Nourishing our relationship with the Divine

In my last post I Ching – nourishing the superior we talked about nourishing the body and the mind as extolled by the I Ching in two related hexagrams. So I was not at all surprised when I read the following paragraph from Rabbi Orlitzky’s Life’s Daily Blessings:

Savoring food

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, at whose word all things come into being. General blessing for food

This is the blessing to be used “when in doubt”, or when food doesn’t fit into any category of traditional foods. It recognizes God as the source of all. While we usually think of prayer or ritual – or even the study of sacred texts – as vehicles to be used to bring us into relationship with the Divine, this blessing clearly demonstrates how food can bring us closer to God. Just by uttering this simple phrase, we acknowledge God’s role in the world and in our lives.

Everything we receive in this world is a gift. Even our bodies. Even the air we breathe. Someone said everything we receive in this world comes from other people. That is mostly true, but other people come from God, so even their gifts originate in God. We rarely stop to think about this, so saying ritual blessings for what we receive, as in the Jewish tradition, seems to me a good way to remind ourselves to be grateful.

Rabbi Orlitzky goes on (italics mine):

So if you are about to eat something, especially if you are not sure which blessing might apply or you are not sure of the nature of the food you are about to eat (for example, did it come from a tree or grow on the ground?), don’t rush through the blessing in order to get to the food. Savor its words, just as you might the food you are about to eat. Both have the potential to nourish and sustain you.

So here again we have the advice we encountered in the I Ching : our task is to nourish the body and the mind and to savor both without seeking to rush things. This is how to have the right attitude in life and the right relationship to the Divine. The rain will fall when it is ready, and when it does, we too will be ready.

Mending the World

Let’s take a break from the dark clouds and the doom and gloom. ‘Why are you writing about that stuff here anyway?’ you ask. ‘This is supposed to be a blog about philosophy and healing for goodness sake, I come here to get away from all that crazy stuff.’ Yep, you may have a point. But I talk about that crazy stuff because it is a consequence of bad philosophy. Just like for an individual, when a country and an economy are governed by short-term selfish immoral goals, bad consequences arise and suffering ensues. Eventually.

We have talked about this before: the swamp plant may grow fast and do well for a time, but it will not last. Only growth based on the firm soil of integrity is lasting and beneficial to all. What has happened in recent years is unacceptable to reasoning people and I feel winds of change are blowing and I feel a desire to give those winds of change a little help. So bear with me if I rant about bad philosophy in the world. I am reminded of this quote of many centuries ago:

Do you know, my son, with what little understanding the world is ruled? Pope Julius III (1487 – 1555)

Not many people see this blog but if only one person reads this post, who knows what tiny ripples of change may be set in motion?

So let us return to philosophy again for a moment and let me share with you a passage from an important little book I have discovered recently: Life’s Daily Blessings – Inspiring Reflections on Gratitude and Joy for Every Day, based on Jewish Wisdom by Rabbi Kerry M. Orlitzky. From compiling quotes for the blog, I have come across several Jewish proverbs and I always found them very succinct powerful and true. So when I fell on this book I was eager to learn more about the Jewish tradition. I was not disappointed. I share with you here a very appropriate passage for this blog and for this world today.

Mending the World

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, for giving us the opportunity to mend the world. Rabbi Ron Klotz

While this is not a traditional blessing – that is, not one of the lists of blessings penned by the Rabbis to be among the one hundred that are to be said each day – it certainly contains what might be called traditional sentiments. We are each obligated to help repair the brokenness in the world, and in others. Of course, we may be simply motivated to do so because it is the right thing to do. But we also want to recognize that when we do so, we are contributing to God’s work in the world. In repairing what is broken and working to bring perfection back to the world by healing it and those who inhabit it, we are acting as channels through which God’s presence flows into the world.

The blessing that Rabbi Klotz wrote acknowledges the sacredness of such an act. It is a privilege to join with God in order to fix what is broken in the world. But the world is not alone in its need of repair. When we contribute to fixing the world, we often end up healing what may be broken in ourselves.

