Monday, November 30, 2015

Different shades of gratitude





…contd….

Today, it was decided that we explain why we felt grateful towards ‘one’ person and then write a TYC after that to that person. And we were doing just that.

Pinky’s explanation made us realize that we take people who are our support system for granted. We hadn’t acknowledged their presence and contribution in our life. And yet these people had been there for us – unasked, unflinching, without any expectations and smiling all through with us. Now, would this gratitude add more value to their role in our lives? Would they be more loving towards us? Would they love us more? No. nothing of that sort would happen for sure. Many of us were thanking a person who was no more part of our life – then why this exercise of extending our gratitude to such people. I realized today that this way we didn’t give them anything. We gave ourselves ‘good feeling’ of being grateful. This act made us open to ‘seeing’ how others’ were silently loving, caring and sharing a part of themselves with us. This was to validate that act of theirs. That meant, we had to look beyond our selfishness and envy to look at others role in our life. We were actually opening up as humans. Yes. We were being grateful so that we could open our hearts to joy, peace, humility and purity. This thought moved me. Our Guru had said “Be grateful. Show gratitude for what you receive and yet we didn’t.

We understood the words and felt ‘oh, yes, we got it, don’t repeat’.  But today, I understood that she knew we didn’t get the import of words and hence would implore us again and again to be grateful. And yet ……

This was no simple class, I realized that. As I was collecting my thoughts everyone had finished their tea and Aana had started her explanation.

....contd......

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