The Power of Gratitude!

Hello all,

Namaste! All of you, my dear blog readers, know about my website-swaroopa.net. I have started my business, Swaroopa store, which can be accessed from Shop tab on my website, for Souls who are interested in a personal reading. There is also the Swaroopa Store link, on my blog's left side. Now to the post.

Thursday was Thanksgiving in the USA. I was planning to write about personal truth and just before I got up to write, the title- Power of gratitude, flashed within my mind. So, I decided to change the title and started writing about gratitude.

Before that, I want to wish all my blog readers, a Happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for reading and enjoying my blog. If there is no one to read, there is no point in me writing as well. Thank you! Let us also thank from our deepest heart. our parents who gave us birth, so that we got a chance at tackling our Dharma and Karma. Then, let us thank all the Souls, who have agreed to walk along with us on this life to give us company and above that our ancestors and spiritual guides who are guiding us from the other side. Finally, let us thank, Brahman-The Universe for giving us a chance to live a very worthwhile, content and joyful life. We, as a Soul has no idea, how blessed we are to get a chance at life in this material realm. Who knows, after this chance, we may have to wait for eons as Souls for another chance. So, why not we consider our own life, very precious and thank the Universe from the bottom of our heart? Thank you! Thank you! Thank You!🙏

Gratitude! According to Wikipedia, "Gratitude is from the Latin word gratus ‘pleasing, thankful’, is a feeling of appreciation felt by and/or similar positive response shown by the recipient of kindness, gifts, help, favors, or other types of generosity, towards the giver of such gifts". As of this moment, we are finding ourselves in this material realm, I writing this blog post and you are reading it. Now, think of the 1,417,153 Souls, who didn't get a chance, to see this day or this moment due to Covid-19, at this time of my writing this sentence. We are still here, living, isn't it? That is something to be Thankful for.

Thank You
Image credits - Pixabay.com

How many of us, truly appreciate the life, we have been given. We take almost everything for granted, whether our life, our breath, our body, all the beautiful relationships in our life and everything that comes with it.  In this blog post, I remember, I have written about gratitude and thankfulness before, but not as a separate blog post, I guess. Don't think differently. I am in the same company. I also have many times taken my life and talents, for granted. I would like to narrate a story from my own life, here. 

This was in early 1991. I come from the city of Kochi in Kerala. I had just finished my B.Sc. in Zoology. I wanted to join M.Sc., but not Zoology, as it had a lot of pencil sketch called record drawing, Instead, I wanted to join something specialized like Biotechnology or Life Sciences. So, to pray to the Divine to make it into such a course, I used to go to the temple of the Goddess nearby called Chottanikkara, very famous temple, whenever I felt like. I will tell my Mom, I am going to the temple and go by the bus.

But I didn't get a chance to join an M.Sc. for the next 6-10 months. I became angry with the Goddess and declared to my Mother, "I am not going to the temple anymore. I am not getting admission anywhere." My Mom who is even more spiritual than me, scolded and said, "You should not play games with the Goddess and she knows, what she is doing". As per my Mom's words, I did get to do three more Masters, but here I am writing about gratitude, due to the blessing and grace of the same Goddess. So, many times, as a human, we have no idea how, why and where we are taken, in our life. But there is always a higher plan at play.

But if we care to trust in a higher truth, our life indeed would meander like a river through experiences and circumstances to find ourselves in the very best space we can be, in our own life. But the biggest hurdle for this is, our own deep distrust to our own life. This life taught me with a whiplash of experiences. So, let me elaborate on the deep distrust we have.

Distrust of humanity: We, as human beings are deeply distrustful of ourselves and our own life. We were not like this, when we were toddlers and youth. We used to deeply trust ourselves and our intuition. But once we get to the school age, our social conditioning starts. Here, the fault is because, the natural tendencies and talents of the kids are many times, fully ignored and they are put into an schooling system, where only things that matter to the society are taught. 

I am not saying schooling and education are not important. They are. But the natural talents and skill sets of the kids should be accommodated, while they are pursuing a worthwhile education. For example, I have learnt 30 years of biology, but finally what is helping me, towards a thriving career is my own natural gifts. The school and education system should change where school and college become avenues that are bringing out more of the natural gifts and talents of the kids, not the other way around. Yes, indeed the education system is catching up, but we have millions of miles to traverse. I can today say, looking back, I never felt the exhilaration and joy I feel for this career in my previous biotech career. Yes, it gave me happiness, but never this kind of innate joy. Very different energy dynamics.