Courage, remembered

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

'For The Fallen', by Laurence Binyon

Image by daliscar

On being attuned to the spiritual

‘There are two ways to live your life, ‘ said Albert Einstein. ‘One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.’ Which is another way of saying you can live as though there is no spiritual basis to life or you can live as though there is.

You can live as though you and your desires are all that matter. Or not.
You can live in selfish ignorance of a moral code. Or not.
You can live in a void of gratitude and reverence. Or not.
You can live…

Well, you get the drift.
There are two worlds existing around us at the same time. The material and the immaterial. The visible and the hidden. The mundane and the spiritual. Most of the time the spiritual is not obvious unless you train yourself to look for it. Unless you are awake to it. Unless you are attuned to it.
Look at an airplane. If you are not attuned, you simply see a big piece of technological hardware, so many hundred tons of metal and a nice paint job. But an airplane is the embodiment of man’s infinite creative genius. A great deal of imagination, dedication, hard work and sacrifice over time from a great number of men and women like you and me was necessary to perfect that flying machine.
Look at the banking system. It was designed and perfected much in the same way as an airplane – it is also the embodiment of man’s infinite creative genius. Normally you would not think much about it, when it works properly. But unlike an airplane, the banking system is built on relationships between people. And these relationships are subject to moral law. And recently, the consequences of neglecting moral law became visible in a spectacular fashion. To everyone. Looking for it or not. Awake or not. Attuned or not.

The power of spiritual forces in the Universe – how active it is everywhere! Invisible to the eyes, and impalpable to the senses, it is inherent in all things, and nothing can escape its operation. Confucius

At World Scripture I came across this quote from the Bhagavad Gita in the section on Ignorance. Here you have in a nutshell the two ways to live your life: as though you are but a higher form of animal living in a sensual world or as though you are a human being attuned to the spiritual in the material. Think of the credit crisis as you read it.

The demonic do things they should avoid and avoid the things they should do. They have no sense of uprightness, purity, or truth.
"There is no God," they say, "no truth, no spiritual law, no moral order. The basis of life is sex; what else can it be?" Holding such distorted views, possessing scant discrimination, they become enemies of the world, causing suffering and destruction.
Hypocritical, proud, and arrogant, living in delusion and clinging to deluded ideas, insatiable in their desires, they pursue their unclean ends. Although burdened with fears that end only with death, they still maintain with complete assurance, "Gratification of lust is the highest that life can offer."
Bound on all sides by scheming and anxiety, driven by anger and greed, they amass by any means they can a hoard of money for the satisfaction of their cravings.
"I got this today," they say; "tomorrow I shall get that. This wealth is mine, and that will be mine too. I have destroyed my enemies. I shall destroy others too! Am I not like God? I enjoy what I want. I am successful. I am powerful. I am happy. I am rich and well-born. Who is equal to me? I will perform sacrifices and give gifts, and rejoice in my own generosity." This is how they go on, deluded by ignorance. Bound by their greed and entangled in a web of delusion, whirled about by a fragmented mind, they fall into a dark hell.

Bhagavad Gita 16.7-16

This was written centuries ago. Human nature is the same today. We cannot expect human nature to change overnight. We can only try to change ourselves. One person at a time, starting here, with me and you.

Gratitude Watch

I am almost guilty of committing a gross ingratitude, shame on me. Daniel Brenton over at The Meaning of Existence (and all that) – A Curmudgeon’s Guide to Spirituality has kindly chosen not one but 3 of my posts on gratitude for his Gratitude Watch 2008 which he describes as ‘an eye on the internet for news, articles, videos, and other items, all focusing on the subject of gratitude’. A very noble and worthy endeavour Daniel, and very encouraging if only to show that gratitude is not entirely dead and forgotten in this age of get it now, get it quick, and get it on. Here you will find links to a goldmine of articles and posts on the subject of gratitude. Be sure to check out his Gratitude Watch for 2009. Thank you again, Daniel.

