Start feeling gratitude for receiving it

Gratitude is simply choosing to be thankful. Practicing gratitude is living a thankful lifestyle. However, like with most things that require intention, living a life of gratitude takes practice. It really is choosing a perspective that over time becomes easier and more comfortable as you live it. Some great ways to start getting yourself used to being thankful, is to incorporate intentional thankfulness throughout your day.

In the morning, take a few minutes and journal, enlist, or vocalize, what you are thankful for that day. When something does not go your way, what about that situation can you be thankful about? Start to train your mind, as soon as you feel frustration bubbling, to stop and list at least three things you can be thankful for. You will actually begin to feel the frustration start to dissipate.

This one is more difficult, but it can be mastered with practice. When you catch yourself yearning for something, start telling yourself all the things that you are blessed with and thankful for. Choose something you have not appreciated, and then meditate on the benefits of the thing. Journaling or listing where you can visualize while you meditate on them is a great help. Overtime you will train your brain and attitude to automatically move to a place of gratitude.

It just takes a while to train and rewrite thought patterns, but the benefits are amazing. Less negativity. Less depression. More joy. Others will enjoy spending time around you too. The glass is half full is more enjoyable then the glass is half empty. The ideal time to teach living a life of gratitude is at an early age. There are many strategies that can help a child learn to understand and shape their attitudes to one of gratitude early on. Living a thankful life is a much fuller, happier life.

Narada, the great Indian mystic, is going to see God. Playing on his veena, he passes a forest, and comes across a very old sage sitting under a tree. The old sage says to Narada, “You are going to God please ask one question from me. I have been making all kinds of efforts for three lives, now how much more is needed? How much longer do I have to wait? When is my liberation going to happen? You just ask him!”

Narada laughed and said, “Okay.” As he progressed, just by the side, under another tree, a young man was dancing with his ektara, singing, dancing very young. May have been only thirty. Jokingly, Narada asked the young man, “Would you also like any question to be asked of God I am going. The old man, your neighbor, has asked.” The young man did not reply. He continued his dance as if he had not listened at all, as if he was not there at all.

After a few days, Narada came back. He told the old man, “I asked God. He said three lives more.” The old man was doing his jap on his beads. He threw the beads. He was in a rage. He threw the scriptures that he was keeping with him, and he said, “This is absolutely unjust! Three lives more?!” Narada moved to the young man who was again dancing, and he said, “Although you had not answered, and you had not asked, just by the way I asked God about you too. But now I am afraid whether to tell it to you or not? Seeing the rage of the old man, I am hesitating.”

But the young man did not say anything; he continued to dance. Narada told him; “When I asked, God said, "Tell the young man that he will have to be born as many times as there are leaves on the tree under which he is dancing." And the young man started dancing even more ecstatically, and he said, “So fast?! There are so many trees in the world and so many leaves… only this much? Only these leaves? Only this many lives? I have already attained! When you go next, thank him.”

Then it is said the man became liberated that very moment. That very moment he became liberated! If there is such test, such totality of trust, time is not needed. If there is no trust, then even three lives are not enough. And my feeling is that old man must be around somewhere on the road! He cannot have become liberated yet. Even three lives won’t do. Such a mind can’t become liberated. Such a mind is what hell is.

I close my eyes and make a jump of 50 years ahead in my mind and then I get the opportunity to meet an older version of myself. Weak body, low energy and running out of natural clock. And older version of mine now faces to my present version and say: You have all the time you want. You have all the energy you want. You are healthy. You are owner of pool of these ‘taken for granted’ resources. Have gratitude as I can see the crown on your head. Gratitude seeps in.

Then I deconstruct indirect/direct relations I have and food on my plate means reverence for farmers and labourers in fields. Winter or summer, Day or night doesn't matter, they toil hard. Gratitude seeps in. Knowledge and skill set of mine means reverence for parents, teachers, friends and people I respect. Gratitude seeps in.

The way I get the money means reverence for every honest citizen of country. Because they pay taxes and that's why I get government scholarship for my research.This scholarship is my and my family’s bread and butter. And helping us out incredibly after decades of my parents hard work in building human capital (me) in scarcest of resource. Gratitude seeps in. Cheers!