Bob: I struggle with the big emphasis on gratitude. It seems to be handed down by every armchair psychologist these days, and now I find it espoused by you and James too. To me it just sounds like a lot of BS! What does it have to do with the Self or nonduality? If everything is me, what do I have to be grateful for?
Sundari: Only someone who does not actually understand nonduality would make such a statement. It is true that as the Self, gratitude or the lack of it does not affect you. But as moksa is for the jiva who continues to exist even once ignorance of your true nature has been removed by Self-knowledge, gratitude makes a huge difference to your peace of mind. And therefore, to the quality of your life. Whether you like it or not, it is inescapably true that gratitude is the best attitude to have in life, if you want to have a good life, that is.
But gratitude only has real power when you understand why it is important. The ability to be grateful is given to us as a gift from Isvara because life does not NEED our gratitude. Nor does anyone else. Certainly, Isvara does not need it because Isvara is not a person. For the jiva, the ability to be grateful deeply changes us because it not only requires humility, it brings to our attention the abundance of life. When the abundance of life becomes our focus, abundance grows. The more gratitude we have, the more we have for which to be grateful.
The reverse is also true. The less we are grateful the less we have to be grateful for. The opposite of gratitude is entitlement, which is nothing more than a false sense of privilege, which in itself is a compensatory attitude for our failures of gratitude. Lurking behind privilege is almost always, shame. The price of privilege without gratitude – entitlement – is that it robs us of authenticity, self-worth and a sense of belonging. It’s a high price to pay. Gratitude is always a far more reasonable approach to life and the big upside is that it goes a long way to eliminating shame. But the true test of gratitude and when it counts the most is when things are not going your way and are not conducive to gratitude.
Anyone with a sattvic mind, whether it is a true inquirer or worldly person, lives in gratitude because such a mind has the humility and appreciation to see life as a great gift. A true non-dualist automatically consecrates all actions with an attitude of love and thanks to the field of existence, without having to dig up a feeling of gratitude or remind itself to ‘to be grateful’ and practice karma yoga. Gratitude is always present because a sattvic mind knows that life is not about indulging the likes and dislikes of the wanting person. It is about appreciating the Self, the one who does not want anything other than what it is.
Self-realized or not, life is about people. We live in a transactional reality and we are much happier when we get along with each other. And that requires both attention and appreciation, which are the more important parts of gratitude. Though gratitude is a wonderful state of mind, for many, it can be short-lived and subject to limitations. Gratitude, attention and appreciation all facilitate love and emotional growth, but you cannot really put gratitude into practice without attention and appreciation.
Though appreciation generates gratitude, it is possible to be grateful without feeling appreciation. For instance, we’re often grateful for help from loved ones without truly appreciating their efforts and hardships – because we are not really paying attention. It is easy to feel flooded with gratitude observing a beautiful sunrise, or time with a loved one. But in the daily living of our lives, attention and appreciation are more rewarding qualities to develop in terms of improving self-value and relationships.
They are more contagious than just gratitude and more likely to prompt reciprocation. When you truly pay attention and appreciate another, a situation or a life experience, you show the universe, your field of experience, that you are cognizant of and value love. People in your life feel loved, and reflect that love back to you. Love is attention and appreciation. It is love loving itself. Which is why being truly grateful goes hand in hand with humility because even though you are the Self and nothing can be taken from or added to you, everything (and I mean everything) you need and have as a jiva is given to you. Nothing ‘belongs’ to you, not even ‘your’ body. How can you not be grateful?
That said, there is a negative side to gratitude, attention and even appreciation, as there is to all things human. Though it is not true gratitude, attention or appreciation, they can all be weaponized to get what you want, either by manipulating others into silence, or employed to cause discomfort, or to avoid accountability and maintain power dynamics. And sadly, this is quite common. Know the difference. True gratitude, attention and appreciation uplift and transform both the giver and the receiver. Anything else does the exact opposite.
Bob: Is my inability to feel grateful why I so seldom feel happy?
Sundari: It very well could be. As I said above, a truly happy mind is a sattvic mind. And a truly sattvic mind is a mind that lives in harmony with life, with Isvara. That doesn’t happen without humility, gratitude, attention and appreciation. It also depends on how you define happiness. For most people, happiness is a complex issue, and it depends on a person’s mind-set.
For instance, ‘happy’ people tend to refrain from comparing themselves with others, they have more positive perceptions of themselves and of others, and they seldom complain as they have found ways to be satisfied with a range of choices. In other words, their likes and dislikes are managed, flexible. Very importantly, they do not dwell on the negative. They are the glass full instead of glass half empty kind of people.
‘Happy’ people do not spend too much time focusing on dysfunction and instead foster what brings life satisfaction. They have good values, and cultivate the most positive qualities: optimism, fortitude and courage, work and personal ethics, fair-mindedness, dispassion, interpersonal skills, the capacity for genuine pleasure, insight and social responsibility, to name a few. Surprisingly, there has been much serious research done on what makes people happy over very long periods of time, with little consensus. But there is one thing most researchers agree on that comprises 95% of what makes people happy. It comes down to people feeling more connected to other people. It doesn’t matter if we don’t have anyone special in our lives, or if we come from dysfunctional families. We need to connect with others, in some way, even if they are ‘strangers’.
Random acts of kindness and talking to strangers could be dismissed as an exercise that simply makes the time pass. But it could also be seen as a moving reflection of how eager we all are, every day, to connect with other humans whose interiority would otherwise be a mystery. As ours is to them. Individuals in whose faces we might otherwise read threat, judgment, boredom or diffidence transform with the power of our attention. If you are still under the illusion that there are ‘strangers’ in this world, talking to them feels good, most of the time. And it guarantees novelty, possibly even learning. It holds the promise, each time, of unexpected insight. The most important being that there is no such thing as a stranger. We are all one.
While everyone aspires to feel-good existential happiness, as a nondualist, being happy is no longer something we chase. Happiness feels like a good feeling and it is a good feeling. But as good as it may be, all feelings come and go. Nobody is happy all the time because the nature of the gunas is always changing. Life can be challenging. But when you know that you are not the person who is happy or unhappy but the knower of both, then you are the source of happiness. The bliss and quiet confidence of the Self is always available to you. No matter what is or is not happening in your mind or in your life. Perfect satisfaction is one of the most definitive ways to describe moksa. There is nothing that beats freedom from and for the person – disidentifying with who you are as a body/mind, transferring your identity to the Self, and living it. Nobody can add to or take away from that.
Bob: And lastly, how do I respond to people who are steeped in fear and conspiracy theories, no matter what evidence exists to negate what they espouse?
Sundari: Ignore them, and let them be. Do not waste your peace of mind disturbing the minds of the ignorant. Evidence, as it happens, isn’t always sufficient for persuading others. More fundamental are the underlying assumptions that we share — or don’t, as the case may be. Doubt can turn especially poisonous, replacing a reality that can be agreed upon with one that is forever disputed because anything in mithya (duality) can be true or false. Don’t go there. Just rest in the peace of the Self. Nothing matters there.
Much love
Sundari