Gratitude - according to the Ancients

As a child I remember rebelling when anyone would tell me ‘count your blessings’. As a young man I felt much the same when told to ‘be thankful for what you’ve got’. It seemed to me only to accentuate what I did not have. It seemed a cheap shot, an old tired catch-all put-down phrase. ‘Of course, it is the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.’ said Margaret Thatcher. Behind the old tired phrases lies the truth, whether we are open to receiving it or not. ‘Count your blessings’ is a great wisdom, whether we choose to do it or not. ‘Being thankful for what you have’ is the attitude of a great and cultivated mind, whether we understand it or not.
Here is what the Ancients had to say about gratitude, probably to the rebellious unlistening youth of long long ago:

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. Buddha

You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy. Buddha

A noble person is mindful and thankful of the favours he receives from others. Buddha

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls. Aesop

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. Cicero

Nothing is more honourable than a grateful heart. Seneca

There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it. Seneca

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. Epictetus

Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things. Horace

A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things. Plato

Take full account of what excellencies which you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not. Marcus Aurelius

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Phil 4:6

Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Matthew 25:29

Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. Tao Te Ching

Gratitude - the fairest blossom

Since my first posts on gratitude, I have noticed many visits to the site by people searching for quotes or prayers about gratitude. This is no doubt linked to the Thanksgiving holiday, which was a wholly fortuitous coincidence with regard to my posts since I do not have any great notion of the public holidays or even, I am ashamed to say, of the religious holidays. My thoughts started turning to gratitude for a very different reason (read my post Gratitude – the forgotten virtue).
Be that as it may, I will perhaps make an exception for Thanksgiving in the future as a result of these posts on gratitude and my growing awareness of the essentiality of gratitude in the heart of him that would be happy. It seems to me now a very noble and worthy reason for a holiday. And another example of the wisdom of the old ways.
I wish all our American cousins a very happy Thanksgiving.

Gratitude is the memory of the heart. Jean-Baptiste Massieu

Gratitude is the moral memory of mankind. Georg Simmel

Gratitude is the least of the virtues, but ingratitude is the worst of vices. Thomas Fuller

Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies. Charles E. Jefferson

Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy. Jacques Maritain

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation. You do not find it among gross people. Samuel Johnson

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. Nietzsche

The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. John E. Southard

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. G.K.Chesterton

You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. G.K.Chesterton

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. W.T. Purkiser

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul. Henry Ward Beecher

Gratitude - the most complete prayer

Many if not all virtues are interrelated, the lines between them blurred. Aristotle believed that no virtue was found in isolation. I remember using the following quote in my post Humility - accepting suffering with joy:

The truly patient man does not examine who is testing him, whether it is his superior, his equal or his inferior, a good man or a bad man. But, treating all indiscriminately, he receives from God’s hand, gratefully, and as often as He likes, everything contrary that happens to him, and considers it a great benefit.
(‘Imitation de N.S. Jésus Christ’)

My point was that the humble man does not rebel against what is happening to him, as if it should not be happening to him because he is superior. He accepts it willingly. In the Tao Te Ching we read that the man who follows the Tao accepts, like water, the lowly places that no one else wants.
I later used the same quote in my post Patience – the greatest prayer. My point was then that the humble man is necessarily patient: not putting his own interests forward, not feeling unjustly dealt with, but accepting whatever comes his way with faith and philosophy.
And now I have quoted it again in this post on gratitude. For as you have read, our truly patient, humble man receives gratefully everything contrary that happens to him and counts it a great blessing. Humility, patience, gratitude. Who can say where one leaves off and the other begins?

A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. Henry Ward Beecher

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. Brian Tracy

There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The difficulties, hardships and trials of life, the obstacles… are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly, and teach self-reliance. William Mathews

I remember how we saw that humility is the root of all good, the foundation of all virtues. If humility is the root, patience is the tree and gratitude the branches. We saw also in Humility - accepting suffering with joy how the Rabbi, in his gratitude for all that God gave him, could not understand why he should know something of suffering.

