Attitude of Gratitude

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Repost: Attitude of Gratitude

My greater intention at all times is simply to open more and more to love and joy - my essential nature and cling to nothing, "nothing," my true home. In the service of love-Bliss there is an underlying attitude to which the ego is to be trained or entrained to emulate - to come into resonance with. It is an attitude of gratitude. This opens the door to a fuller expression of the Self, the Most High, Lord of Hosts.

Every experience is a gift - from Life itself. Unlike social gift giving, the gifts of Life are not to be kept or hoarded. They are to be passed on, circulated and returned to their ever renewing source condition.

Naked we came into the world and naked we leave. As Spirit we are clothed in memories, knowledge, and emotional addictions which obscure or essence. As is advised in the Gospel of Thomas, "… take off your clothes without being ashamed and put them under your feet like the little children and tread on them, then you shall behold the Son of the Living One and shall not fear." - perceiving then what your is your destiny, rebirth as the Divine child, a magical child, without judgments, without the baggage of the storybook past we identify with as adults.

Similar to the Four Agreements as described by Ruiz, I ask of the "grown up" ego - my personal identity - that it commit to giving thanks for the experience of life as it comes, moment to moment. This is not presently the ego's preferred mode of being in the world. There are reactive emotions and unlimited arguments why "I" should not be thankful. To which - when attuned to my higher Self - I answer, "thank you, I love you!"

Hubbard describes "thank you" as a completion for any two way communication. It is as the period at the end of a sentence. A marker from which to move on. When you say thank you, you do affirm the "other," yet in so doing neither agree nor disagree with a viewpoint. There is no argument, simply a closure by acknowledgement and perhaps an opening, pregnant for unfettered release of love and enjoyment, a possibility of communion.

There is always something to be thankful for. You do not even need to know what it is. Used as a kind of mantra, say "thank you" and then simply listen into the silence, stare into the world containing space, feel into the unity of continuity and change which appears as time. Something good is likely to pop into mind in the midst of your present experience and in response to the affirmation of gratitude. Even if that goodness is to catch yourself being pessimistic or argumentative! That is the perfect setup for letting it go, to return the gift back to its source, back to emptiness of pure potential, a potential for transformation through the mysterious operation of the Universe and its Law of Love.

At breakfast this morning where I wrote this, I say thank you as I drink my coffee, savor it as awareness becomes present to the taste, and this returns me to joy. I say thank you to the egg I eat and I open in love for the gift of its sacrifice for my sustenance. I think of the chicken farms and ask forgiveness for any suffering my participation in the act of eating may have caused and ask permission to absorb its life force into me that together we shall continue the walk of conscious evolution. This fills me with more love and gratitude. (OK, so now you know I'm crazy : )

As I do these simple things I notice my internal energy changes, that indeed this is a mental yoga of high order. I become lighter inside and my own light of consciousness begins to permeate the environment of the cosmos more and more. And more there is to be grateful for. And more beauty to behold, more love to circulate and more Bliss to unfold me into realization of Truth.

And the ego becomes servant, hardly noticing that it is participating in its own reactive undoing. It becomes thoughtlessly infatuated with the presence of love-bliss in its spontaneous arising, which seems to rain down upon it. Ego too becomes aware of a different kind of power, a power of faith. The recurring sense of struggle disappears from life little by little. In time, it is as if the ego becomes gratitude - a remarkable thing this - a confirmation that everything has its proper place and function and that when it is found all things do work for the good.

It is a subtle error to try and love from the ego. That is not its place or function. That is in part the failure of religion. Love is of G-d and is G-d, The Self of all selves operative in the world of duality. Ingratitude is among the first signs of the self's alienation from the Self in the unfolding process of involution and evolution. When the "I" is thankful, it basks in the glory of the "I AM" singing holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts (Isaiah 6:1-8).

© Arjay 2008, 2009