“Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.”

~ Rumi

Two possibilities:

1. We (human beings) are an accident of nature. Somehow we developed self-awareness, an abnormally large neo-cortex and an extraordinarily high potential for compassion, sensitivity and emotion. It’s a one-off and when we extinct ourselves, that will be that.
2. We are a part of something much greater than ourselves: a higher intelligence that from our (very) limited perspective seems random and chaotic but is in fact totally in control of all that is happening. A cosmological conductress orchestrating All That Is. There is a reason for everything, and everything is essentially perfect.

If the second one is true, then all we have to do is trust.

We simply have to let go of our primal need for control, and surrender to the higher intelligence that is guiding, determining, and providing for everything.

And if the second one is true, then we have nothing to worry about. Most of our fears are unfounded, and most of our troubles self-imposed.

If most of our fears and troubles are unreal and if we could let them all go in a heartbeat, then what would be left is a profound sense of gratitude.

Thank You for this understanding that I am not lost, separate, or alone in a vast, uncaring world.

Thank You for taking care of all my needs allowing me to bask in the sweet beauty of the glorious natural world around me.

Thank You for your benevolence and wisdom.

And ultimately we would just be thanking ourselves… because if we’re not separate then we’re connected, and inter-connected, and That which is doing the orchestrating is part of Us, and We a part of It! And then gratitude is an infinite loop of eternal awareness of abundance.

And then the ‘You’ that we’re thanking becomes ‘We.’

No ‘You’ to thank—just this awesome feeling of gratitude.

This video, a fairly scientific experiment into gratitude, would indicate that Rumi was right all along. And when you’ve finished, feel free to thank Me—You, Us!—in a comment. Your happiness will rise up to 20 percent as a result and the whole universe will jump up and down in celebration (although it’s already doing just that in case you hadn’t already noticed):

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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Editor: ReneePicard/Bryonie Wise

Photo: courtesy of the author