cashed the checks, paid the electricity and phone bills. Next she went to the market and bought some groceries, put the clothes out to dry, picked up the children from school, sorted out all their problems, helped them with their homework, watched television and ironed clothes at the same time. Then she prepared dinner, fed the children, put them to sleep, had dinner and went to bed.

The next morning the man prayed to god again, "Oh lord, I don’t think I can handle this tomorrow. I beg you to please switch me back to a man.

God replied, "Of course I will switch you back to yourself but you will have to wait nine months because you are now carrying a child!"

Each individual plays an equal part in life. No one should be taken for granted. There has to be some gratitude for every person on planet earth. I always tell people that even if things don’t work out between you and your wife and you have to part, part with gratitude.

The problem is that somewhere we feel people are waiting to hurt us. It is not so. It is only our own insecurity which we project on others.

So many people feel ungrateful to their parents and society for conditioning them in certain ways. Please understand that with the intelligence that you have now, you are able to see that you did not

receive the right kind of mental setup earlier. Those who gave us this body and mind did not have any intention to deprive us or disturb us in any way. Whatever they knew as their best, they just gave to us; that's all. We are going beyond it now because we have become more intelligent. Just feel grateful to them, that is enough. One more thing: whenever you feel truly grateful to the people in your relationships, you will never try to possess them. You will look at them as beautiful individuals and leave it at that. Possessiveness happens only when you think of the other person as an object and not as an individual. With gratitude, you will allow the person to have his or her own space.

Decide consciously that you will respond with pure love and gratitude for the next couple of days, whatever the situation may be. Automatically you will start seeing each and every person as a unique creation of Existence, as a reflection of the Divine.

Not only that, you will find tremendous compassion towards everything around you. If you were a person who gets angry easily, you will find the anger disappearing. All the energy that was invested in other negative emotions will get released with this growing gratitude. You will be a compassionate and loving person.

A small story: A middle aged woman suffered a heart attack and was taken to the hospital. While on the operating table, she had a near death experience. During the experience, she happened to see god. She asked him if this was the end of her life.

God replied that she had another thirty or forty more years to live.

Once she recovered, she decided to stay in the hospital to undergo multiple surgeries such as a face lift, jaw reconstruction, a nose job and removal of excess fat. She also colored her hair. She thought that since she was going to live for thirty more years, she would start with a fresh look. She finished the surgeries and was about to walk out of the hospital when she was run over by the hospital ambulance and killed. She arrived before god and asked him, "God, I thought you told me I had another thirty years to live."

God replied, "Sorry, but I didn't recognize you"

Each human being is a unique masterpiece of god. That is why no two bodies look alike. God is not an engineer. He is an artist. That is why each of us looks different. If he was an engineer, he would have made us all with the same mold, like in a production line! He has uniquely created each one of us. But we never feel that we are beautiful enough. We constantly compare ourselves with others and try to look like them. We never make our body feel it is beautiful.

Our body is influenced by the thoughts we entertain about it. Every cell responds to our thoughts and feelings about it. If we feel gratitude towards our body, our body responds by improving our health. If we hate our body, the body responds by shrinking with disease. In the Sufi tradition, body gratitude is done as an everyday meditation itself where every part of the body is felt with love and thanked.

One thing has to be understood very clearly. The whole of Existence is an auspicious happening. You are part of Existence, so everything happening around you is also auspicious. This is the truth of

Existence. Nothing that happens in Existence is inauspicious. Everything is only a blessing, for which we have to feel grateful. If this is understood clearly, there is nothing to complain about in life. If this is understood clearly, your very eye becomes a grateful eye. It sees everything as extraordinary. Nothing appears mundane. Everything appears as a miracle.

A small story: One day a duck hunter went to the market to buy a bird retriever dog. To his amazement he found a dog that could walk on water! He immediately took it home.

He invited one of his friends to hunt the next day and took the dog. When a flock of ducks came near, he took aim, fired and silently watched. The dog walked on the water and retrieved the bird. He looked at his friend for a reaction but the friend remained silent. He asked him, "Do you see anything unusual about my dog?" The friend replied, "Yes, your dog is unable to swim."

Miracles are continuously happening in front of our eyes. But we continuously miss them! Only because we miss them, life itself appears to be dull sometimes. When we start perceiving them, our entire life becomes a miracle. The truth is, there are too many miracles happening around us in our lives.

