"Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance." - Eckhart Tolle
Every time someone asked me something to do for him or her and failed to acknowledge its receipt, I often used to feel offended and sometimes even complained directly to him or her. Luckily, I feel little or no resentment any more. I feel compassion instead now.
Especially when I was still teaching in the university, I used to receive many questions from my ex-students and quite a few others, including total strangers. I always answered - and still answer - them to the best of my knolwedge at my earliest convenience. Statistically speaking, less than one out of ten people expresses gratitude for the help he or she received from me. I don' take this personally any more. I'm quite sure those who don't do so to me don't "discriminate" people in this respect - they never express their gratitude to others for helping them, whether they asked such help explicitly or not.
Why do I feel compassion - and even deep one - for them? Because they don't seem to understand one important universal truth - gratitude is an important secret for flowing with the Divine energy instead of forcing yourself through the flow with your egoic will. I've encountered this seemingly unversal teaching about the importance of gratitude in various spiritual traditions, including Chabad Chassidus.
While feeling deep compassion for them, I seldom share this wisdom with those who fail to even acknowledge receipt of the help they received simply because they aren't ready yet to appreciate this universal truth.
In one area of my new professional activity I've had a unique opportunity to observe a close correlation among people I've helped help themselves between their habit of expressing gratitude and their seeming level of positive energy. This is a vicious circle for them - since they fail to express gratitude, they attract negative energy on the one hand, and since their energy is negative, they fail to express gratitude on the other.
Even many of those who do have this habit fail to express the most important kind of gratitude - gratitude for the life they are entrusted with every morning. When asked what his most favorite blessing was, the Lubavitcher Rebbe answered מודה אני. I also feel the same. I start my new day with this blessing:
- Hebrew original: מודה אני לפניך מלך חי וקיים, שהחזרת בי נשמתי בחמלה. רבה אמונתך.
- Ashkenazic pronunciation in transcription: moyde ani lefoneykho melekh khay vekayom, shehekhzarto bi nishmosi bekhemlo. rabo emunoseykho.
- English translation: I offer thanks to You, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me. Your faithfulness is great.
Thank you very much for reading this blog entry.