One of the challenges of the spiritual life is maintaining the peace, love and joy we experience during meditation, throughout our daily life. All around us we see and feel confusion, commotion, suspicion, greed and aggression. We are part of the world and live in the world: how can we not be affected by the condition of the world?
These forces are especially confronting when they are aimed at us. When we are verbally abused, how are we supposed to remain calm? When we are deceived or betrayed, how are we to retain our heart of love and joy?
It is one thing to have to deal with our own inner weaknesses, which are clearly our responsibility – what of these hostile forces which attack us from outside?
Once while the Buddha was meditating, a person came and started insulting him vehemently. This abuse went on while the Buddha continued meditating. Eventually the person became fed up and turned to leave.
Then the Buddha spoke: “Just wait, please. I have something to ask you. Tell me, when you offer gifts to a person, if he does not accept your gifts, what do you do?”
“I just take them back.”
The Buddha said, “Well, you have been trying to offer me the gifts that you brought with you. Since I have not accepted your gifts, you are taking them back with you.”
It is up to us, whether to accept any ‘gift’ which is offered to us. The moment we accept a gift, it becomes ours. When we react to anger directed at us, that same anger flows through and consumes us, as also with doubt, fear, jealousy, suspicion. Our consciousness plummets, our day is destroyed.
To maintain your poise, be very careful which gifts you accept.
We are children of Heaven, and creatures of earth; spiritual beings playing our roles in a material world, at once Heaven-free and earth-bound.
Everything in the physical realm is subject to the laws of physics. No law more characterises planet Earth, than gravity. Gravity tethers all matter to this place, dictates how it behaves, and forbids its escape.
Just as gravity holds all matter in its grasp, so desire binds humans to all that we desire – material possessions, wealth, influence, power, name and fame. The objects of desire are the equivalent of the Earth’s gravity, binding us to their sphere and forbidding our pleas for freedom. Like gravity, desire tethers us to a life of servitude, dictates how we behave, and forbids our escape.
For a rocket to defy gravity to break free from the earth’s atmosphere, requires a stupendous force of concentrated propulsion. Even so, for a human to break free from attachment to desires and desire-fulfilment, demands a stupendous concentrated force of spiritual aspiration.
This is no easy task. Gravity is indispensable to the functioning of life on earth. It cannot simply be bypassed. Gravity shapes and holds the world together, and with it, all life forms: mineral, plant, animal and human. So too, desire is essential in the maintenance of human life as we know it: without the desire to survive, to eat and reproduce, none of us would be here.
Yet we are our immortal soul, ever blissful, ever free. We know and we feel this. No matter how mighty the truth of desire-gravity, our soul’s imperative for liberation is mightier and mightiest.
Desire condemns us to our spiritual death. Aspiration is the only release from this sentence, the rocket to launch us once for all beyond desire-atmosphere into the liberation stratosphere.
“My own gratitude-heart
Is all
That matters.”
– Sri Chinmoy
When all is said about gratitude, when all is written, all is felt and experienced, this simple aphorism remains: a stark, unassailable fire-pure revelation of absolute truth.
When we feel gratitude in our heart, when gratitude grows and blossoms within our heart, when we enter into our gratitude-heart, then all else is left behind and obliterated – we become our gratitude-heart.
Our gratitude-heart is enormous, and when we become our gratitude-heart, we become enormous. Initially we do not realise how enormous – the deeper we enter into our gratitude-heart, the vaster we become, till we realise we have merged with the infinite.
Our gratitude-heart universe is brighter than the sun, deeper than the ocean, vaster than the sky. In this ever-expanding, ever-blossoming, ever-smiling, ever-dancing, ever-creating and ever-transcending infinitude, there is simply no room for darkness in any form: no doubt, no fear, insecurity, confusion or jealousy, no frustration, hatred, impurity or delusion. Here is absolute safety, perfect clarity, total certainty, utmost felicity.
Our gratitude-heart knows it is in safe hands, knows it is being guided and carried to the ultimate goal, knows all its needs are taken care of, all its aspirations fulfilled. To live in our gratitude-heart, to become our gratitude-heart is its own reward, and more.
Our gratitude-heart is ever-transcending. Our gratitude-heart alone knows it is our most precious possession, most treasured gift and highest blessing. For a gratitude-heart to be aware of itself is automatically to deepen and transcend itself, as a continually plunging, upwardly-spiralling, ever-expanding self-fulfilment. To experience our gratitude-heart is to become the beauty and fragrance of our gratitude-heart; to become our gratitude-heart is to offer our gratitude-heart; to offer our gratitude-heart is to become our ever deeper, purer, more complete and most sublime perfection-satisfaction.
