Overview

Gratitude 
Gratitude is, in essence, the expression of a thought in which our heartfelt emotions go out to others for the role they have played in bringing about good fortune in our lives. The object of our appreciation and thanks may be one other person, a group of people, a social entity, or even life itself. (In its highest form, it is to recognize a Divine hand at work -- i.e. Grace.) Because gratitude is a higher emotion, a spiritual emotion, even an attitude of the soul, it has the power to not only create a stronger bond, e.g. a sense of harmony and unity with others, but it can to elicit the infinite possibilities of life. In other words, expressing our heartfelt appreciation and thanks can attract magnificent positive responses from life.

Gratitude for Past Spirit Action Enables It Permanently
Gratitude is a spiritual emotion, an attitude of the soul, which puts us in touch with the Spirit and has the power to attract the action of the Spirit, i.e. positive responses of life, continuously in our lives. For one who wishes to make such action of Spirit a permanent feature of his own life, a good beginning is to review one's past and locate at least one such event in which one was blessed by unexpected luck or escape from expected misfortune as a result of the invocation of Spirit. To feel gratitude for these occurrences enables the permanent Spiritual action that infinitely benefits our lives. (Paraphrase of MSS)

Gratitude at Universal Plane
When we offer our thanks and appreciation for the efforts of others -- whether individuals or organizations or society -- we move from the ego plane to the universal and transcendent planes.

Gratitude
The Divine, as well as people close to us, have on occasion saved us from the depths of despair and suffering. They have also had our very best interests in mind, supporting us in our efforts to reach the heights. For that, there is a bursting forth; a sincere, heart-felt, spiritual emotion of gratitude.

Gratitude for Spirit Working in our Lives
Conscious awareness of God acting in human life is called gratitude. When we see how the Divine has acted in our lives, e.g. brought good fortune or prevented a disaster, and then acknowledge it in our thoughts and feelings, that is gratitude. We can think it, and we can feel it to the point where we are pleasantly filled with positively overflowing energies. When we receive that knowledge in our physical bodies, it can thrill with an intolerable ecstasy and an unflinching rapture. (Paraphrase of MSS)

On Gratitude
Gratitude is an emotional recognition of God acting in life. (MSS)

Gratitude and the Recognition of the Divine
Gratitude is the soul's recognition of the Divine in the world. (MSS)

Gratitude
Gratitude, according to Mother, is seeing God in action. (MSS)

Gratitude
When the soul recognizes the Divine in the world of sensation, it is felt as gratitude. (MSS)

Gratitude and the Divine
-Refusing to complain, refraining from regret, we recognise the Hand of God in every act. Recognition of His Presence is Gratitude.

Frontiers for Expressing Our Gratitude
I started to see the life response power of gratitude after seeing it in action in 'House of Eliott'. I read of it often in 'The Secret', but didn't have any first hand life response experiences. This little episode was very striking for me because I had the experience and then recognized it within one minute. Now I only have to expand on that and perceive the value of gratitude in all its facets, and sincerely take to it in these variety of ways. E.g. at each point we complain -- about others, our job, etc. -- there is  an opportunity to express our gratitude. The reversal there is strong. Another example: when we look at life straight on, as I did with the truth that ''unexciting" Microsoft has supplied me with 95% of the income of the last 20 years, there is also ample opportunity to express it. It will be worth noting all the areas, types of situations, psychological states involved, etc. where gratitude can be expressed. To have the experience will make all the difference. It is a very different orientation to life, especially if we are coming from the opposite direction.

-Man can never lose an endowment -- health, patronage, etc. -- if only he feels gratitude to Grace. (MSS)

Gratitude and Life Response in Pride and Prejudice
In Pride and Prejudice Eliza expresses deep gratitude to Darcy for having saved her family from scandal and ruin. As a result, a minute later, he stuns her and proposes marriage, which she accepts, which gives her ultimate happiness in life, and brings her family enormous financial relief through the marriage.

