What is Gratitude?

[4bsolute]

What is actually Gratitude? Surely I know the feeling and I know it intellectually.. but what is the true fundamental meaning of it?

Being actively grateful for something implies that we are not it. Rather it is given to us. But if my deepest nature and your deepest nature 'is' God, then why am I thankful? In the essence through you (another I am) I give it again to my Self. We do not actively perceive it as such through the illusion of seperation. So am I thankful for my Self? How can I be thankful for something that I am and that I do? It would be my very nature to do it, therefor it is nothing uncommon and I do not have the drive to express myself in gratitude.

I am consciously carrying a feeling of being grateful for everything since I am on this planet. It is very quiet but it is there I do rarely have the urge to express it. I was often told as a child to "Say thank you..!" and I replied "But I am?"

Might the energy of that which we call 'Gratitude' be something slightly different? Just like the idea of "love" is not really the energy of "love" we know here in the West. It is a part of it. But in the essence it is something much more deeper and unconsciously we mostly perceive only a miniscule fragment of it.

What is Gratitude? I have to meditate on it.

Edited July 5, 2014 by 4bsolute

[nestentrie]

It's relief.

[C T]

Gratitude is deep appreciation, and deep appreciation disarms greed and self-cherishing. For those who recognise a need to reduce greed, gluttony and over-involvement with self (I, me and mine syndrome), then working to develop gratefulness is key.

 

Gratitude can also be expressed as having an activated heart centre where one spontaneously expresses joy out of seeing other beings enjoying the gifts and blessings of happiness.

[GrandmasterP]

Thank- FULL-ness.

Perhaps?

 

Nice thread topic BTW.

Kudos 4bsolute.

 

Edited July 5, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Felcor]

I think it has something to do with the conscious and subconscious mind. Where our subconscious mind gives ideas and our conscious mind can judge and say if it is good or bad. The subconscious mind will then try and bring you more of the thing. see Dawgs post he explains it nicely: http://thetaobums.com/topic/30012-a-path-to-enlightenment/#entry446614

 

So what I'm saying is that when you feel grateful for something, you are telling your subconscious and the rest of the cosmos that you want more of this.

 

Also by feeling grateful for something someone has done for you, you in turn will be more inclined to help out others, knowing that they will feel the same.

 

The part about we all being connected, you are actually just helping yourself so why feel grateful is interesting, but that is not the way the world operates. Only a small group feels this way. Gratitude is necessary in our society.

 

The day we all realize we are connected would be the day every human on this planet "Awakens" and will be the end to all suffering. I do not think I will see that day in my lifetime.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Felcor

[manitou]

I think there's an aspect to gratitude where we 'give credit where credit is due'. We realize that we are not the one doing it, that it's being done through us by our higher selves. This acknowledgment alone gives me much gratitude. So....yes! We are grateful for our own selves. We become grateful (in a full way) that we can see Life for what it is, a training ground. We become grateful that we can transcend the apparent negativity and see the Whole.

 

Gratitude seems to become less and less a periodic thing, and more and more an internalization that remains with us. It seems to be with me all of the time - although sometimes it glows and becomes almost overwhelming when someone is particularly kind, etc. But the gratitude grows as the transcension increases, as I see it.

[de_paradise]

God is grateful to Himself, or the forms of God are grateful to each other--on a deep spiritual or very subtle level. Therefore the question of, "if my deepest nature is God, why should I feel grateful to myself" is moot because the very deepest nature you are talking about has the characteristic of gratitude. Our trouble is that we live as if we were disconnected from that truth, which gives rise to angst, and gives power to individual ego sense of being alone fighting against the current.

 

We can sense energetically and emotionally the peace and well-being that gratitude immediately brings. You may be able to perceive you energy going from idle to 100mph just by switching to gratitude. Its a useful tool for those who have figured it out.

[zerostao]

gratitude = understanding

[3bob]

be grateful for a warning/direction/act that intercepts and also mitigates injury. For instance if such warning/direction/act intercepts one from getting their hand cut-off and instead only ending up with a minor cut. (which as implied could have been much worse!)

Edited July 9, 2014 by 3bob

[manitou]

gratitude = understanding

 

LOL - I suppose it does, at a very deep level! Gratitude lives in close proximity to the I Am.

[C T]

gratitude = understanding

so true!

 

when 2 people interact in total honesty, everything becomes so clear, so much so that understanding arise effortlessly, even though all there is is only total silence. All it takes sometimes is a little eye contact. When this happens, yeah, the gratitude is spontaneous and often overwhelmingly perfect in that moment.

[joeblast]

[silent thunder]

For me, gratitude is a clear understanding of just how much love you have for something.

Unfortunately, usually discovered when that thing is lost to me and its absence makes me aware of how much gratitude I had for it being part of me.

[doc benway]

What is actually Gratitude? Surely I know the feeling and I know it intellectually.. but what is the true fundamental meaning of it?

