"Gratefulness is heaven itself." William Blake

An "attitude of gratitude" is recommended by all the teachers of the Law of Attraction. Why is it so important? For one, gratitude can put you in the vibration of your desires fulfilled. Gratitude brings completion to cycles; when you are grateful ‘in advance’, you are feeling and responding to the completed manifestation cycle at a level of knowing. In other words, you are energetically in the fulfillment of your desired manifestations. The subconscious mind makes no distinction between what is ‘actual’ and what is imagined—its conviction comes from your emotional energy, based on intensity and frequency of those emotional states. With an attitude of gratitude, you repeatedly energize the emotional states of your manifested desires, and your subconscious mind will get working on matching your outer reality with your inner state of being. If you are trying to magnetize abundance, for example, then being grateful for all your abundant blessings puts you in the fulfilment energies of abundance, which is the perfect attractor energy for increased abundance.

But gratitude works in many varied ways. For example, being grateful for what is, including all your areas of lack or dysfunction, empowers you as an attractor force further. But how can you be grateful for your lack and dysfunction? And won’t that attract more lack or dysfunction? No it won’t—not if you’re grateful for what the lack is revealing to you. If you can feel grateful for the lack because it helps you to appreciate the sense of abundance, which is what you desire more of, then you’ve managed to be grateful for the full spectrum of experience. Without the lack, you likely would not be able to consciously appreciate and therefore choose abundance. From that state of acceptance, your choice for abundance will be met with far greater ease than it would if you were still energetically resisting lack. What we resist persists. What we resist, we create an internal polarity to, which fixes it in place. So gratitude for all experience is a very powerful means to dissolve the inner polarity and allow free movement, by choice, on the full spectrum of experience (in this case, the desired movement would be towards the abundance-end of the spectrum).

Dave Cameron explains, "…gratitude completes the cycle of knowing… What you like and what you hate are two ends of the same thing. For example, if you like being with your spouse and hate being separated from them, realize that you are working within the same essence, which is your spouse. It is because of the moments of absence that you appreciate and recognize the moments of presence. When you are grateful for both what you like and what you don't like, you complete the knowingness and you are released from having to experience what you don't like. …Some very significant shifts occur in your mind and soul whenever you are genuinely grateful for all things, even the ones you don't like. Gratitude will speed you through your growth and success more than any amount of hard work ever can. Gratitude completes the lesson, and as a statement of completion rings that tone of success, pulling to you the end result desired." 1

When you can be grateful for the things you don’t like, you speed up the learning and hence, the need for those things in your life. "You cannot leave a situation permanently unless you appreciate the gifts it brings you, and all situations bring a gift, no matter how terrible the situation may appear to be."1 In the case of lack, the gift may be the conscious appreciation of abundance and ease, which is necessary for sustaining it in life.

Life as God’s Love in Action

Without you, your consciousness, your life would not be. All the interactions with others and what is created out of that simply would not exist. Life arises out of you, through you, and for you. It is entirely dependent upon your consciousness. It shapes and moulds itself around you in a perfect fit, like a glove over a hand. The animated, gloved hand is you in life. The glove shifts as you shift. Take your hand out, and the glove collapses and is no longer animated.

The animating principle of this thing we call life (the glove) is the love of God for each one of us—it is God in action through the formless Substance. Imagine you are an invisible hand—invisible at the level of matter. The glove is there to allow you to see yourself and others, in order to enable experience. As fine-substance consciousness (invisible hand) in an ocean of consciousness, you cannot experience yourself apart from the ocean, and so you cannot encompass larger portions of the ocean, as you have no means of distinguishing anything consciously. The glove (i.e. matter, or the earthly realm of life) is there to enable distinction, contrast, and ultimately the experience of self and the possibility of encompassing larger portions of the ocean substance that is God, consciously. The loving embrace of the universe is your life.

The universe, upholding evolution by its love-imbued laws, hugs you tightly in a glove of life, which is love in action. Where you feel the pressure are the ‘places’ that need attention. The pain you feel, is you shrinking away from life’s embrace. This pain alerts you to where you have forgotten who you are and are resisting remembering.

Life hugs you tightly, always. You are moving consciousness—both awareness and life. You’re all of it, albeit, at different levels of consciousness. The god-you wishes you to remember who you are, the ‘small you’ is the vehicle through which that remembering process is focused. Resistance is what causes pain and delays learning. When you can be grateful for all experience, you release resistance and begin to yield and surrender to the process. The process (life) can then change from pain, to being benign, and then soon becoming a wondrous adventure.

When you are grateful for unwanted conditions that appear in life, you accept them with the faith that somehow they are for your highest good. Acceptance is a prerequisite to change. But also importantly, by your faith that the condition is somehow for your highest good, you become a commanding presence to ensure an outcome that is preferred (you choose either lessons or blessings) —and that outcome of blessing will occur far more quickly than if you resist and are embittered or dissatisfied with the condition. So be grateful for it all—the tight hug is for your highest good, and the pain is there so long as you resist. Engaging gratitude releases the resistance and enables you to move forward with the necessary learning, bringing completion and releasing the need for life to move in on you in that manner.

