Change, Gratitude, Living Fully, Love
GRATITUDE IS THE GREAT EQUALIZER
The secret to creating the feeling of gratitude is to be consistent in keeping an open and receptive mind, a believing heart, and a natural, sane and expectant nature. This is what creates confidence and the kind of strength measured in your connection with the Divine and your feeling of oneness with the world in which you live. Some people posses this type of consistence; most do not. Overwhelmed with fear, many live in a very noisy mind, dominated by unreceptive habits that have carved a notch in the heart, which appears natural, but isn’t.
The purpose of gratitude is often confused with subordination to a higher power. Can you imagine a God in human form judging and condemning all who do not express gratitude? The whole concept of gratitude is too often confused with religion and a God who needs to hear you say thank you. This is a classic example of assigning human characteristics to the Divine Intelligence of the Universe. Let’s be clear: God cannot hear you saying or thinking gratitude. God only hears what you believe and fulfills every confused thought you have about being unhappy or grateful, resentful or thankful, filled or empty.
What God does is animate and fulfill what you think. That is why gratitude is so important. When you think gratitude and you see all of life as a blessing you open the pathway for a greater good to flow through you into the world. When you think fear and feel a sense of limitation, you constrict the flow of good through your life and very little good can manifest in your experience. Gratitude is an act of trust; and when you trust the life you’ve been given to live it’s much easier to make the kinds of changes necessary to grow and deepen. This is also the purpose of prayer: to open your mind and condition it to be receptive to new ways to see your relationship with the Divine. It is not natural to allow you heart to be habitualized by negative thoughts. You can’t think positive and still feel negative. You must attack the problem where it lives: INSIDE your emotions.
My definition of an emotion is a memorized reaction. It’s a habit that many get used too because they have no idea that there is a different way of thinking, behaving, and acting. Feeling, on the other hand, is not a memorized reaction. The feeling of Love is the presence of the Divine seeking to guide and direct your attention to forgiveness and faith. Pure love is sufficient unto love. As Paul is reported to have said: “Love posses not, nor would it be possessed.” When you live in the now you live in the Law and the Law is the one constant you can count on. The Law is the great equalizer because it fulfills without judgment or condemnation. It just acts upon what you believe and creates whatever is predominant in your mind. If all you can think about is your fears, doubts, limitations, and concerns you will continue to be confused by life’s conditions and confounded by circumstance that forever throw you off balance, incapable of creating anything new.
When you focus on a new thought about yourself, and you do it with a steady application of love and acceptance, you are praying with an unceasing faith. When you continue to be affirmative in your mind and heart, even though you want to go to the default position of fear, you are living an unceasing faith. When you refuse to doubt yourself and decide to be resolute in your self-creative knowing, you are the very presence of an unceasing faith.
Never surrender to fear, for you have two tools: mind and feelings. Use them both deliberately and you will alert your subconscious mind to be on the lookout for a greater good, acting as if it was already so, and willing to be the instrument of Peace. Your purpose is to remain decisive and confident, with an open and receptive mind, a believing heart, naturally yourself, sane and expectant. This is the feeling of gratitude for all you are and all that you are becoming. This is the meaning that equalizes life and allows the Creative Spirit a way in and through your experience.
Dr. Jim Turrell, author of the EBook, How to Complete a Relationship, available at www.CSLPublishers.com