To be grateful with all your heart - a sadhana, but it's not just a spiritual practice, it's a spiritual being
Sometimes I feel like people have forgotten what they actually possess. Not only what material goods they have, but also things like freedom, health, the ability to do anything. Dissatisfaction - where I look, where I listen, where I look, there is dissatisfaction. I find that very sad. It touches me.
Have you ever thought about simply saying "thank you" for everything you are experiencing, what you are doing and what you have?
Perhaps you are asking yourself now: what does this mean for me? what does it do to me? And my answer is: give it a try! Do it and you will feel how good it is for you. I speak from my own experience. I started to smile. You cannot imagine how many beautiful things you come across. You become aware of what you have, what you can do, what happens to you. You will be amazed. It's almost childish behavior. Innocent.
I got this “sadhana” from Osho. Years ago I had the idea to use "thank you" as a mantra prayer. Inspired, of course, by my beloved Guruji. For him, "thank you" was the real, the true mantra, prayer. In Tibet, the mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum" is omnipresent. You can find it on rocks, in temples, etc. and on or in the prayer wheels. In these wheels, there are rolls printed with thousands of "Om Mani Padme Hum". If you now set the wheel in motion, the mantra will be amplified a thousand times and carried out into the world. We had a prayer wheel in the shop that no longer had a prayer roll inside. My idea was: I wite on a roll of paper an infinite number of "thank you" and put it in the prayer wheel. But somehow I still haven't found any time, but for the "thank you" in everyday life.
Osho encouraged me to learn to say thank you. Not loud. Inwardly, with a joyful heart. I thanked for little things. I just thanked for everything. For example also that I can move my hands, that I am able to lift one leg, that I can go upstairs, that I can breathe. I thanked for my food. I thanked all people, plants and circumstances that contributed to the fact that I had this food on my plate at all. I thanked the wind that touched me. I really thanked for everything. And by that I mean EVERYTHING. Of course, it makes more sense that you thank yourself for beautiful things. But I have learned that the negative experiences have made a difference in me. They made me grow spiritually. The "thank you" didn't come at the same moment, I'm honest. But in retrospect. Thank you.
To be thankful is simply something beautiful. And when we all become a little more grateful, our surroundings will also become more beautiful. We then look with different eyes. We then live with our hearts. Changing the world seems impossible to all of us. We always consider ourselves too small. But to get anything going, I have to start with myself. And maybe my path also inspires other people.
And now that I am writing this, I remember that I had a religious “thank you” even as a child. In our "forest chapel". I hear the song "Thank you for this good morning" in my ears as if it were yesterday. I hear the priest sing, I hear the faithful. And I hear the song as I played it on the guitar when I was a teenager, with our guitar group. I was looking for God. But I didn't find God. Not the god I imagined. Osho gave me a new picture of the "idea of God": divinity, existence. And I feel that every day and especially when I am grateful.
Here is the English version of this modern hymn:
(The German is the original; the text and tune are both by Martin Gotthard Schneider, dating to the early 1960s.)
1 Thank you for giving me the morning,
thank you for every day that's new,
thank you for new things in store for me
and for work to do.
2 Thank you for all my friends and brothers,
thank you for everyone that lives,
thank you that even greatest enemies
I can forgive.
3 Thank you for many little sorrows,
thank you for every kindly word,
thank you that in the midst of trouble
sympathy is stirred.
4 Thank you, I see your word has meaning,
thank you, I know your Spirit here,
thank you, because you love all people,
those both far and near.
5 Thank you, O Lord, for speaking to us,
thank you for telling us you care,
thank you, O Lord, you came among us
bread and wine to share.
6 Thank you, O Lord, your love is boundless
thank you that I am full of you,
thank you, you make me feel so glad and
thankful as I do.
A beautiful song/hymn. I would now replace “God the Lord” with “existence, the great whole”. Thank you "great whole" for bringing this song back to my mind. And now for the New Year I want to share it with you.
Thank you for existing!
With all my heart, Nisarga
