“Gratefulness is heaven itself.”
William Blake
An “attitude of gratitude” is
recommended by all the teachers of the Law of Attraction. Why is it so
important? For one, gratitude can put you in the vibration of your desires
fulfilled. Gratitude brings completion to cycles; when you are grateful ‘in
advance’, you are feeling and responding to the completed manifestation cycle
at a level of knowing. In other words, you are energetically in the fulfillment
of your desired manifestations. The subconscious mind makes no distinction
between what is ‘actual’ and what is imagined—its conviction comes from your
emotional energy, based on intensity and frequency of those emotional states.
With an attitude of gratitude, you repeatedly energize the emotional states of
your manifested desires, and your subconscious mind will get working on
matching your outer reality with your inner state of being. If you are trying
to magnetize abundance, for example, then being grateful for all your abundant
blessings puts you in the fulfilment energies of abundance, which is the
perfect attractor energy for increased abundance.
But gratitude works in many varied
ways. For example, being grateful for what is, including all your areas of lack
or dysfunction, empowers you as an attractor force further. But how can you be
grateful for your lack and dysfunction? And won’t that attract more lack or
dysfunction? No it won’t—not if you’re grateful for what the lack is revealing
to you. If you can feel grateful for the lack because it helps you to
appreciate the sense of abundance, which is what you desire more of, then
you’ve managed to be grateful for the full spectrum of experience. Without the
lack, you likely would not be able to consciously appreciate and therefore
choose abundance. From that state of acceptance, your choice for abundance will
be met with far greater ease than it would if you were still energetically
resisting lack. What we resist persists. What we resist, we create an internal
polarity to, which fixes it in place. So gratitude for all experience is a very
powerful means to dissolve the inner polarity and allow free movement, by
choice, on the full spectrum of experience (in this case, the desired movement would
be towards the abundance-end of the spectrum).
Dave Cameron explains, “…gratitude
completes the cycle of knowing… What you like and what you hate are two ends of
the same thing. For example, if you like being with your spouse and hate being
separated from them, realize that you are working within the same essence,
which is your spouse. It is because of the moments of absence that you
appreciate and recognize the moments of presence. When you are grateful for
both what you like and what you don't like, you complete the knowingness and
you are released from having to experience what you don't like. …Some very
significant shifts occur in your mind and soul whenever you are genuinely
grateful for all things, even the ones you don't like. Gratitude will speed you
through your growth and success more than any amount of hard work ever can.
Gratitude completes the lesson, and as a statement of completion rings that
tone of success, pulling to you the end result desired.” 1
When you can be grateful for the things
you don’t like, you speed up the learning and hence, the need for those things
in your life. “You cannot leave a situation permanently unless you appreciate
the gifts it brings you, and all situations bring a gift, no matter how
terrible the situation may appear to be.”1 In the case of lack, the gift may be
the conscious appreciation of abundance and ease, which is necessary for
sustaining it in life.
Life as God’s Love in Action
Without you, your consciousness, your
life would not be. All the interactions with others and what is created out of
that simply would not exist. Life arises out of you, through you, and for you.
It is entirely dependent upon your consciousness. It shapes and moulds itself
around you in a perfect fit, like a glove over a hand. The animated, gloved
hand is you in life. The glove shifts as you shift. Take your hand out, and the
glove collapses and is no longer animated.
The animating principle of this thing
we call life (the glove) is the love of God for each one of us—it is God in
action through the formless Substance. Imagine you are an invisible
hand—invisible at the level of matter. The glove is there to allow you to see
yourself and others, in order to enable experience. As fine-substance
consciousness (invisible hand) in an ocean of consciousness, you cannot
experience yourself apart from the ocean, and so you cannot encompass larger
portions of the ocean, as you have no means of distinguishing anything
consciously. The glove (i.e. matter, or the earthly realm of life) is there to
enable distinction, contrast, and ultimately the experience of self and the
possibility of encompassing larger portions of the ocean substance that is God,
consciously. The loving embrace of the universe is your life.
The universe, upholding evolution by
its love-imbued laws, hugs you tightly in a glove of life, which is love in
action. Where you feel the pressure are the ‘places’ that need attention. The
pain you feel, is you shrinking away from life’s embrace. This pain alerts you
to where you have forgotten who you are and are resisting remembering.
Life hugs you tightly, always. You
are moving consciousness—both awareness and life. You’re all of it, albeit, at
different levels of consciousness. The god-you wishes you to remember who you
are, the ‘small you’ is the vehicle through which that remembering process is
focused. Resistance is what causes pain and delays learning. When you can be
grateful for all experience, you release resistance and begin to yield and surrender
to the process. The process (life) can then change from pain, to being benign,
and then soon becoming a wondrous adventure.
When you are grateful for unwanted
conditions that appear in life, you accept them with the faith that somehow
they are for your highest good. Acceptance is a prerequisite to change. But
also importantly, by your faith that the condition is somehow for your highest
good, you become a commanding presence to ensure an outcome that is preferred
(you choose either lessons or blessings) —and that outcome of blessing will
occur far more quickly than if you resist and are embittered or dissatisfied
with the condition. So be grateful for it all—the tight hug is for your highest
good, and the pain is there so long as you resist. Engaging gratitude releases
the resistance and enables you to move forward with the necessary learning,
bringing completion and releasing the need for life to move in on you in that
manner.