Just accept and celebrate Existence with all its different dimensions and paradoxes. Don't judge anything. You continuously judge what is going on. You feel something is right or something is wrong, something should have happened this way or something should not have happened this way. Become aware that whatever happens in Existence is auspicious. In the whole world there are only two kinds of people. The first kind feels that whatever is happening in the world is auspicious. The second kind feels everything is happening against their will and things have to be slightly altered all the time. Such people will try to alter, judge, criticize and develop the things happening in the world according to their ideas. These people continuously suffer because of trying to change things all the time.

Understand: everything has a message for us including death and disease. Everything has something to teach us. Every incident raises our intelligence, raises our frequency of consciousness.

You need to know one important thing: there is no qualitative or quantitative difference between you and an enlightened being except that he feels contented in the outer and inner worlds while you don't feel that way. You feel something is missing all the time. Just like how Existence wants him to be here on this planet, Existence wants you too to be here. You are not an accident here; you are an incident. You are a miracle of Existence. This is the straightforward and simple truth. Don't think this is positive thinking. No. This is the plain truth. If you trust this truth, you will automatically become positive, that's all.

Understand that you are a fulfillment for Existence. If you are not here, Existence will miss you. All your wealth, relations etc are not an accident. Existence wants you to have all these; it wants to live through you, fulfill itself through you! Understand this.

A small story: There was a certain village isolated and surrounded by acres of cornfields. The city was very far from it, so it remained very quiet. One morning the villagers saw a sage whom they had never seen in the village. He was seated under a banyan tree. They asked him where he came from. He told them, "I have come to spend a few days with all of you whom I consider my own brothers."

The villagers were happy to hear this and built a small hut for him. Soon the sage started healing and solving many problems of the villagers.

Once an epidemic struck the village and killed many birds there. The villagers reported this to the sage. He said, "It is sad that you lost so many birds but if you have faith in Existence and pray, the loss may actually be a matter of gain."

The villagers didn't agree fully with him but since they respected him they went away. The next week, suddenly, all the dogs in the village ran away. The villagers got upset again because the dogs used to guard the village against burglars. They went to the sage and reported this to him. He only repeated his message, "If you have faith in Existence and pray, even this loss may prove to be again."

A few days later a very strange thing happened. In those days, there were no matchboxes. People used to rub two stones together to make fire or keep a fire alive in their ovens continuously. One day, all the fires in all o[the households went out. They tried to start a fire by rubbing stones but nothing happened. They got very disturbed. They went to the sage again and told him what was happening. The sage told them, "It looks like some very special phenomenon is taking place. "

The villagers started doubting the sage. They started wondering in what way the sage was superior to them and whether he was in any way qualified to tell them such things. Some of the villagers proceeded to the next village to get some fire but the sage stopped them, sternly saying that they should not go.

Early next morning'some of the villagers started making their way to the next village anyway. Suddenly they saw something like a sandstorm in the distance. After a few moments they could see it was actually a large invading army on horseback. They were on their way plundering the city and the villages surrounding it. The villagers hid behind trees and watched them. The army stopped ahead of the village and one of them screamed, "Let us invade this village too!"

Another person said, "No use will come out of it. There is no bird that chirps even so early in the morning, no dog barks, no smoke comes out of the chimney of any house. It doesn't look like a single soul lives there."

The army turned back and went away. The hiding villagers ran back to the village and told the villagers what had happened. They suddenly realized how true the sage was all along! They went to the sage"s hut to tell him everything but the hut was empty. The sage had left.

Nobody knew where he had gone. Existence is not an accident. It is independent intelligence. When you understand that it is an independent intelligence, when you understand that it is a profound mystery to be experienced and not solved, everything in your life will open itself and reveal to you the lesson it has brought with it.

Some people ask me, "Swamiji, how do we express our deep gratitude to you?' I tell them that the only way to express their gratitude is to live enlightenment the way I have just described it to you. That is the best you can do for me and that I can do for you. People ask me, 'What service can we do for the mission?' I tell them, the greatest service one can do to the world is working for the flowering of one's own consciousness. Once this happens, automatically, you will serve where required, not out of ego or to gain credit, but because you are celebrating and overflowing. Then it is not called service. It is just an overflowing. That is the way service should happen not as a giving, but as a spontaneous sharing.

Sufism is completely a gratitude-based religion. If I have to reduce the whole of Sufism to one word, it is gratitude. You can see it in all the poems of the great Sufi™ masters like Jalaluddin Rumi' and others. You can see the flowing energy of gratitude in their words. Gratitude makes you a nobody, just flowing energy.

