Exercise Sixteen

May 25th, 2006

Living Gratitude

Gratitude calibrates at 540 on Dr. Hawkins' scale of consciousness.

We are committed to being in the fields of Love, Forgiveness, Joy, and Peace, which according to the map of consciousness, is 500, 540, 600 respectively. These are the vibrations of the miraculous, of the saint, and are purported to be fields of incredible, unimaginable spiritual Power.

Our purpose is to join with the Infinite Creator. Our intent is to maintain the willingness to clear our thoughts, remove our judgments and release our positions about every experience of our lives.

We have set our intention. We have committed our self to a spiritual life. Once we welcome all experience as being an opportunity to heal, gratitude rises automatically.

EXERCISE

• The energy of true gratitude is one that extends from our thoughts to the event, person, or object. It is a consideration. It sincerely arises from the heart when contemplating situations in our life. When we consistently recall and express gratitude, we are more likely to expect the good in any situation or person.
• Like any spiritual practice, we begin with the 'gross', the worldly, and we move to more intangible practice. Gratitude is no different.
• Constant opportunities arise within our life to offer gratitude. Typically, however, we are most willing to extend grateful thanks and appreciation when our life is flowing along the way we want it.
• Look into your life and search out all that you are pleased about. This may cover family, friends, home, employment and country. For example, your mind may think of how grateful you are to have (or to have recovered) your health, strength, intelligence, 'special abilities'.
• Consider the feeling of gratitude, of appreciation, of thankfulness. Savor the feeling rather than rush through a quick "thank-you". Feel this powerfully loving energy radiate out of you.
• Allow yourself to experience and relish the feel of being grateful. When you say thank you, when you feel thank you, you are being Love.
• Consider offering gratitude constantly to all moments in your life.
• Now tackle those areas of your life that are challenging to you.
• Look to those difficult events from your past, look to those losses, and look to those people with whom you are less than loving or peaceful, and offer each as much gratitude as you can.
• Say "Thank you for"... and describe the person or situation. "Even though I do not understand what this is for, I give thanks to this situation." At first it may be less than heart felt to do so, yet practice will provide potential results. We are responsible for the effort, not the results.

Searching out opportunities to be grateful means you have provided your self, and offered others, a constant prayer of thankfulness and trust. By being grateful, it dawns on you that, whatever the situation is, you have begun to release your mind from its positionalities; you have begun to surrender wanting to be right or wanting life to be different.

We all have lived long enough to be amazed at how situations we thought were disastrous eventually turned out to be a most profound positive catalyst. So, contemplate this simple exercise and consider offering gratitude to all situations in your life, to all people in your life. Doing so places them in the energy of 540, which is the energy of the miraculous.