The feeling and the expression of gratitude is practiced in all religions, cultures and traditions.
Gratitude is being grateful for all we receive from nature, family, friends and society. There are multiple ways of being grateful and expressing it or celebrating. People gather with their families, relatives and friends for meals and prayers together. In other cultures like in North America, Europe and other western countries the festival of “Thanksgiving” is expressing gratitude. In this part of the world, this emotion is expressed as “kritagyata”, “aabhar”, “shukr”, “shukhar” and “shukran”. Beyond celebrating with dinners, parades and mass prayers, gratitude has significant value to our lives. To live a happy, fulfilling and successful life, we need to learn to be grateful. More we are grateful and appreciative of what we got, the happier and complete we feel. Very famous line in Indian households is
“Unke Ghar Khushiyon Ki Hoti Barsate Hain,
Har Haal Mein Data Ka Jo Shukar Manate Hain”
(This means that those who are grateful to God in every situation, they are showered with happiness)
During the first pandemic wave, an eighty-five year old man was admitted to the hospital. His lungs were damaged and he was admitted in the intensive care unit with external oxygen support. By his luck and the grace of God he recovered and was discharged after a few days. The hospital bill was US$50000 at the discharge. On seeing the bill amount, this person started crying. A compassionate hospital staff came and told him, “you can leave without paying the bill, if you can›t pay. Please don›t cry.” The old man replied: “I am not crying for the amount of fifty thousand dollars for twenty days. I am crying because I never acknowledged the oxygen provided by nature free of cost for my eighty long years. I never thanked nature for this.”
The realization that oxygen is so crucial for our life and the fact that we receive it without acknowledgement or gratitude left a deep mark on this man as it should on all of us. We have been blessed with infinite things in life but we are not grateful for them or do not express.
Gratitude is the greatest of attitudes. It is the opposite of jealousy and comparison. We should be grateful and thankful for each and every situation, circumstance and person in our life. Gratitude is like thanking the ‘universe’ for its gifts showered on us. When we are grateful for what we have received, it provides more into our lives. It is like our doing more for the people who show gratitude for what they got. It generates positive energy and keeps it flowing. It works as a fuel in ours and others› lives as the cycle of energy continues.
The grateful mind is not complaining and not comparing. It is more peaceful and free of stress. Gratitude helps us to lead a happy, relaxed and fulfilled life. Gratitude has the ability to heal, energize and help us raise our vibration. It increases happiness, reduces anxiety and depression, and brings a higher level of optimism.
There is science behind it – we have neural pathways in our brain that keep lighting up when blood flows to them. To create a new pathway of good memories, and positive thoughts, gratitude works as a very wonderful tool. It also helps to accept sad and difficult memories. Gratitude helps our brain kick start the production of dopamine and serotonin hormones that can help fight feelings of depression and sadness. With regular practice of gratitude, we train our frontal cortex to retain positive and happy experiences of life and deflect the negative.
According to Dr Bruce Lipton, a biologist and author of bestseller Biology of Belief, gratitude and service activate the enzyme ‘telomerase’ that is responsible for the maintenance of the length of telomeres that preserve the information in our genome. When you are stressed and live a life devoid of love and appreciation, you lose your telomeres.
Gratitude helps us to appreciate good things in our life. No one›s life is perfect but what we appreciate, appreciates. We might feel miserable for our failures, shortcomings, or obstacles. We might feel frustrated by the imperfect people in our life. But we can learn to see something good from these situations and experiences.
Here is another story – A monastery was to be set up. However, funds were limited. So all the monks had to work to build it. They had to lay the bricks and create walls. One monk worked very hard to create the perfect wall by using 1000 bricks. He worked day and night and created a perfect wall in four days. He was very happy to create it until he realized that the wall had two bad bricks. One was popping out and one was pushed inside. He got very upset and wanted to break the full wall. He went to the master and shared his intention. The master told him not to do this, as there was no time to rebuild it. The monk was very upset but could not do anything as this was the master›s order. But each day he would notice the two uneven bricks on the wall. Once a tourist came to visit the monastery. Same monk was giving him a tour of the monastery. The tourist stopped near the wall and said, this is a beautiful wall! The monk asked, “don’t you see the two uneven bad bricks?” The tourist said, “Yes, I can see the two bad bricks but I also see the 998 good bricks.”
This is what we do with our life. We focus on what we don›t have, or what is wrong and bad in our life. We never notice what we have been blessed with and what is good and right in our life. Sometimes we fail to see anything good happening in our lives. It is extremely important to see what we are blessed with. Let us not take everything we have for granted and expect that the flow will continue without any reciprocation.
If you want to live a happy, stress free, abundant and comfortable life, learn to be a grateful person. To be grateful is full of greatness. It is to fully recognise, acknowledge and experience the greatness that is already abounding in our life.