Gratitude in Pride and Prejudice
Darcy feels mental gratitude to Eliza for the knowledge she gives him, so he makes the maximum progress and achieves the maximum delight. Eliza's emotional response to Darcy is not infatuation, physical or vital attraction or love of the kind he feels for her. Mentally she comes to admire and respect his character, emotionally she is moved by a heartfelt gratitude is a power that creates receptivity for the resolution of all her family's problems and the flowering of her own and Jane's happiness. (MSS)

Gratitude in Pride and Prejudice
Gratitude is a sensation. Every type of knowledge generates a sensation. Learning a skill generates a physical nervous sensation. Mental understanding generates a pleasant expansive energy in the mind. Gratitude is the sensation that issues from the spiritual consciousness, from a plane bordering on what Sri Aurobindo terms the supramental.

There are different types and levels of gratitude. Each has its own consequence. Gratitude in the mind leads to knowledge. How difficult is it for us to feel grateful for the truths we learn about ourselves? That gratitude converts awareness into knowledge. Gratitude in the vital leads to joy. Gratitude in the physical being leads to spiritual receptivity.

Darcy feels mental gratitude to Eliza for the knowledge she gives him, so he makes the maximum progress and achieves the maximum delight. Eliza's emotional response to Darcy is not infatuation, physical or vital attraction or love of the kind he feels for her. Mentally she comes to admire and respect his character, emotionally she is moved by a heartfelt gratitude is a power that creates receptivity for the resolution of all her family's problems and the flowering of her own and Jane's happiness. (MSS)

Gratitude in Pride and Prejudice

Foal lost, then found

(from 'The Secret" site)

By Marie B. from Northern California

My younger son, a teenager, is smitten with horses. He, like my other sons, has always been given a horse that I have purchased or raised. After showing his mare at horse shows and taking her on trail rides and camping, we decided it was a good time to produce a foal with her. He chose a stallion, we paid the stud fee, paid for the vet care, mare care while she was at the stallion's facility. We paid the registry the $400 to sweepstakes nominate the foal in utero.

My son spent the gestation time of 11 months anxiously waiting for his foal. He made plans as to names and how he would raise it. About 10 days before she was due to foal, she started pouring milk, which was not normal. While my son was out of town for the weekend, his mare delivered a dead foal. We were all heartbroken. It was a perfect chestnut filly, with a small blaze face, a hind white sock. She would have been 1/2 Egyptian Arabian, and the other half Fadjur and Sidi-Brahim breeding.

We buried the foal, and when my son returned we tried to console him. He understood, this is the risk taken when breeding animals. Life happens. Unbeknownst to him, I had purchased the book ,The Secret. I saw that maybe, this was the answer. I became grateful that our mare was all right. I saw that the future will bring him another foal. About a month later, something happened that astounded me. I received a call from a lady who I had trained a couple of horses for years ago. I hadn't spoken to her in a year or two. She asked me if I would be interested in purchasing a filly from her at a reduced price, much less than what it was valued at. I didn't really even ask many questions, I explained that I really couldn't afford any price at this time. I was sorry but, I would pass the word that she had this filly for sale. About a week later, she insisted I come see her. It was 5 hours away, but my husband and I made the trip. As I approached the barn I felt happy. Then I rounded the corner and saw the filly. She was exactly what we had lost, only a year older. Chestnut with the same white markings! Her sire was Egytian Arabian, her Dam was a Fadjur Sidi-Brahim cross, and she was sweepstakes!

Then an astounding thing happened. My husband and I had already decided that we just could not afford to purchase a horse. We had hauled a horse down to that area and were fully intentioned to haul an empty trailer back home. The lady had tears in her eyes, she said," just take her. I will give her to you." We were astounded! This was a $10,000. horse. Worth every penny.
We had not told this lady what had happened. She had no idea that we had lost our filly. She just wanted this filly to go to a loving home, where she would be used. Shown and ridden. She told me that I had always been honest and good hearted in my horse business and my life. She said, "Just look at this as your reward."

So this coming weekend, my son is going to show his new filly in her first show. She is loving and gentle and beautiful!

Life will send to you what you need. Always look forward.

