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How to Generate Feelings of Gratitude Before Anything Changes · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:00
  Speaker A: In today's episode, we're diving into gratitude. How do you experience deep gratitude in your heart before things have become manifest in your life? You probably have already heard that in order to create the life you want, to manifest things you want, you have to have gratitude for them and come into the feeling of having attained that which you desire before it happens. And most people have heard about this, but they don't know how to actually do that because when we don't have what we want, we normally look around and say, well, I haven't got what I want, so I feel stressed out because I'm lacking something. How am I supposed to feel good for things yet to be seen or yet to occur? And yet if we don't do this, then we are energetically pushing stuff away and we are stuck at a certain level of consciousness that then reinforces that and we start continuously get the same things again and again and again. So how do we go into a state of gratitude for things that we don't have yet so that we can feel good and allow beautiful things to find their way to us with ease and grace? Welcome to the podcast.
• 1:23
  Speaker B: Hello, brother Michael.
• 1:25
  Speaker A: Hello there. How are you doing?
• 1:28
  Speaker B: I'm doing excellent. Thinking about gratitude.
• 1:32
  Speaker A: Gratitude is such a, you know, such a beautiful topic.
• 1:37
  Speaker B: It is a beautiful topic. I feel there's so many gratitude journals and so many this. And they're useful. I'm not saying they're not useful, they're useful, but I feel all of those are conditional, conditional gratitude. It depends on certain favorable conditions being met and then I'm going to be grateful. And it's kind of perpetuating a very deep seated, like, mistaken consciousness that we have. And that deep seated mistaken consciousness is I will be happy when or I will be grateful when this happens or I will be grateful if for this. Right. And so it's almost like a reaction. The gratitude becomes a reaction to whatever is happening in the world around you. What do you say?
• 2:50
  Speaker A: That's right. Yeah, it's. It's basically I'm gonna wait until my environment changes and only then am I gonna let myself feel good. That's basically what's happening internally. And so the reason gratitude's so powerful is because normally and under normal conditions, we are grateful for things that we have. And actually, to be honest, a lot of people aren't even grateful for things that they have. So because we get used to them, we. Oh, whatever, it doesn't count anymore. But typically, let's say someone gives you a gift and it's something that you actually want and you like. And you open the box or whatever it is and you look at it and you go, oh, wow, thank you so much. And you feel gratitude. And that feeling of gratitude. Let's just take a moment to think of something you're grateful for now. So you get into the sense of what is that feeling? What does it feel like? Like to be grateful. You can just close your eyes and just think of something that you genuinely have gratitude for and notice what that feels like in your body and in your mind. Gratitude is a very lovely feeling. It's a feeling of wealth, a feeling of abundance, a feeling of safety, feeling of love. You know, it has a whole bunch of feelings in, in itself, right? It's an elevated feeling. What, how, when, when you feel gratitude. Shree. And how would you describe the feeling?
• 4:33
  Speaker B: I feel content, feel blessed.
• 4:46
  Speaker A: So it's a feeling of having, isn't it, rather than lacking.
• 4:51
  Speaker B: Right.
• 4:53
  Speaker A: So under normal conditions, we get something that we appreciate or we look around our life and we notice things that we already have and we feel content, we feel blessed, we feel wealthy and, and at peace. And it's a good feeling, Right. And that feeling itself is wealth. Right. Because the normally the point of getting things, when you trace it back, why do we run around to do all this stuff? We'd run around to do all the stuff to achieve something ultimately because we want to feel better. And if we didn't feel better and if we felt depressed after we got what we want, we would probably change our plans and not try and get those things anymore. Right. But like, think about your book. You got your book here, the Matrix book.
• 5:42
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:43
  Speaker A: Where's it gone? Right. So got a great book, highly recommend. Everyone gets a copy of Awakening from the Matrix. Now when you finish that book, what did you feel?
• 5:58
  Speaker B: Sense of accomplishment.
• 6:02
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's a good feeling. Right. When you finally got it in the post and you're like, this is done, this is great. Right? So came and now you have this thing that has a good feeling associated with it because you have it, you know, there it is. So we're used to having that sort of experience where we get something and we're grateful. I just got my teas in the, in the mail. I'm a very avid and enthusiastic tea drinker. So I have a huge BO of teas. All these different teas, right. And I was like, yay for my teas. And so we experienced this. What we're doing today is how can you have that same feeling for things that you actually haven't got yet. Because I like this quote. This is from Joe Dispenser. Great quote. Gratitude is a state of receivership. Isn't that a nice quote? Gratitude is a state of receivership because when we are grateful, it's because we've received something. So normally we're grateful for things we get, but then we look around and we say, well, I haven't got this. So I'm stressed out about it. I haven't got this, and I'm stressed about that. I haven't got the thing I. This hasn't been fixed. This hasn't been fixed. I'm not feeling well. This isn't right. This isn't right. This isn't right. And then. And then, because we look at our life and go, all these things aren't working out the way I want. What does that bring up? You know, that brings up either anxiety or stress or irritation or lack. Or a sense of fear, worry, concern, right? All these negative feelings. And those negative feelings don't feel good. And they also. They limit our capacity to do anything. Because when we're in a negative state, it's hard to think clearly and act in an effective way because it's a negative energy. So that's normally how pretty much everyone lives their life. They're grateful when they get things, and if they haven't got them, they feel stressed, right? What we're getting is.
• 8:16
  Speaker B: So after getting them, they only like it for about. They say three months. No, but maybe two weeks. They're grateful for about two weeks. And then what's next? Right? It's like this amazing thing that Maya does is it doesn't allow you to be in this state of receivership, right? It's like, what's next?
