Attitude of gratitude
Shivi Verma discovers that if we make expressing gratitude for everything—big and small—a way of life, the Universe responds lovingly with abundance
I consider myself to be a grateful person. You can mostly find me expressing gratitude for whatever I have in life. I have heard many Masters say that gratitude increases the size of your cup of life. The Universe gives you more because it feels that its gifts are valued and appreciated by the receiver.
But I must admit that I have also been sceptical of this belief.
Despite being thankful for many things, I had a feeling that the Universe wasn’t being kind to me on several fronts. And I didn’t know what to do about it except complain to God.
My prayers were increasingly getting full of complaints to the Divine, and deep down, I knew this was not how I was going to change my destiny.
According to the law of attraction, complaints signified a feeling of lack, and the Universe simply reflects the state of your mind to you by repeating your patterns. Though I wanted to be grateful for things that were not working in my life,I could not understand how to be thankful to God for empty cups. It didn’t make sense at all.
My guardian angels understood my dilemma and paved the way for a better understanding of life.
Manoj Lekhi, well-known life-coach and propagator of SSY (Siddha Samadhi Yoga),invited me to a workshop on gratitude. Though I felt there was nothing new that the workshop could offer me, I went because of my deep respect for him, since I have known him from my days in Mumbai.
The hall was choc-a-bloc with people, and Manoj was holding forth very fascinatingly on the topic of gratitude. He gave each of the participants a list of things and told them to tick only those things which were working in their life.
Then he asked the participants to notice if the things they have an abundance of were the same things they have gratitude for. All of us were amazed to notice the accuracy of his words. Indeed, we had gratitude for things that were working in our lives. Then he asked us to observe if we were critical of things that were dysfunctional in our lives. To our dismay, we realised that we did have negative feelings for challenging areas of our lives. He linked the two aspects, proving to us that being in gratitude facilitated the entry of desired things in life.
Manoj taught us to make living in gratitude the attitude of our lives. Right from the time we woke up and looked at ourselves in the mirror, exercised, bathed, had breakfast, got ready, and did our daily chores to the time we went to bed, we had thousands of opportunities to be grateful for. We realised that not even the smallest of things like getting good sleep or waking up in the morning could be taken for granted. Whatever we enjoyed in life was because of Divine grace, and anything could be taken away from us anytime. We learnt to be in gratitude to nature, to friends, family, relatives, technology, health, finances, colleagues, spouse, children, country, government, and what not. The list is endless. We began to inhale gratitude and exhale gratitude. And within two days, the energy shifted enormously. I began to feel a boundless joy emanate from me. I became happy once again. It also shifted the energy of people around me. And within a few days, blockages began to disappear, and new paths began to open up. I am excited to see where else this attitude of gratitude can lead me.