Gratitude is a Road to Consciousness and Happiness

Really, we can be thankful for so many things… but still, we are not.We deprive ourselves from the open, happy feeling of gratefulness. Because we think we have nothing to be thankful for. This moment is not quite how I would like it to be.

“I will be grateful when I manage to set my life on tracks! I will be thankful when I get my wage rise! I will be thankful when… sometime… sometime… I will be thankful, when my life circumstances will be like this and that.”

You will never be satisfied, and thus: you will never be grateful.

When you reached the goal you have targeted, you may go out for a while and then you celebrate your success with an awesome sex-party after a few glasses of red wine. But maybe you do this in a more moderate way: you go home, have a beer, watch a football match in the television – while you sit back and enjoy the taste of success, which happens in the present: “This is so good. I reached this. I calmed down. I am thankful, because this worked out!”

Then a little time goes by and the functioning of the mind returns: “You still have so much to do. You do not have the time to enjoy the present moment. Here is a new goal, you need to work very hard for this!” – and it finds a goal for itself, on that is distant and projected in the future, you can take this for granted. “I will be grateful, when I get this done too!”

When you were happy about your success, you were grateful, you felt an inner relaxedness (“I got this done too, I can rest a bit now!”), you surrendered yourself to the present moment: the singing of the birds became a bit more beautiful, the sun shone with even more warmth, the flowers were even more stunning, etc…

What is more, the otherwise unbearable neighbor seemed to be kinder, “more human-like”. You let the present moment take you in with ease, peace, calmness and openness. You opened up yourself to it to accept its completeness, its beauty. You lived in the magic of the present moment.

And then appeared the mind with the goal to be pursued and – boom! – shattered the beauty of the pleasant-happy presence. You start planning again, the cogwheels in your brain begin spinning, your head hurts, you are tense and you suffer.

Experience the wonder of being thankful! Loosen up, spread your arms, breathe in and sigh:

“Oh, thank you! I am thankful to be alive. I am grateful!” – and start listing all those things that make you (or could make you) feel grateful.

And as you do the practice of being thankful, some sort of a wonder happens: your tension dissolves, the previously shrunken, worrying and overprotecting general (the ego) faded away, it may even be gone completely.

You opened up, accepted and embraced the world in its complete beauty – just the way it really is. You wake up from the dream of the Mind as an open, peaceful, happy observer. You no longer fight the Universe, you embrace it and from this moment on, the Everything is on your side: it helps you with small wonders, joys – for which you can be thankful again.

Smile now! Spread your arms, breathe in the air, and embrace the present moment at the same time. Breathe a big sigh: “Thank you. Thank you for everything!”.. And enjoy the effects of .. just a smile!

From the book: Ervin K. Kery “The Art of Mindfulness: Jump into Consciousness”