One question which every spiritual seeker faces, is “Why is it sometimes so difficult to get into a meditative state?” Here is Sri Chinmoy’s answer:
“Now, how is it that every day we cannot meditate well? We cannot meditate well because we do not renew early in the morning our love, our devotion, our surrender to the eternal Pilot in us. Every day the eternal Pilot feeds our inner hunger. For an aspirant, spiritual food is more necessary than material food. Still we do not offer our deepest gratitude to the Inner Pilot even for one second.
“The divine secret is this: the very act of praying, of concentrating, of meditating is a great sign of divine Grace. So, early in the morning, before you start meditation, try to offer your gratitude in the form of love, devotion and surrender to the Guru, to the Supreme, to the Inner Pilot just because He has given you the aspiration to meditate. Aspiration comes first. Your meditation will be the result of the aspiration which the Inner Pilot has given you.
“A time will come when you will not have to meditate; meditation itself will meditate for you. That is to say, after some time you will be one with the consciousness of meditation. Now you are crying to enter into the consciousness of meditation, but a day will come when meditation will be pleased with you. It will take care of your outer life and your inner life.
“So, to come back to your question, every day before you start your meditation, offer your gratitude in the form of love, devotion and surrender to the Supreme. Then, I can assure you, not even one day will you fail to have a golden meditation.”
– Sri Chinmoy
The following is compiled from Sri Chinmoy’s answers to various questions about the art of surrender, how we can learn surrender, and how we can have grateful surrender:
“Surrender itself is an art, the supreme art. How will you learn this art of surrendering? It is through gratitude.
“The moment you have the feeling that you are chosen, you try to develop the capacity to express your gratitude to the Supreme, to the Inner Pilot, for His inner guidance. Then automatically surrender comes. You feel that with the inner guidance you are everything and without the inner guidance you are nothing…
“You can have grateful surrender to the Will of the Supreme if you can just feel that not only is He doing everything for you, but He has already done everything for you. We show our gratitude to someone who has done something for us or who is going to do us a favour in the long run. Every day, while you are offering your gratitude to the Supreme and your surrender to the Will of the Supreme, please feel that everything that is fulfilling, everything that makes you a perfect instrument of the Supreme, has already been done for you.
“When you think of grateful surrender, please feel that everything has been accomplished by the Supreme, for you and in you. When you read the book of universal knowledge, you have only to turn the pages; the book has already been read by the Supreme. It is His book and He has also given you the knowledge. The only effort you have to make is to turn the pages and feel that the Divine Supreme has already read the book. He has not read it for Himself; He has read it only for you.”
– Sri Chinmoy
In this illumining passage, Sri Chinmoy tells how to make our spiritual surrender practical:
“If surrender is forced, then always it will be in the world of theory. But if it is spontaneous and unconditional, if it is coming cheerfully from the depths of our heart, then automatically it becomes practical.
“How do we make our surrender practical? There is a simple and, at the same time, effective way. Before we pray and meditate, if we offer our soulful gratitude to the Inner Pilot, then our surrender becomes practical. Why does it become practical? It becomes practical because inside our gratitude-light we see the Supreme’s infinite Compassion. When we develop gratitude, we expand our reality. And when we expand our reality, love blossoms petal by petal inside us and we become inseparably one with God’s Will. When we are inseparably one with God’s Will, our surrender becomes cheerful.
“In spiritual surrender we have to feel that we are surrendering to our own highest Reality. It is not to somebody else, a third person, but to our own highest Reality. Right now we feel that our self is a tiny drop. Why? Because we have separated our existence from the mighty ocean. As long as we maintain our sense of separativity, we will not dare to enter into the ocean. If we take the theoretical approach and feel that the ocean in front of us will always remain vast, then we will always remain the drop. But when we are very practical, we just dive and throw our existence into the ocean and become one with it. Then, on the strength of our feeling of oneness, we enter into the ocean and lose our little, limited individuality and personality and become the infinite ocean itself.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“My God-gratitude-heart
Makes everything sweet
In my life.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Our heart’s gratitude
Produces a sleepless energy
Which helps us bring about success
In each and every aspect of our life.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“To roar
With a lion-strength,
We must soar
In our God-gratitude-heart-sky.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“What enables us to see God?
Definitely not our capacity-strength,
But our heart’s gratitude-length.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“A moment of gratitude offered to God is an hour of most intense meditation on God.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Our heart’s gratitude
Is the measure
Of our spiritual progress.”
