How to show an attitude of gratitude?

Gratitude is one of the essential traits that you must express to the person who is instrumental in your growth. In reality, many people forget to show their gratitude wholeheartedly to the other person. They think what is the big deal?  For example, you are very thirsty after returning back to your office from an outdoor work.  The office boy hands over a glass of water and you quench your thirst. Instead of telling a word of “thank you”, you simply return the glass. The other person, the office boy, of course, does not expect, but if you offer a simple appreciation, it shows your attitude of gratitude.  This gratitude must emanate from the heart. You may even express through your gesture.  Remember one thing, just for the purpose of expressing gratitude, you should not do; you must express with sincerity. In our daily interactions, we all utter words and show gestures, but mostly in a casual manner. By expressing gratitude in a casual way, you are not only disregarding the other person’s service, but also you are showing your pride of superiority complex. This gratitude is a power of expression of any human being.  When you become grateful to a person for his help, you tend to be loyal to him throughout your life. You do your best to show respect to him, hear his advices, follow his path of living and emulate him. All these things are done by you out of your respect. You develop a gratitude for him.

This gratitude is a basic human emotion deeply rooted in all of us. It is required to have a conducive relationship within the family, society and friend circles. You may be knowing that there is a day earmarked as “World Gratitude Day,” and on this day, we are supposed  to call upon  to show gratitude to others as we are mostly selfish and  want to be always busy in our own state of affairs. It is altogether a different aspect whether we celebrate this day or not, but God, the supreme power, wants all of us to follow this behavior. 

We live in a world where the outlook of people completely rests on selfishness. We even don’t show gratitude to our parents, our teachers and even our well wishers who is contributing incessantly in our growth.  Shakespeare had explained the critical nature of ingratitude in his famous play “King Lear” when the two daughters of the old king did not bother to show any gratitude to their father even. There are end numbers of instances where people become ungrateful to their well wishers.  Even today, we have always shied away to recognize the help of other persons, even after availing the same. Not only we fail to recognize, but also we malign them, if any chance comes. This is our nature. We are advancing in technologies, we have learned operating many new gadgets and we become prosperous in information technology, but we are yet to get the mastery in the art of showing gratitude. What could be the reason that makes us so ingratitude?  The basic reason is that we are very much egoistic. We feel if we show gratitude to the people who has done good things for us, we are downgrading ourselves in his eyes and then to the society. The other persons who have benefited us will take the upper hand. So, we find out a shelter of ungrateful and we escape through that route. Not only that, we also find fault of those persons, who earlier helped us. Vidyasagar, the great academician when heard that someone had abused him, he simply said, “I do not remember to have benefited him in any way; why should he speak ill of me?” Vidyasagar though helped many people in various ways, but never expected any gratitude in return.  He knew that today someone would show gratitude, but on the very next day, the same person would criticize him.  This is the nature of human being in general.

When Jesus Christ obtained the divine power of healing, he cured 10 leapers at the time when leprosy was an incurable disease.  Out of these ten patients, nine left  without even thanking him. Only one person waited to express his thanks to Jesus. When Jesus inquired of him what the reason of his waiting is, he simply replied, “To thank you for divine healing.” Jesus then said with all his humility, “Don’t thank me, thank God, because His healing power has worked through me.”  This is a glaring example, that we should not hope to get  gratitude from others in return of our services At the same time, whenever the opportunity arrives, you must show gratitude after accepting the help of the other persons. In general, most of us, because of our tradition and culture, express gratitude to our superiors either through words or gestures. We also show love for animals. We often show gratitude through gesture to inanimate objects from which we get the benefits.  There are many examples of our tradition in India to show respect to a cow as Gomata and rivers as mothers and mountains as fathers. In some parts of the country, we even consider trees and plants as deities. We treat these non-living beings as  respected entities and we worship them with great reverence.  All these  expressions are a part of our gratitude for something from whom we get benefits regularly or periodically.

Let us show our gratitude whenever possible and in whatever way it suits each other.  The gratitude is one of the major traits of human beings, which we seldom show, but it must be expressed abundantly.  