Analysis: It is the power of gratitude in life that evokes powerful life response. The teenager's mother offering gratitude that the mare survived the death of the foal brought her exactly the 'same' horse free.

The Privilege of Paying Our Taxes
America came into being when the colonists refused to pay unfair taxes to their British lords. Through their rallying cry of "no taxation without representation," they eventually threw out their colonial masters. Therefore, until this day the average American citizen loathes taxes. Corporations seek every legal means of avoiding it. Also, in a society of freedom, having to pay taxes seemed counterproductive. The citizens of many of the other countries of the world share this same view. It is unfortunately wrong-headed.

In life, we form contracts with others. One example is the contract we have with the government. We may not realize we have one, but we do. It is that they will take care of us -- provide security, infrastructure, et al -- and in return, we will pay our taxes. Thus paying taxes can be considered an act of patriotism. It can even be argued that one who distains taxes is deserved of losing his citizenship since he has broken his essential contract with his government. He is not holding up his side of the social bargain.

When we pay our taxes, it should be an act of gratitude, indicating our deep thanks and appreciation for the benefits the government, the society has provided us. When we move from distain to consciously express positive attitudes of sincere gratitude, we move away from our egocentric view and open to a wider field of existence. It is from such a poise that sudden good fortune arises.

So when we pay our taxes, let us think of the nation, state, or community that has provided the great foundation that enabled our life to thrive. Let us give deep thanks to those who have come before us, who have helped shape our world, and to whom we are paying back through an inner debt of gratitude. Paying our tax then becomes a profound act that cannot help but release powerful positive energies that will keep the wheel of inner and outer success turning.

Ingratitude
-Ingratitude is the conscious effort of unconsciousness at self-preservation.

-Gratitude is only for those who are conscious. (MSS)

Gratitude is a Spiritual Value
Gratitude is beyond even a personal value; it is a spiritual value.

Gratitude is Spiritual
Gratitude is spiritual because it is an inner movement toward unity and oneness with another.

Gratitude and Accomplishment
There is nothing that is not accomplished by true gratitude. (MSS)

Gratitude Matures into Self-giving
Gratitude matures into self-giving by adoration resulting in delight.  (MSS)

Increase Gratitude
Gratitude is a very special quality in humans, a quality that can be said to border on the spiritual. Some have even suggested that gratitude is a new form of goodness it the world. If we look around us we can see that individuals with a "soft nature" have a natural way of expressing their gratitude. A person who shows gratitude is in essence recognizing the goodness and rightness of the flow of events in his life; perhaps even subtly recognizing a Divine hand in things. Gratitude is a quality that moves an individual from strife and bitterness to a higher emotion that borders on love of life.

We have noticed that those who are capable of gratitude normally lead a pleasant, smooth, and generally trouble-free life. Those whose sense of gratitude is weak or dull find all kinds of problems arising in their lives. Our conclusion then is that a very effective and powerful way to overcome a serious problem is to change our negative feelings toward the problem to corresponding positive feelings of gratitude to the people and circumstance related to the problem. See the goodness and benefit of the people and circumstance in your past and make your feelings positive with a sense of gratitude. This approach can solve a serious problem very quickly!

On Gratitude
To show gratitude to the Higher Consciousness, to the Divine, or whatever one wishes to address it, is to insure even more positives to come in the future.

Gratitude is beyond even a personal value; it is a spiritual value.

Gratitude and Emotionalizing Thoughts, and the Soul's Demand of an Inner Thank You
We know how thought develops from acts and sensations. Those thoughts are again emotionalised which is greater cultural progress. By acts one becomes efficient, though emerging out of it makes him intelligent which can have two sides. By emotionalising thoughts, one becomes sincere, incapable of the opposite. Gratitude is an emotion of the soul. Society demands a 'Thank you.' When the soul similarly demands an inner Thank you, gratitude is born. Constant turning inward helps. (MSS)

