If we know where to look, it is undeniable that we have much to be grateful for. Endowed with abundance in spirit, we are not left wanting when it comes to what really matters in life. Surrounded by blessings, they form the ocean in which we wade. Guided by grace, it is the shepherd whom we are called to follow. Immersed in love, it is the fire that warms the heart and lights the way.
To doubt that what you have been given is a blessing in spirit is to deny the greatness of God. Being of him, it resonates in the heart which is the only place that is capable of appreciating his goodness. Being what he has touched, it honours his coming, like the sun honours the moon that comes to give it rest. Complementing each other in the way that he intended, neither grows restless in what they have been called to do. Realizing the perfection in their union, they trust him because they know him, the purveyor of beauty, and the beauty being observed.
Broken we fall and whole we rise, to transcend our suffering with thankful cries. But what is denied is never transcended because it remains clouded by the darkness. With this, know where the ego seeks to keep you. Wanting to deny the presence of God in your life, the ego will work hard to keep you ignorant of the many blessings which are yours to enjoy. Wanting to give itself power, it will identify itself as the source of those blessings, but this it does with a foolish audacity.
Wanting to manipulate its way into your confidence, it feeds you lies; but these lies are transparent to spiritual eyes. Seeing beyond what the ego wants you to see, it becomes clear that the ego's game is one of control. By wanting you to see it as a source to be trusted, it wants you to endow it with power that it does not have. Fantasizing about possessing the power of God, it knows that this can never be, unless it convinces you to accept it without question, for as you think, so shall you be, and so shall your world come to testify that it is as you have made it.
Seeing not God in what surrounds you, you will not be inspired to give thanks for what you have been given. Seeing not God, you cannot honour him as the source of your abundance. This, you will credit to the ego, but how can this ever be, if what consumes your mind are thoughts of fear and lack. Lack is not abundance, as fear is not love. See in this, that what brings abundance into your life transcends the ego because it is not limited by it.
Being beyond the capacity of the ego to control, the heart knows no limits in expressing gratitude for what it knows to emanate from God's graceful hands. United with truth, it carries an authority that cannot be superseded by the mind that is susceptible to embracing what contaminates rather than clarifies what the spirit makes available for our understanding.
Seeking always to guide us in truth, the spirit points to the heart which when honoured as the source of truth gives authority to the mind that humbles itself in service. But not so holy is the separated mind that has taken it upon itself to be the adjudicator of truth. Serving the ego, it is incapable of knowing the gifts of spirit, for only what it is capable of perceiving are the treasures of the physical world. But even these, it is reluctant to honour, for it fears that God will reveal himself in and through them.
Not wanting to emphasize what has the potential to lead to its destruction, it puts before your eyes what you want but do not have. Hungry for what the physical world tempts you with, you grow discontented with what is already present in your life. Wanting not what you have, you look out into the future and find excitement in the promise of the next acquisition. But is this ever wise, for can what you crave be what brings you the fulfilment that you seek?
Learn from this that the ego promises much, but delivers little. Wanting to keep your attention in the future which it has convinced you promises fulfilment, it deprives you of the peace which can only be found in the place where it exists, in the now. What this has to teach is that it is in the gifts which fill the now that we must be grateful for if we are to know peace in spirit, and while the now is enough in the peace that it brings wholly to our hearts, it is the blessings that accompany it that we must be content with, for as we are content with them, so are we aligned with the peace that contentedness loves as itself.
I know in my own life that when I am experiencing an absence of peace in the now, I must have strayed to put attention on the future as the source of my fulfilment. In the modern world that we live in, it is very common to look to the future, and have that be what we focus on, being the space in which we seek to make our goals a reality. But how can this fully serve us if it is not tempered by being present in the moment, which is the foundation on which any future moment will arise.
Without the present moment, the future is destined not to reveal itself, for what is the future but a series of present moments that are yet to come. Blessed only with what we have in the present moment, this is what we should be grateful for because we need nothing else other than it to realize God's presence in our lives. For this reason alone, it is significant as being not a means to an end, but the end itself.
This is why we should use it as the medium through which we practice gratitude in our lives. Realizing our blessings in the moment, there should be no delay in our offering of gratitude, for as we do this, so do we give the ego power, being the apathetic identity within that is content in taking things for granted. With this, make it your task to become more conscious in the present moment, and as you find yourself wanting to project into the future, bring your thoughts back to the now, so that you can identify with and give thanks for the many blessings that accompany the breath of life in you which is the ultimate gift.
