We came home and as I lay my head on the pillow, snuggled up in my quilt, I was looking up at the roof. My room was furnished, it was heated and had an attached washroom – everything to make it comfortable. It all seemed like a dream. “Wow! I have a roof over my head,” I thought. “What good karma must have I done to deserve this.” Those people kept flashing in front of my eyes. I could not help but wonder that not having a roof over your head was one thing but what about all the other needs? Where did they go to attend the nature’s call? They had no place to cook, nowhere to store their utensils or stove, no place to even keep the blankets in fact, they had no place to wash their clothes. Where would they generally go to get drinking water? Did they brush their teeth, or could they even afford to do that? They had no place called home. There was no where they could go after a tiring day. These and a million other questions boggled and tired my mind out.
I thought about how little we need to be grateful. I thought about how gratitude is not dependent on the magnitude of materiality, it is not dependent on what all you must have. Gratitude is simply a state of mind, an expression of the heart, a commitment to tolerance, a resolution to be happy, a feeling of peace, a sense of contentment, an emotion of fulfilment.
If you believe that in order to be grateful you must have certain things in your life, you will always find it hard to be thankful, because no matter how much you may have, there will still be just as much more you will want to have. Work towards what gives you joy but be grateful for all that you have.
When you are grateful, an invisible blanket of peace covers you, it makes you glow, it makes you happy, strong, warm. Gratitude puts mind at ease about everything around. Gratitude is not about just about being thankful to God.
Here are the two types of gratitude:
Being Grateful to God
Some people are grateful to God, to the Supreme Soul, to someone they feel is up there. It can give them a huge psychological boost, help them survive difficult phases in life, give them the motivation to stay course among numerous other benefits. Those who believe in the existence of God, regardless of the religion they follow, have someone they can be grateful to. Even daily prayer is a form of gratitude. Being grateful to God is not complete gratitude, though. Imagine being thankful to the mother who is never careless, indifferent or irresponsible towards her children. It is of little use. Far more important than being grateful to God is to be grateful to his children, his creation. This leads to the gratitude of the second type.
Being Grateful to Others
Love and gratitude are soulmates; happiness and harmony are their offspring. It is not possible to be grateful unless you accept that someone has done something for you. If you feel, out of ego or ignorance, that it was your right, you will fail to feel grateful. Consequently, you will not experience any happiness, much less peace and bliss. Any relationship with gratitude present in it is bound to flourish. Gratitude is not always about grand gestures, it may range from a sincere thank you to an act of extraordinary compassion.
The important thing to remember is that you must consciously express your gratitude without any expectations for reciprocation; it is hard but doable. True gratitude makes one generous, compassionate and infinitely loving.
Practice of gratitude lends incredible emotional strength. If you are emotionally strong, you can succeed at anything, anything at all. Gratitude makes you emotionally pure and such purity in turn allows you to love unconditionally.
Absence of anything dictates the value of its presence.
When we express gratitude, when we feel it in our hearts, it helps us value what all we have in our lives. And that is a divine start to a good life.
Empathy
Don’t just do something, stand there – this is the basis of empathy. Normally, we do the opposite, we feel tempted to do something and not just stand there. But empathy is about just being there. It is the art of easing the pain of the other person by just being there for them in the most non-judgmental manner. Often we are tempted to give unsolicited advice or tell the other person to be strong when they share their grief with us. That won’t heal the other person. In fact, they may think that you don’t understand them. Empathy is about being a good listener.
In a small village, a farmer puts up a ‘Puppies for Sale’ sign outside his house. On a Sunday morning, a little boy knocked on his door.
“How much are they?” the young visitor said. “I want to buy one of your puppies.”
“They range between 100–1000 rupees.”
“Please, can I at least see them for a while for this much?” And, he pulled out a ten-rupee note.
The farmer thought for a moment and said, “That’s alright.
There’s no charge for seeing them.”
He opened the door of the doghouse and called out to a dog. Out came a female dog followed by six little puppies nearly rolling down the ramp like balls of fur. They were trying to match the strides of the mother. They quickly made their way to the fence while another puppy, noticeably smaller and slower, emerged from the shelter and limped his way to his mother.
“Can I buy that one, sir?” The boy pointed at the hobbling puppy. “I promise to pay you ten rupees every month for the next 10 months.”
The farmer knelt down at his side and said, “Son, you don’t want that puppy. Unlike the other dogs, he will never be able to run and play with you.”
“This is the puppy I want, sir.” The little boy stepped back a little and began rolling up one leg of his trousers. A steel brace, attached to a custom shoe, ran down both sides of his leg. “Actually, I don’t run too well myself, and he will need someone who understands.”
Nature has bestowed upon us an extraordinary emotion, empathy. It is the seed of compassion. Simply put, empathy is a genuine effort to see the world from the perspective of the other person. It is to step into their shoes to see where exactly it hurts. Empathy requires that we empty our mind and listen to the other person with our whole being. No understanding is possible unless we take in all that the other person is trying to tell us.
In his book on non-violent communication, Marshall Rosenberg cites a beautiful poem Words are Windows or They’re Walls by Ruth Bebermeyer:
I feel so sentenced by your words,
I feel so judged and sent away,
Before I go I’ve got to know,
Is that what you mean to say?
Before I rise to my defense,
Before I speak in hurt or fear,
Before I build that wall of words,
Tell me, did I really hear?
Words are windows, or they’re walls,
They sentence us, or set us free.
When I speak and when I hear,
Let the love light shine through me.
There are things I need to say,
Things that mean so much to me,
If my words don’t make me clear,
Will you help me to be free?
If I seemed to put you down,
If you felt I didn’t care,
Try to listen through my words,
To the feelings that we share.42
When you wish to empathize with someone, just listen. When you do that and do so sincerely, they’ll start making perfect sense to you a while later. You’ll begin to understand their challenges and barriers, their aches and pains. Most of us have automatic response to most things in life. But, with mindfulness, you can pick and choose your emotions. When you dislike something, you can choose from anger, repulsion, empathy, compassion, indifference or any one of the 27 other potential emotions experienced by us. When you continue to practice a certain emotion as a conscious choice, it soon becomes your second nature. It is the reason why some people can be eternally angry or always selfish or mostly arrogant, and why some people are often kind, compassionate or considerate. At some point in time, they had chosen these emotional responses over others and they’d done so repeatedly until it was instilled in their DNA.