Rudolf Steiner2 explains that it is
our consciousness that enables immortality; in unconsciousness, we do not know
that we exist and so cannot speak meaningfully of immortality. Everything of
your past has contributed to your current point of consciousness, and if you
will be grateful for consciousness then you can be grateful for all of your
past. When you can do this, you will successfully disengage from your past and
be able to move resolutely forward with whatever new stories you wish to create
for yourself.
In the Science of Getting Rich3,
Wattles explains that there is one intelligent Substance from which all things
proceed which gives you everything you desire. In his chapter on Gratitude, he
states that the best means to relate to this intelligent Substance and be in a
harmonious relationship with it is through profound gratitude. Failing to
acknowledge our blessings “cuts the wires connecting” us to God. Energetically,
failing to acknowledge creates imbalance, as there must always be a fair
exchange of energies in all ‘transactions’. The universe will not be put off-balance.
Our soul lives in constant gratitude
for all experience, and in this regard, lives closer to its source. When we
emulate the soul we too shall live in close connection to the source of our
abundance. Wattles explain the power of gratitude at accelerating manifestation
because it “draws the mind into closer touch with the source from which the
blessings come.”
Further he points out that gratitude
always reaches what it addresses and there is an instantaneous reaction of a
movement towards the person who is grateful. This is an experience we all can
validate. Think of giving a gift to someone who is profoundly grateful to you
for it. You are drawn closer to that person. Contrast this with gifting someone
who does not acknowledge the gift, or worse, refuses it. You will feel
antipathy towards that person, which draws you away from them. Hug somebody who
stiffens or shrinks away, and then hug somebody who hugs you back warmly—which
person is more inviting? This is another important aspect of the Law of Gratitude
in action.
“Draw nigh unto God, and He will draw
nigh unto you. That is a statement of psychological truth.”
It’s important that you ponder on the
power of gratitude in all aspects discussed, and see where you can work these
principles in your life. Gratitude is one of three keys of manifestation; these
are:
• Imagination/Desire
• Gratitude
• Faith
Imagination and desire are needed to
direct the formless Substance—this constitutes our engagement in life, whereby
we become increasing consciousness by exerting choice and experiencing the
effects of those choices. Desire is the level at which we work with the gift
and power of free will as the means to come to know the self as love.
Gratitude releases our blocks from
their locked-in positions, speeds up full learning, and gives back to the
universe to maintain balance and harmony, and the universe in turn responds
with the joy of greater giving. But these are its effects. The essence of
gratitude is love, and the highest form of gratitude is unconditional love.
If you’re not sure what unconditional
love feels like, try being grateful for all that is in your life that you tend
to resist…be grateful for all those in your life who trigger you into
less-than-love behaviours…be grateful for all past experiences that caused you
pain…be grateful for all present conditions you’d rather not experience. Apply
the principles discussed above, in which gratitude completes the spectrum of
experience and thus the cycle of learning. Be grateful for the contrast and the
resistance, for in letting go of the resistance, you gain conscious awareness
and greater freedom to access, by will, the good end of the spectrum. In doing
this, you will feel your heart expanding and will begin to glimpse
unconditional love, and the state of being love in life. Furthermore, gratitude
brings wholeness, which confers healing. As gratitude opens the heart—which is
the province of miracles—, the effects of developing an attitude of gratitude
in life are far-reaching.
“Wholeness is Holy; wholeness is
healing. That is the essence of all miracles—physical, mental, financial, and
social. Whatever has been torn apart comes back together into a state of
wholeness. Love supports wholeness and wholeness support love. Through that
common bond, love can heal anything.”4
Many people wonder how to operate
from love in life, and the answer is by way of gratitude. Gratitude is the
energy that connects us to the love that we are. Gratitude is love; gratitude
for everything is unconditional love. Gratitude is the surest way to merge with
the source of creation and to wield its power.
“…for this is the universal law of
command. Love commands the universe, the adamantine particles, the one spirit,
the heart, and all of life.”4
There is no energy or healing process
that is more powerful than the application of gratitude, for gratitude is love.
As a force of unconditional love, gratitude will activate the hidden workings
of the cause and effect of love that operate in the universe, which is
expressed in life as being in the grace of God. This force is separate from the
usual cause and effect of effort and operates at a higher level of Intelligence
referred to as the Holy Center of existence.5 In addition, as Wattles points
out, faith is born of gratitude. Faith increases the more we dwell in the love
that we are. Faith brings you deeper into the fulfilment energies of what you
desire, which confers complete certainty that allows you to surrender the
how-to of life and flow in divine guidance and synchronicity. All three
energies generate a connection to life that is teeming with vitality and
passion, and with passion, you are easily spurred to take bold action when
opportunities appear.
Manifestation is an interactive dance
with the Creator, and at each step there must be an exchange of energies in
order to remain in balance and harmony with the laws of creation. That exchange
is powerfully achieved in continuous gratitude.
If you will ponder on the power of
gratitude, you will certainly understand the importance of nurturing a habit of
gratitude. Not only does it aligns you to attract your god-given resources and
dissolves all the blocks to receiving them, but it also restores your wholeness
so that you operate from greater personal power. Gratitude is the keystone of
manifestation; gratitude brings you closer to the source so that you can easily
imprint your desires on the formless Substance, and it begets faith, which
keeps you in a vibrational match to your desires. What you do towards
increasing a grateful mind will have the largest repercussions for you in
manifesting your dreams.
Anita Briggs
ARTICLESBASE.COM
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