Different faces of humanity
Image credits - Pixabay.com

So, around 14-15 years of age, we as humanity become deeply distrustful of our own innate inklings and insights. This distrust cuts us off, from the guidance of our heart and intuition. Now, the only thing, that is there to guide us is the mind. Let us take, the same computer analogy. Suddenly we are finding just with our RAM (Random Access Memory). We have no connection with our CPU- Central Processing Unit or the files that keep all our spiritual gifts and other non-physical guidance. Now, just with the RAM or rational mind, we are a balloon going all over our life. No intentions, goals or deep stability within the life.

We can see the after-effects in our young and even old, who are knocking the doors of psychologists, getting addicted to drugs, electronics, drinks or just wasting our time in some random activities, that don't add any value to our own life. This makes us lost to our own humanity. Once, we lose touch with our own humanness, we lose the touch with others as well. Suddenly a whole lot of societal problems are the after-effects. We can see how, humanity is fighting as us versus them, infidel versus believer and my group versus they. Who is this my group and others? 

When we take our sight from our small reality and project it to the global reality, who is us and they? All of us are in this same globe, breathing the same air and drinking the same water, one world and one globe. Instead of trying to fix global issues like climate change, the rising heat index, the pollution of the Earth, the contamination of our rivers and resources, we are sitting in our own small illusory world, fighting as us versus them. When Earth becomes as hot as Venus, there will be no us and there would be no them. Same way, there would be no believer and no infidel.

This shows basically we are first lost in our own lives and then lost in the world as well. Totally lost! Yes, I found myself in that space in 2015/16, thinking to myself, what is the point of all this, called- life, living and being finding myself here/ now? Because we have lost touch with our CPU- central possessing unit for our life- our heart, where our code of map for our own life is wired. We, as humanity went into a state of ignoring our own heart. Living from the heart, following our Dharma, brings deep contentment and joy to our lives. 

As a group, we have become deeply distrustful of our own hearts, emotions and humanity. That brings all the problems we find within our lives and the world. This truth was revealed to me in 2017 and I understood why in my own life, I was finding no joy and contentment. Now, I understand the difference between just living and living with a purpose. Huge difference! Our intentions, thoughts and emotions become aligned around a central purpose of our life, that brings deep meaning to our life.

Inner trust: This brings us back to the concept that we should live our life from our heart and intuition, following our Dharma. Each of us has a specific Dharma. This purpose can be very small or very big. Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln had huge purpose in this world. Not everyone has such a mighty purpose. Some may just have to live a very worthy, valuable life. This brings us to the point, called value.

Value! It makes all the difference. How much do we value ourselves, our lives and our talents? First we lose our own connection to our heart and intuition. This makes us to live from our mind. There is a huge difference between living from heart  or mind. It is in the heart, our own higher Self is placed. So, living from this Self, brings us our own value. The "I am" within us. But as we are leaving our heart behind, this essence is lost. This leads the mind to takes over.

Inner light of the heart
Image credits - Pixabay.com

But the mind can't find the value, as that is wired within the heart. Now, we try to find value with our mind. Everything we do in our life is to find this innate value, to be something, to have some meaning for our life. Whether it is education, skills, career, job, jewelry, dress or electronic gadgets, something that makes us more valued. By virtue of living in the mind, within ourselves, if we find a huge hole of non-value, can we accessorize that with jewelry or electronic watches? No.

Katha Upanishads says, "In the inner realm, sits both the mind as well as the heart with the Self. The mind drinks from the inner fountain of perception and divides experiences as sweet or bitter. But the Self, sitting within the heart partakes everything as experiences without dividing them as sweet or bitter". True, isn't it. Living from the mind and intellect, we humans have divided everything as good or bad, evil or good, dark or white, positive or negative. All these are just stimulus that come through our senses and is interpreted by the brain and later perceived by the mind, is it not? In truth, is anything bad or good, negative or positive, black or white?

This is where humans has lost its way. We are intellectualizing everything and have lost our own humanity. Now, we knock at the doors of doctors or psychologists, trying to figure out a way for ourselves. The true medicine for us, is to live from our heart with the help of the mind, rather than just to live from the mind. But to live from the heart, other outer support need to be restricted. The guidance is within, with our higher Self.

Here, we come face to face with the issue of inner trust. How much can we trust ourselves? Remember, all of us as toddlers used to deeply trust ourselves. But somewhere along the way, we lost trust in ourselves and started trusting others more than ourselves. We need to find the way back to this inner trust- our own heart and intuition. People who have made big waves in this world, have trusted themselves deeply. They would listen to the viewpoints and perspectives of others. Most definitely. But they also deeply trust themselves, as they know, their own guidance for their life comes from within.