– Sri Chinmoy
These beautiful poems and aphorisms celebrate the unparalleled beauty, sweetness, power and strength of gratitude. So significant and essential is this quality, the burning question for us all must surely be: How can we access and bring forth gratitude from within? Sri Chinmoy’s answer to this question is disarmingly simple:
“It is through the constant inner cry. We cry outwardly when we desperately need name, fame, outer capacity, prosperity and so forth. But when we cry inwardly, we have to feel that we are crying only to please and fulfil God in His own Way. The outer cry is for our own fulfilment, in our own way. The inner cry is for God-fulfilment in God’s own Way. If there is a constant inner cry, that means we are trying to please God, satisfy God and fulfil God in God’s own Way. If we can cry inwardly, in silence, then our gratitude increases, because inside the inner cry is the abode of gratitude, and inside the abode of gratitude is God.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Nothing else is perfect
And
Nothing else can ever be perfect
Except the soulful cry
Of our fruitful gratitude-heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Gratitude
Is by far the best
Attitude.”
– Sri Chinmoy
When asked, “What is the power that brings down God’s Presence in all our actions?” Sri Chinmoy replied:
“There are two powers that bring down God into all our actions and multifarious activities. One power is our gratitude-power. Always we have to offer our gratitude to God for everything that we do, for everything that we have become. The other power is the power of seeing God in others. If we don’t see God in others, if we only see God in ourselves, then we will not be successful. We have to see divinity inside everybody, even inside our worst enemy. Let us see inside our enemy the Presence of God. God’s Presence is everywhere. But if we deny His Presence inside a particular thing, then that thing will eventually attack.
“Right now God’s Presence is not sufficiently operating in the mind, whereas inside the heart it is operating most powerfully. So from where it is operating most powerfully we have to carry it elsewhere. Everyone and everything has a soul. Even a bench has a soul. If we can feel the presence of the soul inside the bench, then we will never feel that we are without God.
“So there are two powers that can keep us always one, inseparably one with God’s Reality. One is our constant offering of gratitude. The other is the power to see in others the things that we see inside ourselves. If we see and feel that we are God’s instrument, then we have to feel that he and she are equally God’s instruments. In this way we can feel that God is constantly operating in and through us. Then we remain in the same highest level of consciousness while participating in God’s cosmic Game.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“There are many roads
That lead to our Destination.
Our gratitude-heart-road
Is the shortest.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy was asked: “What is the most magical word?” He replied:
“The most magical word is gratitude. The most magical thing is to offer one’s gratitude to the Supreme for what He has granted to you and not granted to you, out of His infinite Bounty, in order to fulfil His own Dream-Reality in and through you.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“In my spiritual life,
Nothing can be as sweet,
Illumining and fulfilling
As my God-gratitude-heart.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Question: “Since you say that gratitude is the most beautiful thing on earth, what is the effect of gratitude on man and God?”
Sri Chinmoy’s reply: “When an individual offers gratitude to God, immediately his receptivity increases. His vessel becomes large. Then God is able to pour more of His Blessings into the person or enter more fully into that vessel with His own divine Existence. God is infinite, but only according to our receptivity can He enter into us. God is like sunlight. If I leave this window open, sunlight will come in here. If I keep all the other windows closed, it cannot come in there. The more we offer gratitude, the more we increase our receptivity and capacity. The more windows we open, the more God enters into us with Light, abundant Light, infinite Light. When we offer gratitude, immediately God’s Light comes pouring into our being.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Along with light pouring into our being, gratitude brings supreme energy, as Sri Chinmoy elucidates:
“The divine in me grows
Only when I devotedly allow
The supreme Energy to flow.
What is the supreme Energy?
The supreme Energy is my constant
Offering of my gratitude-heart
To the Supreme.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“Gratitude is something in our heart
That helps us
Transcend our experience of earth
And
Intensify our realisation of God.”
– Sri Chinmoy
When asked, how one can develop perfect gratitude, Sri Chinmoy answered:
“First of all, please try to feel that gratitude abides inside your heart. Then ask yourself whether you are the heart. The immediate answer will be, ‘One minute a day.’ The rest of the time, you are the mind or you are the body or you are the vital. But if you can feel that you are the heart, not just for a fleeting second or a fleeting minute, but twenty-four hours a day, if you can feel the presence of your heart as your own existence, then easily you will have gratitude, since gratitude lives inside the heart.