Remember that not to be happy is not to be grateful. Elizabeth Carter

In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. Albert Clarke

Whenever we are appreciative, we are filled with a sense of well-being and swept up by the feeling of joy. M.J. Ryan

There is a calmness to a life lived in gratitude, a quiet joy. Ralph H. Blum

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance. Joseph Addison

Gratitude is our most direct line to God and the angels. If we take the time, no matter how crazy and troubled we feel, we can find something to be thankful for. The more we seek gratitude, the more reason the angels will give us for gratitude and joy to exist in our lives. Terry Lynn Taylor

To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven. Johannes A. Gaertner

A simple grateful thought toward Heaven is the most complete prayer. Gotthold Lessing

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was thank you that would suffice. Meister Eckhart

Gratitude is heaven itself. William Blake

Gratitude - everything is a miracle

If we stop for a moment and think about it (a strange thing to do, I know) everything around us is a gift. Our life is a gift, our body is a gift, the air we breathe is a very welcome gift from the universe…

In his book ‘Hara – the Vital Centre of Man’ Karlfried Graf Durkheim states:

Man, as a living being, is not rooted in himself. Rather he is nourished, sustained and held in order by Nature whose laws operate without his knowledge and assistance.

To paraphrase another source that escapes me*, we walk without knowing what it is that moves us; we stop without knowing what it is that stops us. We assimilate what we eat without knowing how we assimilate it. How can we presume to appropriate anything to ourselves?
It is folly and pride not to be awed by the miracle of life. But we so easily get caught up in the petty game of striving to get what we want that we forget to appreciate and enjoy what we do have. The game is only a game, and it is not even our own playing board.
But we can step back from the game and change our perspective and our attitude. Gratitude changes the rules of the game immediately. It becomes a delight to play instead of a struggle. And, best of all, we never seem to lose…

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy - because we will always want to have something else or something more. Brother David Steindl-Rast

If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get. Frank A. Clark

You cannot bring anything new into your life until you are grateful for what you have now. Dr. Michael Beckwith

Who does not thank for little will not thank for much. Estonian Proverb

If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily. Gerald Good

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings! Henry Ward Beecher

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. Eric Hoffer

When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude. Elie Wiesel

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present - love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure - the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth. Sarah Ban Breathnac

Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value in your life. Christiane Northrup

You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you. Sarah Ban Breathnach

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein

* 21 January 2009, I have found the reference: Chuang Tzu.
'Your destiny, your activity form an intergral part of the transformation of beings under the action of heaven and earth... You advance in life without knowing what pushes you, you stop without knowing what it is that stops you, you eat without knowing how you assimilate, the powerful but unknowable action of heaven and earth moving you in everything; and you claim to appropriate something to yourself?'

Gratitude - the forgotten virtue

Have you ever been puzzling over a problem and then come face to face with a sign that seemed to give you the answer? (See my post, A trip to the sea). The other day I was feeling vaguely irritated and I saw a T-shirt with the words ‘Control will be maintained for we will have order’. I smiled. Obviously the T-shirt’s message was tongue-in-cheek. But it made me realize I was lacking some order in my life. Then of course my eye caught another quote ‘Good order makes men bold, and confusion, cowards’ by Machiavelli. Perhaps it was a case of being receptive to change, a case of ‘when the pupil is ready the master appears’.
Last week, I happened to ask a colleague, who is always cheerful, where he thought the market was going. He surprised me by saying, with a smile, that wherever the market was going was alright with him because in any case he was a lot better off than most people in the world. He carried on in this vein, looking me straight in the eye with total sincerity and compassion and good cheer: we have a roof over our heads, we have a good job, we have money in the bank; we are really fortunate in this part of the world to have all that. We should count our blessings… be grateful… be happy. This reply was so unexpected that it almost seemed to me to come, not from my colleague, but from ‘upstairs’ via the medium of my colleague. Of course I agreed with him, a little half-heartedly, but the message had been delivered. I had mail. I had been told what was important and what was not.
Gratitude, along with humility, is a very unfashionable, almost forgotten virtue these days. And I am afraid to say that I must count myself among the forgetters. But it is one that we can't do without, as we shall see.
I did some research on what others have had to say on the subject and the importance of gratitude was further brought home to me. I will be posting a selection shortly. Here is one to meditate on for now. By the way, thank you Robert.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. Melodie Beattie

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