Spread the love beyond the boundary

We are all guided by our sensual feelings. When we feel hungry; we eat to satiate our hunger.  When we feel thirsty, we drink water to quench our thirst. We study books to increase our knowledge.  We visit temples to seek God’s blessings.  We love each other to show our sympathy, bonding and sexual gratification.  All these sensual feelings give rise to various types of emotions, which is very common to all living beings.  Through these emotional feelings, one reach others. Supposed, a man is thirsty and you provide him a glass of water, you reach him. In this way, we  connect to other human beings and then to nature and finally in the universe. This emotion is increased when we attach the same with  the feeling of of love. And, with this feeling, you can cross any boundary, barriers, obstacles, impediments, if not physically, but mentally. Ultimately, you can create an image of universal motherhood.

The greatest flowering which is possible to bloom on this earth, is love.  A red colored beautiful rose blossoms quite naturally from its  plant and provides an aesthetic beauty. In the way flower blooms, love also sprouts in our hearts and when expands for the good causes, all seems to be happy. Love spreads the message of compassions. It removes hatred. It brings harmony. It provides equanimity in the society. We should encourage the spreading of love. We should not confine this love in a boundary. We should love each other without any expectation.  It is really encouraging to observe the power of love when the strength and beauty of two hearts commiserate at ease. Love can be compared both with the cool freshness of the full moon and the brilliance of the sun’s rays. Why this similarity is drawn? Because, when love extends for the purpose of showing kindness, compassion and to help others who are in distress, it is as pure as the moon’s coolness.  When this same love is interpreted for bodily and sensual actions, then the same is treated like the scorching heat of the bright sun. As the sun ray pierces the body, giving a burning sensation and make us exhausted; in the same way the love with impurity and ill feelings destroy us.

A beautiful pair of husband and wife may say, “We are living together in mutual love.” They may be often fighting with each other, but just to show affinity, they pretend their love and affection for each other. This is a gross misconception of true love. Love is an object given to us by God. It is free. One can practice, utilize  and savor its fragrance like a flower. But when it is not from the heart, it is construed as a make-believe love. The pure and sincere love is beyond imagination. You cannot love anything in your imagination. That is fantasy. Mentally, you can dream, but if you want to love a human being or any other non-living beings, you have to do so physically either by expression or by your feelings.  Love can not be imagined as a fake.  It is life itself.  Wearing a mask, if you pretend to love, it must be removed.  Because, when you pollute the love, it loses its purity. It only happens in the absence of humility or the spirit of compromise. Love is such a sacred aspect that you have to think its  beauty with your mind.  Unless you exert your openness and embrace anyone or any object with your love, the same will not be treated as an artificial matter. For example, if you are not really thirsty, you will not touch the bottle of water lying on your table.  On the contrary, if you are very thirsty and you happen to pass through a river, you will bend down and take some water in your hand to quench your thirst. 

In the case of conjugal love, when a man and a woman are involved in any type of cordial relationship initially, it is seen that after a passage of time, they start suspecting each other.  In the disguise of loving relationship, they pretend  and  show disrespect to the sacredness of love, which is either way is missing in today’s world. When you cast a suspicion in a loving relationship, the longevity and the health of the persons involved  suffer. This suspicion is also a one type of disease. When someone is afflicted with this kind of disease, he or she loses the concentration power to listen to the other person’s opinion thoroughly. An antagonizing feeling is being developed in the mind of the person.  In that case, the feeling of love will be less and the feeling of hatred will be more. The relationship will be destroyed. Despite all these odds, we have not lost love forever.  By any chance, if love is only fading away momentarily, the situation can be revived in the course of time. But if it is lost forever, the world will be nothing less than a battlefield. Love exists for every person. We must inflame the same to maintain a for  good purpose.  We can never allow love to get extinguished.  We must respect, worship and show our faith in a divine power. This power is not extrinsic; it is  to be felt intrinsically. If we want to discover this power, we have to spread love all over our circle. To spread the power of love, we need to adjust our perspective.  For example, while writing something on a paper, we focus on our thoughts, but not on the paper or the pen because  these papers and pens are the media only; the main  perspective is to write exercising the power of our thoughts.

Today, we live in an artificial world.  We give more emphasis on the artificial activities and follow cut short in every affair. The definition of humanity is brought down to the level of insincerity. Men and women have lost the power of sincerity to provide the real cause of life and its sustainability.  They completely forget the fundamental reason that life is love. When we read, we should focus our attention to grasp what the words and its juxtaposition want to convey.  We must also know the fact that the paper, on which the words are written, is the substratum. In the same way, all of us  and our next generation must recognize the fact that the life’s core message is love. Once this theory is established, all afflictions will disappear and everyone will live in peace. There should not be any boundary. We have to consider love  like a sea; nobody knows from where it starts and ends.