We can all begin to practice small acts of gratitude in our daily lives. A good start that you could make today would be to say a silent prayer as soon as you wake up in the morning. In this prayer, you can thank God for the gift of the present day which you are so fortunate to experience, and for the many other blessings which have been bestowed on you. Remember as you contemplate in prayer that there is no guarantee that any of us will wake to greet this day or the next, and just because you have awakened to greet the dawn since the time of your birth, it should not be taken for granted that each day is a new gift to be cherished and experienced fully. With this, appreciate that there are people all over the world who will not wake to live another day in this wonderful world.
The beauty of instituting this daily practice is that it begins to set a very peaceful and harmonious tone throughout the course of your days by expanding your awareness of the abundance which surrounds you and is a part of you. What you will start to find is that as you grow in consciousness, each and every moment will begin to take on a new dimension and your sensory and spiritual acuity will amplify beyond measure. The shift that you experience will be so profound that you will begin to feel like you have been living two separate lives. Being alive for the very first time, you were blind but now can see.
The bliss generated by this state is divine and indescribable. The warm shower, the melodic song of a bird, the fragrance of a rose and all the other things that we have conditioned ourselves to take for granted become moments in eternity born of grace. By immersing ourselves in these heavenly experiences, we become one with the universe and one with God, for he and his love pervades all that his hands created. This state of tranquil loveliness is what it means to dance with life.
Seeing God's blessings in all that we do is one of the great challenges of life. Living fast paced lives, we entertain many thoughts, each seeming to grab for our attention more feverishly than the last. Living this way, we can't be said to be interacting with life at its deepest level. Caught up in our minds, we make of the world what we need from it, rather than accepting it as it is. Wanting it to be something different from what it is, our capacity for gratitude eludes us because we have made our acceptance conditional on the physical world being pleasing to us.
Pleased, we satisfy the ego, but where does this drive us but deeper into distress. Being neither present nor grateful, where we stand are as prisoners unto ourselves who are incapable of bringing to the physical world the respect that it deserves as a manifestation of his divine will. This is why we abuse it as we do ourselves, for what does not conform to the ego's expectations is treated with disregard that is born of distain.
So insulated have we become and so dysfunctional in our relationship to food that we almost treat eating as a chore which gets in the way of other things that we perceive will add value to our productivity. We shovel the food into our mouths with busy minds preoccupied with the details of our tight schedules that lay ahead. Saying grace before you begin to eat a meal is a small act of gratitude which goes a long way to cultivating an attitude of gratitude if it is practiced consistently. What this does is that it focuses your attention on the present moment and offers thanksgiving for the blessing that you are about to receive.
There is no one correct way of saying grace. The only prerequisite is that it is said genuinely and lovingly from the heart. The words that I offer him are, "My heavenly father, I ask you to bless this food that I am so fortunate to be able to receive and enjoy. May it nourish my body on this beautiful day and energize my mind to think loving and creative thoughts. All glory be unto you who live in me. Amen". The beauty of giving thanks in the form of grace is that it transforms the routine into the sublime. With it, eating no longer becomes an opportunity to gratify the senses. Inspired by gratitude, it will become much more, bringing fulfilment not only to the stomach, but also to the heart.
Recognize that you are privileged to have the means to eliminate your hunger at any given time and that it is God's grace that has put you in this position. Know that if God is in everything, then he is in the food that will nourish, sustain and replenish your body. And even as you eat, you are not alone, for the hand that has graced your heart, has also graced your plate. To know this is to know the abundance of God, always giving and never withholding the fruit of love that is the inheritance of his children.
Another powerful way to begin cultivating more gratitude in your life is by starting a gratitude journal. Being simply a daily list of all of the things that you have been blessed to receive, it makes more conscious the blessings that are easily taken for granted by the unconscious mind. By writing them down in contemplation, you become more centred, and being more centred, you become more receptive to the blessings of the spirit. With that being what you are continually focusing on, it is inevitable that more blessings will continue to show up in your life. Building momentum with every entry, the presence of the spirit becomes more palpable in your life because that is where your energy is being directed.
Having used one for a long time, I am now more attuned to spotting the gifts of my life, and not letting them pass me by, my spark for life shines strong, for with spiritual eyes I can see that love surrounds me. Allowing this love to be what greets me, I know that every moment is a sacred one, being eternity's gift in a bottle, I give thanks that grace has come.
L.C.Duperouzel - http://lcduperouzel.wordpress.com/
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