Levels of Gratitude
There are different types and levels of gratitude. Each has its own consequence. Gratitude in the mind leads to knowledge. How difficult is it for us to feel grateful for the truths we learn about ourselves? That gratitude converts awareness into knowledge. Gratitude in the vital leads to joy. Gratitude in the physical being leads to spiritual receptivity. (MSS)

The Spirit that Solves Cannot Elicit a Man's Gratitude
The Spirit can solve insoluble problems or remove hurdles, but it is incapable of demanding gratitude from an ego that is sensitive. God is helpless. The Spirit is rendered incapable when it comes to asking for gratitude from a human heart. The human heart forgets the Spirit, is not aware of the fact that it is ungrateful. It abuses everyone, hurts the hand that feeds it. God, the Spirit, the Psychic Being all simply wait for the devotee to grow grateful. (MSS)

Ignorance of the Benefactor Influence on One's Success
The man readily accepts it and makes a career. Encountering his friends, he explains all his exploits, how he overcame the obstacles, availed of opportunities, employed talents, rose to the occasion, snatched the opportunity by the forelock etc., etc., etc., but the one thing that is not on his mind is the MAN who set him up in the new life. Of course, he never fails to come to him for further assistance. It may happen over the decades but the snob will never remember the benefactor.

We may have the satisfaction of describing this phenomenon as ingratitude or selfishness, but there is another phenomenon of Mistaking the Effect for the Cause, which is a tragedy. An ungrateful man or a selfish person can awake one day to the Reality, not the one who consciously mistakes the effect for the cause. (MSS)

The Spirit that Solves Cannot Elicit a Man's Gratitude
The Spirit can solve insoluble problems or remove hurdles, but it is incapable of demanding gratitude from an ego that is sensitive. God is helpless. The Spirit is rendered incapable when it comes to asking for gratitude from a human heart. The human heart forgets the Spirit, is not aware of the fact that it is ungrateful. It abuses everyone, hurts the hand that feeds it. God, the Spirit, the Psychic Being all simply wait for the devotee to grow grateful. (MSS)

Feeling Gratitude to Society
One should be grateful to the society for all the modern conveniences, technologies, and these comforts. (Paraphrase of MSS)

On the Nature of the Psychic Being (i.e. the personal evolving soul) 4
Compassion and gratitude are essentially psychic virtues. They appear in the consciousness only when the psychic being [the true self and soul] takes part in active life. (The Mother)

Grace that is Received with Gratitude Solves Problems

• Grace is God's action on His own without any propitiation or prompting.
• Man is usually oblivious of Grace.
• The mind recognising Grace gives belief.
• Recognition is not gratitude.
• Deeper down the vital - the nerves - recognising Grace is joy.
• The body recognising the action of Grace by its sensation and offering in turn a sensation of gratitude is thrilling.
• Man is not usually aware that gratitude is NOT a ready sensation he ever feels. [Even in miraculous events that come one's way that are of overwhelming good fortune, including Grace. -editor]
• Anyone faced with a multitude of problems can pray and solve them. There is another method. Let him look at what recently came to him by Grace and offer gratitude for it. All his present problems will disappear. Gratitude is the divine sensation that attracts Grace. (MSS, extracted)

The Relationship Between End of Cold War and Minor Wars that Followed
An expert in international security said fifteen years ago that there were 26 intra-state and inter-state conflicts in the world. The demise of the Cold War was received with a sigh of relief by the world. But there was disappointment about these minor conflicts. It is a law of life that the abolition of a major problem will be followed by minor problems unless the major relief is received with gratitude.

The abolition of Cold War, the process by which it came about, was the first of its kind. Revolutions rise from outside, never from inside. Cold War was abolished by the USSR, by its chief, from inside, a thing the world has never known. Had the world recognised the stupendous nature of the event, and felt gratitude to its architect, the minor conflicts of Gulf War and Iraq war would not have followed. The Nobel Prize to Gorbachev had more of propaganda in it than a sincere recognition of his SINCERITY. (MSS)

Gratitude in Mind, Emotions, and Body
Gratitude lies in the Mind where results are assured but in time. From the emotions, greater results are more quickly received. One thrills if it is gratitude of the body. (MSS)