How to think effectively, to prosper in life.

We live in a complex world. This world is full of grandeur, which we enjoy and relish. When the enjoyment is over; we remember those events for satisfaction. Again, this same world provides us a lot of sufferings, sad information and scarcity of basic needs at times.  All walks of our life are pervaded with these two factors of joy and suffering. In this complexity, some people struggle more than others because of the circumstances and socioeconomic constraints they face. So, they struggle to sort out their conflicts for most of the time and unable to savor the sweet fragrance of the life. It seems they struggle because of their  less physical power and stamina to bear the painstaking situations. But here is the catch. Their struggle is very painful as they think, is the case with almost everyone. Barring a few who is born with a silver spoon, it is quite common for all. In fact, the wealthiest persons labor harder than an average person. People are  aware that if they don’t struggle, if they take their lives comfortably, their survival will be in danger. So, they shape their thoughts in a positive way and get engaged in all meaningful activities. Thoughts are always important to our well being.  For example, some people may try to repair their damaged relationships, some others who relentlessly distribute the power of their consciousness to reduce the community hatred and there are some others who desperately try to reduce the corruption level of our political system. You may also find some people who are very much interested to spread brotherhood transcending the barriers of religion.

While doing all above activities, people sometimes give up because of its daunting nature.  The thoughts then appear in their mind that we are too small to bring  radical changes in the society.  When this thought erupts in your mind, you become the slave of negativity, passivity and you are unable to find any promising outlook.  This behavior only creates a stumbling block for the forward movement and then, the activities do not produce any tangible results.  In the midst of any job, if there is an iota of passivity and thoughts of doubt, the same must be removed immediately. We must always think that we are neither too small nor we should be afraid to discharge  any activities, which create benefits to mankind.  It is all psychologically inflicted, and we don’t get the desired success as we plan for.

All of us are regularly downplaying our capabilities. We can perform more than what we achieve. We are always influenced by this defective perspective and not able to shine anymore. No sooner, we are able to make a correction in our thoughts; we flourish with respect to our personal, physical, philosophical and social context.  We try our best to do a lot, but most of the time, with a doubtful mind and scattered thoughts. We get ourselves busy in multi-tasking.  But we don’t pay our sincere attention to one task at a time.  Owing to our superficial needs, greed and ambition to achieve many things at a drop of the hat, we accomplish all our tasks with a half hearted approach and focus. Instead of being involved with a single task and finish the same accurately and perfectly, we reminisce the past happenings and dwell on the future fantasies. We weave our thoughts in such a way that job becomes secondary, but our ego must be satisfied.  In this way, we lose our considerable time and energy.  We should not forget that attention is not a mere slave of our mind; it is a storage house of our energy.  This energy of giving attention to a particular work has utmost importance.  This is the major benchmark of our success. 

If you like to be more assertive and want to control your thoughts, you must become mindful and have a grip on your attention.  Your attention must be centered on one point at a time. Then, whatever you want to achieve, the same is bound to materialize.  Remember that attention can run both in negative and positive directions. You have to exercise power of mind to ensure that you cling to the positive side maximum time.  You cannot completely eliminate negative directions, but through practice, you increase your mind power to eliminate the negativities.  However, because of our habit, we sit idle and procrastinate and allow the negative thoughts to grab us.  Some people, of course, are always negative.  They are always depressed and always in a pessimistic mood.  They feel pleasure to criticize others. They discourage  others is their achievement. They do not allow others to see the light after the tunnel. There are others who out of their fear, not ready to take action.  They feel that their actions will bring negative output.  Some other persons out of their jealousy and hatred want to avoid any activities with a feeling that will bring disastrous results. It is better to keep them at a distance and not to be influenced by them. The Mother Teresa taught us that it is imperative for all of us to develop positive consciousness  and to propel the same to carry out positive thoughts for the betterment of the individual and the society.

How to judge the authenticity of your emotion?

How do you define your emotional level?  Are you aware that it is a function of your true identity?  If you perform all your functions starting from wake up to retiring at night in an ideal way, you are a follower of rules and regulations of moral living.  It means that you always act with a purpose. Your every moment in your life is measured perfectly to give an effective output. Why it is so?  Because all the functions, which you perform daily, you act with sincerity. But most of us perform our various functions as doers. Just for the purpose of doing, we act. For example, somebody smiles at you; you also reciprocate your instant function by providing a return smile. But mostly it is not an act to serve any purpose. You are doing a showmanship. You may not really want to smile, but since the other person is  reputed  in the society or quite an influential one, you simply smile. What you have done; you smile as a doer. If you delve into the fact of this pleasantry though smile from each other, you will observe the issue as purposeless. In simpler term, the other person has flattered you by smiling and you are being cajoled to give a return smile.