 

Being actively grateful for something implies that we are not it. Rather it is given to us. But if my deepest nature and your deepest nature 'is' God, then why am I thankful? In the essence through you (another I am) I give it again to my Self. We do not actively perceive it as such through the illusion of seperation. So am I thankful for my Self? How can I be thankful for something that I am and that I do? It would be my very nature to do it, therefor it is nothing uncommon and I do not have the drive to express myself in gratitude.

 

I am consciously carrying a feeling of being grateful for everything since I am on this planet. It is very quiet but it is there I do rarely have the urge to express it. I was often told as a child to "Say thank you..!" and I replied "But I am?"

 

Might the energy of that which we call 'Gratitude' be something slightly different? Just like the idea of "love" is not really the energy of "love" we know here in the West. It is a part of it. But in the essence it is something much more deeper and unconsciously we mostly perceive only a miniscule fragment of it.

 

What is Gratitude? I have to meditate on it.

 

Great post and great question!

 

I will meditate on this as well. Generating gratitude is a part of my daily practice. It is fundamental in taking refuge.

 

My initial response is -

While it may or may not make sense to be thankful "for my Self" or "for something that I am and that I do," it may make sense to be thankful for the recognition of that nature of Self. In ignorance, we experience a great deal of confusion and suffering. In awareness, we experience some degree of liberation from suffering. That awareness which leads to liberation is a blessing. It has no predictable or reproducible cause, therefore, it's unexpected and greatly welcomed appearance is the genesis of gratitude.

[PLB]

One thing being grateful does is that it connects all these disparate and despearate moments in a way that is far beyond my ability to express or repair.

I want to say thanks to many who would not welcome the expression, can't accept the message because they are dead, or would not think that is what I was actually saying. There is an element to being thankful that is one's own alone. A part of accepting the connection is not having to have other people prove it for you.

It is a kind of faith:

Not in the sense that all will be made right and one's hopes secured;

But in the sense that appreciation is connected to others in ways one has barely begun to understand.

[Daeluin]

What is actually Gratitude? Surely I know the feeling and I know it intellectually.. but what is the true fundamental meaning of it?

 

I hear you.

 

Being actively grateful for something implies that we are not it. Rather it is given to us.

 

This resonates with me.

 

But if my deepest nature and your deepest nature 'is' God, then why am I thankful? In the essence through you (another I am) I give it again to my Self. We do not actively perceive it as such through the illusion of seperation.

 

At our deepest core we may all be one, yet here in this realm we exist manifest as selves and others. This illusory reality is still real. There is no black and white, frozen in time absolute truth, there is change within oneness.

 

So am I thankful for my Self? How can I be thankful for something that I am and that I do?

 

Is it really "your" self, or a part of oneness which you have perspective over?

 

It would be my very nature to do it, therefor it is nothing uncommon and I do not have the drive to express myself in gratitude.

 

Interestingly, we seem to have the choice of controlling our "selves" rather than following our nature instinctively. (Or so we think.)

 

If we are thankful for this gift of choice, how is that not but another act of control, and perhaps even justification for our self-oriented actions?

 

I think gratitude may be seen as trust.

 

When we are thankful at the deepest level, we slowly step away from the controls until our Superior Virtue (healed inner power) is able to flow seamlessly with the myriad changes of life around us. We simply maintain the connection between our Te (Virtue) and the Tao (all and one at every level).

 

I am consciously carrying a feeling of being grateful for everything since I am on this planet. It is very quiet but it is there I do rarely have the urge to express it. I was often told as a child to "Say thank you..!" and I replied "But I am?"

 

Yes!

 

In returning to the wholeness of our Virtue, we do things intentionally. We have lost the original pureness of energy we started with, and borrow energy from outside. However small these gifts it is important to respect and be thankful or them.

 

If we exchange qi with trees, we should be respectful to not just the tree, but to the entire ecosystem of living things, manifest and spirit, who may depend on the energy of that tree for their very existence. As we can see in lists of extinction, it is very common for human kind to disturb the environment in ways that unintentionally wipe out entire species. Would this not extend to the energetic realm? Just how much power of destruction might we wield simply by doing energy work in some nearby woods? Do we think the spirits do not notice or care?

 

I've been very explicitly informed that qi gong and martial arts lineages can and do attract spiritual enemies based on the way their members interact with the qi of nature. Forest spirit who guards forest for 10 thousand years may react to some new form of energy that tries to interact with it. Just natural cause and effect. But largely invisible to the practitioner.

 

Many will WTF at this, and that is to be expected. This concept merely shows how far the paradigms of humanity have separated from the paradigms of the pre-humanity Earth nature.

 

My point is until we reach a level of where gratitude is unfailing, we can cultivate deliberate respect. For you this may be natural awareness and unspoken. For others it may be easier to speak, as reminder.

 

Might the energy of that which we call 'Gratitude' be something slightly different? Just like the idea of "love" is not really the energy of "love" we know here in the West. It is a part of it. But in the essence it is something much more deeper and unconsciously we mostly perceive only a miniscule fragment of it.