Rudolf Steiner2 explains that it is our consciousness that enables immortality; in unconsciousness, we do not know that we exist and so cannot speak meaningfully of immortality. Everything of your past has contributed to your current point of consciousness, and if you will be grateful for consciousness then you can be grateful for all of your past. When you can do this, you will successfully disengage from your past and be able to move resolutely forward with whatever new stories you wish to create for yourself.

In the Science of Getting Rich3, Wattles explains that there is one intelligent Substance from which all things proceed which gives you everything you desire. In his chapter on Gratitude, he states that the best means to relate to this intelligent Substance and be in a harmonious relationship with it is through profound gratitude. Failing to acknowledge our blessings "cuts the wires connecting" us to God. Energetically, failing to acknowledge creates imbalance, as there must always be a fair exchange of energies in all ‘transactions’. The universe will not be put off-balance.

Our soul lives in constant gratitude for all experience, and in this regard, lives closer to its source. When we emulate the soul we too shall live in close connection to the source of our abundance. Wattles explain the power of gratitude at accelerating manifestation because it "draws the mind into closer touch with the source from which the blessings come."

Further he points out that gratitude always reaches what it addresses and there is an instantaneous reaction of a movement towards the person who is grateful. This is an experience we all can validate. Think of giving a gift to someone who is profoundly grateful to you for it. You are drawn closer to that person. Contrast this with gifting someone who does not acknowledge the gift, or worse, refuses it. You will feel antipathy towards that person, which draws you away from them. Hug somebody who stiffens or shrinks away, and then hug somebody who hugs you back warmly—which person is more inviting? This is another important aspect of the Law of Gratitude in action.

"Draw nigh unto God, and He will draw nigh unto you. That is a statement of psychological truth."

It’s important that you ponder on the power of gratitude in all aspects discussed, and see where you can work these principles in your life. Gratitude is one of three keys of manifestation; these are:

• Imagination/Desire

• Gratitude

• Faith

Imagination and desire are needed to direct the formless Substance—this constitutes our engagement in life, whereby we become increasing consciousness by exerting choice and experiencing the effects of those choices. Desire is the level at which we work with the gift and power of free will as the means to come to know the self as love.

Gratitude releases our blocks from their locked-in positions, speeds up full learning, and gives back to the universe to maintain balance and harmony, and the universe in turn responds with the joy of greater giving. But these are its effects. The essence of gratitude is love, and the highest form of gratitude is unconditional love.

If you’re not sure what unconditional love feels like, try being grateful for all that is in your life that you tend to resist…be grateful for all those in your life who trigger you into less-than-love behaviours…be grateful for all past experiences that caused you pain…be grateful for all present conditions you’d rather not experience. Apply the principles discussed above, in which gratitude completes the spectrum of experience and thus the cycle of learning. Be grateful for the contrast and the resistance, for in letting go of the resistance, you gain conscious awareness and greater freedom to access, by will, the good end of the spectrum. In doing this, you will feel your heart expanding and will begin to glimpse unconditional love, and the state of being love in life. Furthermore, gratitude brings wholeness, which confers healing. As gratitude opens the heart—which is the province of miracles—, the effects of developing an attitude of gratitude in life are far-reaching.

"Wholeness is Holy; wholeness is healing. That is the essence of all miracles—physical, mental, financial, and social. Whatever has been torn apart comes back together into a state of wholeness. Love supports wholeness and wholeness support love. Through that common bond, love can heal anything."4

Many people wonder how to operate from love in life, and the answer is by way of gratitude. Gratitude is the energy that connects us to the love that we are. Gratitude is love; gratitude for everything is unconditional love. Gratitude is the surest way to merge with the source of creation and to wield its power.

"…for this is the universal law of command. Love commands the universe, the adamantine particles, the one spirit, the heart, and all of life."4

There is no energy or healing process that is more powerful than the application of gratitude, for gratitude is love. As a force of unconditional love, gratitude will activate the hidden workings of the cause and effect of love that operate in the universe, which is expressed in life as being in the grace of God. This force is separate from the usual cause and effect of effort and operates at a higher level of Intelligence referred to as the Holy Center of existence.5 In addition, as Wattles points out, faith is born of gratitude. Faith increases the more we dwell in the love that we are. Faith brings you deeper into the fulfilment energies of what you desire, which confers complete certainty that allows you to surrender the how-to of life and flow in divine guidance and synchronicity. All three energies generate a connection to life that is teeming with vitality and passion, and with passion, you are easily spurred to take bold action when opportunities appear.

Manifestation is an interactive dance with the Creator, and at each step there must be an exchange of energies in order to remain in balance and harmony with the laws of creation. That exchange is powerfully achieved in continuous gratitude.

If you will ponder on the power of gratitude, you will certainly understand the importance of nurturing a habit of gratitude. Not only does it aligns you to attract your god-given resources and dissolves all the blocks to receiving them, but it also restores your wholeness so that you operate from greater personal power. Gratitude is the keystone of manifestation; gratitude brings you closer to the source so that you can easily imprint your desires on the formless Substance, and it begets faith, which keeps you in a vibrational match to your desires. What you do towards increasing a grateful mind will have the largest repercussions for you in manifesting your dreams.

The next article in this series continues with this important topic, and provides a set of affirmations to support you in developing an attitude of gratitude.