But the act has no emotion in real sense. He has expressed his positive vibe, which you have acknowledged in a controlled manner.  You have judged his behavioral pattern and retorted back.  Now, if you analyze your emotional effect in depth, your reciprocating action may be a bargain or a trade or  a business like attitude or a simple social mannerism. In this particular case, it is a courtesy. Somebody smiles at you and you have also smiled. But it is an artificial smile, as  the same is produced mechanically. Without utilizing your emotional feeling, you smile. It might have not created any emotional spontaneity for you  for the other person. This type of emotion has no sincerity, has no cause and it is completely hollow as you have manipulated your smile.  There is no authenticity on your part.  In this way, you are manipulating your body and mind to act in that fashion. In our society, this type of manipulation is widely spread and people simply are not able to identify the emotional depth of the particular situation. Precisely, that is the reason, being religious also; we are not attracted to the spiritualities and functions of the spiritualism.  Because in the environment of artificial, we forget our spontaneity.     Finally, we create the situation of hell. Your love has no meaning because the same is impure. Your love is false. Your hate is false. Your smile is false.  Your feeling is false.  Your tears are false. You are not in a position to take any meaningful judgement.

The question comes how can you stay in this false environment and enjoy bliss?  Instead of living in an artificial surroundings, accept the spontaneity, which comes from your heart and you perform any action sincerely. Back to the scenario of smiling, you smile because that is the social norm, you learn from your parents, teachers or gurus.  But that was not a sincere smile from your side.  But this type of situation cannot be hidden for a long.  Sooner or later, your pretension or non-spontaneity will come to the surface. You are  pretending and not performing the real thing. But if you smile with spontaneity, you will feel that your whole being is smiling; only your lips are not taking part. When you resort to this path of spontaneity for any act of yours, everybody around you during that particular time will feel energized and there will be a  friendly atmosphere.  Since all the people around you will be happy; you will be connected to the profundity of happiness.

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Even emotions need spontaneity.  If positive emotions shown by you are false, they will be treated as a pretense.  In the same way, when the negative emotions shown by you as authentic, the same will be considered as  perfect. People say anger is a destructive emotion.  But this anger can be termed as nice, if your whole being feels angry.  It means that you are not pretending to be angry. If you are really angry for any valid reason, despite it is being a negative emotion, your all sensations will be vibrant and people will not take you as a bad tempered person. They may appreciate your negative emotion as you are showing spontaneity.  For example, analyze the behavior of a child.  He cries to fulfill his any need and no sooner his need is satisfied, he stops crying. You observe his behavior, which is completely based on spontaneity. Similarly, when a child becomes angry, he runs from one corner to another, his face will be reddish, he may spit and he may throw anything he finds nearby.  Seeing his behavior, one can opine that he may destroy the world, which is under his possession.  When his anger subsides, he starts again running, dancing, hugging you, as if nothing has happened.  For an adult, it does not happen. Because most of your actions are based on the false and you swirl in the movement of incorrect actions continuously.  If your anger is real, it lasts for a few seconds.  Why?  Because you are angry for a true cause and there is no false reason behind your anger.  At that point of time, your showing anger is justified and your anger is harmless. If anything evolves with spontaneity, it cannot harm anyone. The negative emotions are also good, if they are authentic.  People have  wrong notions about negative emotions that these are bad and causing dangers both mentally and psychologically. The negative emotions are bad provided the reason is based on falsity.  But if the negative emotions are authentic, it may transform us. 

If you closely analyze the power of emotions, both positive and negative, you will find that emotion derived on authentic reasons will only do good. Now, if you control your negative emotions and show the same only for valid reasons, you will find the same emotions will  not fluster you. You will handle the situation calmly. In this way, a time will come when you will not be affected either by positive or negative emotions. You will only cling to the reasoning factors and ascertain the authenticity before showing any emotion.  At that stage, you forget to discriminate between good and bad. The feeling of authenticity will strengthen your introspection power to search only for the real.  And when you know the real, you will be able to find out the truth.  Then emotions will not mold you, you will only mold the emotions.