Gratitude: When we realize this and start to live with a deep inner trust, our own mindset changes. We don't have to figure things out. Until now, we have been trying to figure out things with our mind. This is a huge mental chase. Always thinking- "What should I do? How should I go about it? What is the best way? How can I take the best advantage of all the opportunities"? Mental exercise-big time. The person themselves becomes deeply mentally tired. How can we really do anything, while we are always trying to figure out something? For example, if we are always trying to figure out, how to drive a car, can we really drive? No. One day, we just have to take charge, have inner trust, we would do the very best and drive.

This is the same with life as well. As long as we are trying to figure out how to live, we are missing the living itself. Because living happens in the essence and moments of the experiences. When we try to figure it out, the essence and the flavor is lost. This is the difference between living from the mind and the heart. The heart understands the essence of the experience itself. In the smile of a child, the freshness of a flower, the niceness of a breeze, the coziness of a cat/pet, the depth of an experience. But mind cannot figure it out. It wants to analyze, make clarity of the data, it is receiving.

The gift called life
Image credits - Pixabay.com

Of course, mind definitely has a place. But that place comes after the heart, to figure out how to do the thing, the heart suggests. For example, my heart said, you need to share your gifts. That is it. How? The way, my mind had to figure out. I had many options available. Heart had no say in it. It just said- "Share, your spiritual gifts". Now, my mind had to figure out- okay, a blog and Quora answers. Yes, mind definitely has a place. But first the why from the heart should lead to how from the mind.

But people confuse this, why and how and allow the mind to figure it all out. The mind becomes a confused mess as the why is always provided by the heart. Once we understand this concept, we get a grip on our own life. Things start to become clear. We find a deep joy and innate meaning in our own life. A life of value. Nothing comes near to it. I have spend my time on both sides-of mental chase as well as that of inner trust. The difference is night and day.

Here in this space, we can actually relax and start enjoying our life. The figuring out of the life, we have given to our higher Self. The easier way of living. We, slow down to enjoy and experience our life itself. Life takes on a meandering pace. Actually, I used to have such a life until my 15 years, through my school days. Then, suddenly life took on a busyness. I guess, I switched from heart to mind based living around the age of fifteen. Then it took me, another thirty three years to comeback to a heart-based living. What a tragedy!

So, it matters how we live our life. We want deep joy and meaning to our life, we should bring our heart into the picture. This brings deep contentment and joy. We find the life we have been provided to be deeply enriching. That leads to a space of gratitude and happiness. What was the chance that we, as a Soul find ourselves among 7billion+ Souls? If we truly realize, our chances are actually very less. Very very less.

We could have never formed as an embryo, we could have become aborted as a fetus, we could have died at a young age, we could have finished our life as a youth/ teenager or we could even have died due to the Covid-19. But with all these perils working against us, we are still here. I writing this blog and you, my dear blog reader, reading it. Think in those terms. Think, how many are there physically, mentally or psychologically handicapped? We could have been one of them, isn't it? Not able to understand or comprehend, even one word or a sentence?

Think! The gift of life, that too a deeply fulfilling, joyful and enriching life, is not a small thing. It is a treasure chest of grace! Not everyone gets to enjoy that blessing. But as of now you and I have been given that gift. The thing that makes it happen our own breath, life and body. Mind only comes later. The second our breath and by virtue of it our life, comes to a grinding halt, all the other thing we take as important comes to a stand still. The things that we always take for granted-our own breath, life and body, comes to the front and center!

The power of gratitude
Image credits - Pixabay.com

So, give that central thing deep value and gratitude. Our own breath, life and body. Any second any one of these gets broken, all the other things become pretty much useless. That too in this year 2020, the pandemic has brought this truth to our focus. How much are we grateful to the life on this beautiful Earth we have been provided? May be time to rethink our human mindset and strategy?

Do we have the awareness to realize, this human life is very fleeting, evanescent and can be take away from us in a second, that too in this year, were millions are struggling to breathe. Today is Thanksgiving in the US. The most apt day to think about the value called gratitude. How much are we grateful to our own life that provides us value, life, as well as knowledge and wisdom through many beautiful and hard experiences? How much grateful are we? The Power of Gratitude!😊

I wish you a good and safe weekend, and I'll see you next Friday!😉

Next week: Personal truth!
Image Credits - Wikimedia Commons, Pixabay.