Learning Gratitude might be the most powerful Spiritual practice for mankind

Why?

Because often you don't know what you've got until it's gone!

Whatever you are given often it cannot ever be replaced. Whether it is a father, mother, brother, sister, son, friend or lover.

It is very important to give thanks every day for what you do have otherwise then it is gone and you are punching yourselves not to have valued whatever or whoever it is while they or it was there.

And that's just not useful at all to your psychological or physical survival.

For example, I struggle now that my kids are all over the world with missing them. And maybe now if I'm lucky I see them (the two oldest ones) once or twice a year which isn't enough.

So, I have to be grateful that they are healthy and okay doing whatever they are doing half a world away or else I just start feeling sorry for myself in missing them in my life. But, even if they were in the same state (California) instead of seeing them once or twice a year I might see them 3 or 4 times a year if they lived more than 1/2 hour a way by car. So, you see in some ways how useless it is to feel alone and away from your kids. Especially now there are things like Skype and What's App to stay in communication with worldwide.

So, how do you begin to learn gratitude?

You impress on children what you didn't have that they have now and make them realize that they are very lucky to have what you didn't have. And they are lucky to have you in their lives to look out for them and to take care of them. Because many children around the world have no one at all to care for them.

So, be grateful for what you have.

Gratitude became something much different when in the mid 1980s in India I literally saw thousands of lepers lining the road where I was that were begging from pilgrims visiting a holy site. They all chimed in "Baksheesh" which means "Please share so I don't die".

There were whole families of lepers with noses, fingers, and toes gone from this disease. This was unimaginable to me because this wouldn't have been allowed to happen in the U.S.

So, this brought a whole new level of gratitude that we don't have these kinds of things in the U.S. anymore.

I and my family had to be very brave to see this many lepers and I think it changed us all in many ways having this experience. Then the Tibetan Lama we were traveling with bought a bag of 1000 candies and proceeded to give each leper a candy until he ran out.

I began to thinking about this because a piece of candy if you are starving likely would be an alternate reality kind of experience. To the Lama this was something he knew to do to "Spread the Dharma and to help mankind". But, to me, it was a mind blowing experience that made me grateful for my life here in the U.S. in a whole new way.

So, even if your people don't teach you gratitude so that you might have a wonderful life, life often will teach you anyway.

By God's Grace