Underappreciated Power Of Gratitude

A hermit was travelling to a town to meet two people whom he had met during his last trip. Both had questions which they wanted him to convey to God.

God likes to talk to us and blessed are souls who make time to be quiet to listen to Him and receive His communications through different channels. The hermit a pious soul had frequent divine interventions and during one such communication received Divine’s response to their questions hence was visiting to share it with them.

The last time the hermit met the rich man he had asked if any prayer or wish he would want him to ask God. The rich man replied God has given me everything in abundance you could convey to God to stop giving me.  

The response from God was; “God will stop giving the man if the man stops being in gratitude”. The rich man immediately responded; in my earlier days when I was not rich He looked after me, I have overcome serious illness with Him around and now over the years He has chosen me to be His source to give others. I cannot stop being in gratitude. The hermit intervened, in which case God blessings will continue to shower upon you. Stay blessed and the hermit left.

His next halt was a beggar who in their last meeting listed many complaints. He spoke the pains in begging, ask 20 people and only 2 would give others criticized. Can you ask God why He is putting me through this?

The beggar on seeing the hermit immediately questioned O holy one, hope you bring an answer for me.

Yes I do and I am told you are always blaming God, ungrateful, forever in criticism. The way you have chosen to live your life, it is blocking all Godly givings coming to you. My advice to you is stop being ungrateful or you remain in the same condition.   

The confused beggar reacted I thought I was the victim but in turn I am being blamed to be responsible for my own condition. The beggar requested the holy man to explain.

The hermit’s gyan;  As a prayer if only you had said in your whole life 'thank you,' that would suffice, which I understand you never did. Gratitude is the memory of the heart; it turns what we have - to enough. Gratitude flourishes in the mind of the individual and a grateful mind eventually attracts itself great things.

To acknowledge the good that you already have is the foundation of all abundance. Gratitude is richness, complaining is poverty. A critical error you made is to choose to take things for granted and not with gratitude. Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life assisting you to turn denial into acceptance, chaos to order and confusion to clarity. Gratitude is very powerful and can be beneficial for our mental and physical health. It could uplift your mood, find respite from poor thinking, foster stronger relations and even change the view how you view yourself.

Gratitude enables us to see the hand of God guiding our lives strengthening us to keep his commandments aligning our will to His will. Struggle ends when gratitude begins. The hermit blessed the man to realise his underappreciated power of Gratitude and left.   

A fortnight later the hermit saw another person at that spot and asked where is the earlier beggar. Oh that man he does not beg nowadays, he has become a hawker and does well. This spot seems lucky so I have come to beg here.