“Now, how can you increase your gratitude? If you have that capacity to feel that you are the heart, try to feel that your heart is constantly becoming large, larger, largest. It is like the father whose salary is constantly increasing. He used to get fifty dollars a week, now he is getting one hundred dollars, and soon he will be getting two hundred dollars. In the same way, the capacity of your heart is constantly increasing. Now, the child of the heart is gratitude. When the father becomes richer, the child also automatically becomes richer because he knows that his father’s property belongs to him as well. If his father becomes a multimillionaire, then in time his father’s wealth goes to him. So when the heart is all the time expanding, when its capacity is all the time increasing, gratitude is also increasing and growing in capacity.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“May the bliss-waves
Of my gratitude-heart
Sleeplessly rise and rise.”
– Sri Chinmoy
When asked, “What is the best way to think of the Supreme?” Sri Chinmoy replied:
“The best way is through gratitude, soulful gratitude. Offer gratitude: that is the best way, the only way. The second you offer gratitude in your thoughts and in your feelings, your oneness will be perfect. If you offer gratitude, you will understand more; your mental vision, psychic vision, everything will become perfect. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude is the only answer. Try to grow the gratitude-flower inside your heart and watch it blossom petal by petal. As it blossoms it is spreading its beauty and fragrance.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Our next question: how can we offer God more gratitude?
“We can offer more gratitude to God only by feeling that He is giving us at every moment more and more and more. If somebody gives me a flower, I will offer him my gratitude. If he gives me two flowers, I will give him more gratitude. Then if he gives me three flowers, I will offer him even more gratitude. In God’s case, He wants to give us infinitely more than we need, so naturally our gratitude will increase. But we have to know that He gives everything at His own time and in His own Way — not at our hour or according to our wishes. Our fixed hour is this very moment. But if He gives us something at this moment, then it may create a very serious problem for us. It may increase our ego, pride or vanity or produce many other undivine results. So we can show more gratitude to God by feeling that He is giving us at every moment infinitely more than we need and by offering more of our conscious and sleepless surrender to His Will.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Our spiritual life always needs protection, in order that it can grow and flow towards its goal of satisfaction. In these two extracts, Sri Chinmoy reveals the key to both protection and satisfaction is gratitude:
“Gratitude is a form of prayer, a form of protection. If we offer gratitude to the Supreme early in the morning, then immediately gratitude itself will hold protection for us. We are not asking for protection. We are offering gratitude because God has done something for us. The moment we offer our gratitude, God expands our receptivity. When He expands our receptivity, immediately Light enters into us. The function of Light is to enter into us. Light waits at every second to enter into us. And the moment we are receptive, the moment we expand our power of receptivity, it enters. Our receptivity is like a vessel. The bigger we can make it, the more it can contain.”
– Sri Chinmoy
“The modern world is getting satisfaction from new scientific discoveries. What is God’s latest discovery? If we say that God’s latest discovery is man, then we are mistaken. If we say that God’s latest discovery is human aspiration, we are mistaken. If we say that God’s latest discovery is man’s dedication, we are mistaken. If we say that God’s latest discovery is man’s surrender to God’s Will, we are also mistaken. What, then, is God’s latest discovery? It is man’s gratitude, which is absolutely the rarest thing on earth. Each time God discovers it, He feels that it is really His latest discovery. When man offers gratitude to the Supreme, his power of receptivity increases in infinite measure. As his receptivity increases, his satisfaction-power also increases. The supreme Satisfaction lies in man’s constant offering of gratitude to God.”
– Sri Chinmoy
Sri Chinmoy spoke on the connection between receptivity and gratitude:
“Receptivity increases only in one way: by increasing our gratitude to God. There is no other way to increase receptivity. You can offer gratitude to God not only for what you have, but for what you are going to have. What you already have, what you are right now, how can you deny? What you are going to have or what you are going to become, you may not know. But you can use your imagination. The more gratitude you can offer to God, the more you can create positive thoughts, positive ideas and positive goals for yourself.
“So if you want to increase any good quality in your life, just increase your gratitude to God. If you are an artist, offer gratitude; if you are a cyclist, offer gratitude; if you are a singer, offer gratitude. As an individual, you have capacities in perhaps seven or eight areas. For each thing, try to offer gratitude to the Supreme.
“This morning, if you had a good meditation, if you did not suffer from doubt, fear, anxiety, worry, jealousy and so on, then offer gratitude, sincere gratitude. The following day, your meditation will be better.
“We can offer gratitude to God not only for the positive things in our life but also for our weaknesses. We can say, ‘God, I am so grateful to You that I have only one weakness, it is limited.’ If you can offer gratitude to God because you only have one weakness, then God will take away that weakness.
“So our gratitude-heart can be of great benefit to us. The more gratitude we can offer to God, the more He will increase our receptivity and capacity in so many different fields.”
– Sri Chinmoy
