Gentle Healing Year 1 ~ Lesson 197

• Widen the horizons of our vision
• Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
• Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
• Intensify our motivation for freedom

Today’s lesson is quite profound. Inner Wisdom certainly had in mind for me to learn it. I read it early in the morning the day this tip was written and I would like to share my experience regarding the lesson with you. In order to do so, I must give you some details of my day.

One of the things I did today was prepare the Trustee Board Meeting Agenda. As part of our trustee meetings, we contemplate a quote chosen by Regina or myself, depending on which of us is leading the meeting. I felt drawn to a quote by J. Krishnamurti. It was a quote I had mentioned in Gentle Healing during our last session—“I don’t mind what happens.” In looking to ensure it was he who actually said it, I came to review several quotes from him on Wikiquotes. One of these came to mind (as you will see below) as I prepared this tip.

My son kept coming to mind all day. I called him this evening and we had a lovely chat. He told me of an acquaintance who was going through some very difficult times. I told him of an acquaintance of mine who was also having a difficult go of things. I told my son—“There is a lot of suffering in the world. At the very least, these things should make us grateful for our own circumstances in life.”

Shortly after the call, I sat down to read the lesson again. Here is the first paragraph of today’s lesson:

“Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause? And who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world.”

Wow! Could the message be any more on point? I read on. The lesson states: “Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. For who can bargain in the name of love?”

As I continued to read, I realized that this was the lesson that I discussed with a fellow Awakening Together member at the end of a phone call yesterday. He had seen something in the lesson and wanted to share it with me.

“We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us, and calls us Son. Can there be more than this?”

He shared his understanding that without having been given everything, we wouldn’t have the privilege of choosing to be bitter. Thus, he realized he could be grateful for his bitterness.

When I looked at the lesson this evening, I was amazed to see so many of these pieces come together around this lesson. I asked Inner Wisdom to share with me what I should share regarding this lesson. This is what came:

‘Blessings to you in your amazement! Haha. You are that which is loved and that which is love. You are that which extends. You are that which is.

This is the source and the cause of your gratitude. You are not unfamiliar with gratitude. You, yourself have shared that when you are quiet—when you be still—it is gratitude that you find. You found it odd to “characterize” it as such. It is not so odd.

What is the response to the all in all but gratitude? There is never any thing to be grateful for. As J. Krishnamurti said:

Passion is something which very few of us have really felt. What we may have felt is enthusiasm, which is being caught up in an emotional state over something. Our passion is for something: for music, for painting, for literature, for a country, for a woman or a man; it is always the effect of a cause. When you fall in love with someone, you are in a great state of emotion, which is the effect of that particular cause; and what I am talking about is passion without a cause. It is to be passionate about everything, not just about something, whereas most of us are passionate about a particular person or thing. I think one must see this distinction very clearly. In the state of passion without a cause, there is intensity free of all attachment; but when passion has a cause, there is attachment, and attachment is the beginning of sorrow.

Vol. XIII, p. 251

[Note that in the quote Krishnamurti speaks of “passion,” but he could just as easily have used the word “gratitude.”]

It is all causeless. The very idea of time is premised on your notions of cause and effect. Remember means and end are the same. Remember that, that which you would experience must be that which you supply. You cannot continue to think in terms linear and appreciate the nature of your Self.

You are that. Give to each other as if you know that. Give thanks for everything and nothing.’

As our lesson tells us, “We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Himself completion. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us.”

Let us then be grateful for everything by learning to see all things as “the gifts of God to us,” for surely they are that. Specifically, let’s use gratitude today to strengthen our spiritual resolve. Let’s have gratitude for everything that reminds us of our spiritual purpose and gratitude for every opportunity to practice our spiritual purpose. This is the way to remember our True Self.