Gratitude is like a fire that can burn all your karmas. What is karma? It is an unfulfilled action on your part that pulls you again and again to fulfill it. In order to fulfill and exhaust all such karmas" that we have accumulated, we take birth again and again on this planet. Just by being with the energy of gratitude, these karmas get burnt! Such is the power of gratitude.

When your prayer becomes gratitude, you attract more benevolence to you. Gratitude is the ultimate prayer that can bring us more than we can imagine. Real prayer is not reading prayer books, it is not offering material things to god, it is not donating money to temples, it is deep and silent gratitude to the whole of Existence for being what it is. It is the undaunted trust that Existence is taking care.

Many people think prayer and gratitude are bondage. No. They are the greatest liberators. They liberate you from the bondage of discontentment. Prayer should be an overflowing of the gratitude and fulfillment in you. Some people ask, 'Why do we go to the temple and pray?' Understand, prayer is a celebration of the benevolence of Existence. When our prayer is this way, Existence responds. When Existence responds, it comes to you as more benevolence in your life. This is the virtuous cycle of prayer and blessing!

I always tell people a wonderful story of a Sufi saint. Sufism is a religion rooted in gratitude. It is nothing but gratitude towards the whole of Existence.

One Sufi saint and his disciples were in their spiritual wandering. They went without food for three days. On the fourth day they were even chased away by the villagers and so they slept in a graveyard that night. The next morning, the saint as usual started to say his prayer of thanksgiving to god. His disciples could not believe their eyes. They had gone without food and shelter for so many days and their master was thanking god. They refused to follow suit.

The disciples asked the saint, "Why should we thank the lord when we were refused food and a place to stay for three days?"

The saint replied, "You have been fed and given a place to stay for thirty years. What about thanking Him for that?"

Prayer is gratitude for the continuous showering of Existence upon us.

Try to sit down and make two lists. Let one be of all the things that you have and one of all the things that you don't have. The first list should include every single thing that you have, starting from your eyes, ears, hands and legs, because there are people who don't have some of these. Include all your physical and mental faculties before moving to material things. If you write very sincerely without leaving out anything, you will not be able to complete the first list! That is the truth. If you find you are unable to finish the first list, it means gratitude has started happening in you!

The problem is that there is a continuous expectation in us all the time. That is why gratitude doesn't happen easily. Working with expectation is like pouring clarified butter into the fire to quench it. Can you quench fire by pouring clarified butter into it? Never! In the same way, you can never feel fulfilled if your actions are rooted in expectation. You will only tire your senses.

You can live either in expectation or in gratitude, never in both. With expectation there is a desire to possess things. You become the owner. With gratitude, you become the enjoyer. When you are the owner you enjoy only the few things that you own. When you are the enjoyer, you enjoy everything in Existence. When you look to own, nothing will seem enough. When you enjoy, everything seems to be overflowing! That is the difference.

A small story: In a village, the night guard was on his rounds blowing his whistle periodically.

He had an earthen pipe that he smoked. He filled it with tobacco and searched for a match box. He didn't have one.

He went to the nearby hut where an old lady lived and asked if she could give him some ember from her oven. The old lady said her stove had not been lit for the past three days and that she herself was managing with the little food they gave in the temple.

He tried in several places but it was of no use. He finally went to the village chief's house and asked the maids for fire to light his pipe.

One of the girls looked at him and asked, "Fire to light your pipe? Why not use the lantern you are carrying? "

The guard couldn't believe his eyes. He had been carrying a lantern all along while searching for a matchbox!

When we believe that what we need is always only outside of us, we live in eternal expectation and we will continue searching like the night guard! When we believe that Existence always gives us what we need, we will find everything within us all the time.

When we work with expectation all the time, we carry a subtle violence in our body language; not deliberate violence, but inherent violence. If we become a little sensitive to our body language, we will be able to catch this.

Watch yourself when you type on the computer, when you handle phone calls, how you place the phone receiver back in its cradle, with what aggression you walk ... everything. You will see that everything carries a subtle violence in it.

With gratitude, your entire body language changes. When you start experiencing deep gratitude, your responses to situations change. You start resonating with Existence. Your body will flow with that resonance, with a cool grace and softness. All your actions will arise Only joy will be flowing. Then anything you out of this grace. There will be no violence. do will only make life sweeter.