 

All the littlest choices we make (organic or not, walk or drive, react or respond) send our energy into the world. Sometimes they support patterns that are destroying the earth. Sometimes they support patterns of greater healing. But it's the littlest bits of energy, like even being aware of walking with gentle intention instead of stomping around everywhere, that all add up and define what we are grateful for. Just like love, I think unconditional gratitude, or trust, is necessary, or how can one avoid slighting what one is not aware of?

 

But in the end.... perhaps the answer you're looking for is the Golden Elixir. Or, in slightly less alchemical terms, the Precelestial Breath of True Unity, which is found in the One Opening of the Mysterious Barrier.

 

What is Gratitude? I have to meditate on it.

[manitou]

One thing being grateful does is that it connects all these disparate and despearate moments in a way that is far beyond my ability to express or repair.

I want to say thanks to many who would not welcome the expression, can't accept the message because they are dead, or would not think that is what I was actually saying. There is an element to being thankful that is one's own alone. A part of accepting the connection is not having to have other people prove it for you.

It is a kind of faith:

Not in the sense that all will be made right and one's hopes secured;

But in the sense that appreciation is connected to others in ways one has barely begun to understand.

 

 

What a beautiful post.

 

Gratitude seems to be part of the Loving dynamic, as I see it. I love your last sentence - because somehow our Oneness (connected-ness), when we're in Awareness is the reason for the gratitude. It's an acknowledgement of those things that we normally take for granted, and see them for the wonderful things that they are.

 

Can you feel grateful taking a shower? I can - I see the water as part of me, I talk to it (when in awareness) and I am very, very grateful that we have the simplest things like showers in this country. The other part of my heart stretches and feels sorrow for those in the world who can't do the simplest thing like take a shower. it seems to happen simultaneously.

 

It seems to me that gratitude stems from the Here and Now. I think this aspect should be considered as well. We aren't in a state of gratitude if we're worried about an exam tomorrow, or regretting something that happened yesterday.

 

And what a milepost gratitude is to see our own growth. For years, I felt nothing but hatred and contempt for my father. But now - years later - I feel true gratitude for the things he did do for us, and it's un-tempered by all the seemingly 'bad' stuff. Although he's deceased, I do sometimes talk to him and tell him I love him.

 

I'm finally able to have a picture of him hanging in my bedroom. I am very grateful for this, because it shows me daily that looking at him doesn't offend me any longer, and that I really do have love for him after everything was said and done. Full circle, and Gratitude is the crowning glory of all the inner work.

Edited July 10, 2014 by manitou

[Daeluin]

Extending my post.... gratitude is found in what we radiate out.

 

Some get confused by the idea of turning the light around and focusing inward. Not looking, not hearing, not sending out energy but being receptive. This is helpful in sealing leaks, emptying and filling, and healing the balance within.

 

And yet, as we focus inward and heal, over time the energy condenses, refines, and in compression radiates back out as light. Even as we maintain focus inward, we are aware of all and give back to all in gratitude.

 

The refinement of our energy no longer holds attached shapes and is able to nurture all indiscriminately. Through trust we radiate outwards unconditionally, and through trust all is able to receive our gratitude and our acceptance.

 

In the world we live in, it may be a wise approach to focus inwards and do the healing work first. Know yourself before others. In time, when you are healed, you will radiate naturally without motive.

[Anoesjka]

Gratitude is on the other side of the coin with greed on it. It teaches one to be humble and to see more clearly the value of matters which go otherwise by unnoticed. In a way, it can be seen as mindfulness! At least, that's my take on it.

[PLB]

Manitou,

 

I don't look at it exactly the way you do. I have this sensation and am more certain about it than how it fits in with other things

But I totally get the meaning of:

 

I'm finally able to have a picture of him hanging in my bedroom.

 

Thank you for your good listening and clear response.

[4bsolute]

It's relief.

 

Totally correct. I recalled the feeling of gratitude and inserted relief instead of gratitude. Fits perfectly. You let go and receive.

[manitou]

Relief as a feeling is interesting. Personally, I don't see relief in gratitude - relief would be what I would feel after an anxiety-producing dynamic stopped. But of course, gratitude would ensue 'because' the offending dynamic stopped. I think that's a sort of double-pronged thing.

 

The type of gratitude I'm thinking of is the type that swells in our breast when we're in the Here and Now, and when we see things for what they are - such a beautiful part of the grand plan - when normally we would just take that thing for granted. The simple things that we're given, and walk by them every day without noticing. Gratitude for the very life we're given, the beauty of nature. Of course there's the normal gratitude we feel when somebody gives us something unexpectedly, etc - a feeling of Thank You. But I think the gratitude we're speaking of here is of a deeper nature.

[nestentrie]

Admiration then?

[manitou]

Admiration then?

 

Too dual

[nestentrie]

Uh oh. The dreaded dual... Or is it just me that finds myself banging my head against the wall when I heard that term?

 

Maybe I'd be grateful if I didn't have to think about it.