• 8:44
  Speaker A: Even if. Yeah, exactly. Even if you're working, you could want.
• 8:46
  Speaker B: Something for two years, and you worked for two years, you get it. And then two weeks later, you're like, okay, okay, what's next?
• 8:55
  Speaker A: It's really awful situation because even the things that we worked hard for, that we were thinking about and wanting to have and all excited about, they. They become completely normalized and brought back down to zero, even below zero, in terms of our happiness spectrum, you know, like all the stuff we have physically, right? At some point, we didn't have it, and many times we wanted it. And then we did something together, like. Like, here's this microphone, right? This is. This is a mic that I obviously wanted at some point, and now I have it, right? We wanted to do the podcast, and we have it, you know, and I wanted these, these glasses, drink water, everything, right? Look around, look around your house. How much gratitude do you have for the things that you have that you've had for a while?
• 9:47
  Speaker B: You know, Michael, there is a slight. The concept itself, right? Being grateful for physical things. The concept itself is a little flawed. I'll tell you why. Because you are wanting an imperishable feeling from a perishable thing, right? So if I keep going around, of course I'm grateful for every time I take a shower, hey, I have hot water or this or that. But you're not always in that state, right? At some point you normalize having, you know, flowing water in the house, or you normalize having the microphone or you normalize having whatever else, right? I feel that because of the nature of it being a physical thing, it's automatic that the soul normalizes that. So if you really want to come into feelings of gratitude that haven't happened yet, then it shouldn't be about physical things. It's not like I can force myself to keep having gratitude about a mic. Maybe two years ago I want it and now I have it, right? For two years, I can't keep having gratitude about a mic because it is a perishable object and I can't make my feelings imperishable about a perishable object. Do you understand what I'm saying?
• 11:27
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, I know, I see what you're saying. And there's no reason not to be grateful for things that you have because.
• 11:36
  Speaker B: It'S like, it's not like I'm not grateful. It's not like, oh, if I look at it, I'm thinking, oh, it's nice to have. I'm not saying I'll throw it out, I'm displeased with it or anything, but it's not an active state of gratitude.
• 11:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, we want our gratitude to be based on higher level things than physical things. That's. That's where we're going with this. And at the same time, there's no harm in, in when you notice the things that you have to feel good about them rather than to be either. Because most people, you know, they. Everything becomes normalized, doesn't it? And then that, that itself is a negative state, isn't it? To just think. Because like, whatever. If we. Because like, let's think of it another way, when what's really going on on a deeper level is that if we were to appear in the world for the first time, we would be in a state of profound wonder about everything, right? That's like the Satop Pradhan stage is a state of wonder and appreciation because you're. There's not like this sense of like entitlement about anything. There's a sort of fresh energy about it. And then, then Rajas energy is like, yeah, well, that doesn't count because I need to work hard and push, push, push, push, push. And Tama synergy, which we talked about in another podcast, is where nothing's good enough and no matter what we have, we always want more, you know, so the Sato awareness is just like a continuous flow of appreciation just for being alive itself, you know, and then anything on top of that is. Is a blessing, but it's not specific.
• 13:24
  Speaker B: I feel like you really hit it right there. Is to be appreciative of life, appreciative of consciousness that I'm consciousness. Right. Otherwise it's always reactive. Gratitude can become very reactive. Right? If I'm grateful for things that I have, then it's reactive gratitude. But I feel gratitude has to be a creative gratitude where you're creating feelings of gratitude. And to create feelings of gratitude, you do appreciate what you have. But to actually create feelings of gratitude before they've happened, then like you are saying, it has to be about life. It has to be about the fact that I am consciousness, I'm separate from here, and I can generate feelings of gratitude from that state because life itself is so precious. The fact that I'm here itself is so precious. So from that state, when I come from that state, I feel gratitude can be imperishable. If I keep looking for physical things to be grateful about, I feel it's much harder and it gets very reactive. It becomes very conditional. Right. Also, I'm training myself to be very conditional. Okay, this, if I have a microphone, then I'll be grateful. If I have this, then I'll be grateful. I'm training to be conditional and we have to go beyond this whole conditioning the mind.
• 15:03
  Speaker A: Most advice around these topics is be grateful for stuff that you have, which is fine, but it's been limited because it's always based on physical things. So all of us have goals and desires and things that we want to have in the future that haven't happened yet. And we can either feel anxious about it, which doesn't feel good, doesn't help, or we can be grateful that life is perfect and it's all coming together nicely and come into a state of, of feeling receiving blessings and be open to being grateful just for the blessings that are going to manifest. However, is best for us, right? So that we're not saying, I'm only going to be grateful when I get exactly what I want. Because who's to say that getting what we want is the best thing for us? Do you know what I mean? A lot of the time we actually need something else that would be better for us, and we don't even know what that is. So, so let's say you're in a situation where something isn't working out, you're worried about it, you're not sure how it's going to happen. It's much more useful to say, I'm surrendered to the highest good for all. And I'm going to be grateful for this situation resolving itself in the perfect way for me. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to participate in this great adventure of life.
• 16:43
  Speaker B: Absolutely right. We have to go at it from that level. If I'm grateful, right? Not thinking about, okay, let's say I want. Let's say my book, right? So I want to. I want a lot of people to take benefit from this book. And I will be grateful once that happens, right? I will be really grateful if a lot of people took benefit from this book. But instead of thinking that way, instead of thinking, I will be grateful if a lot of people take benefit from this book. The thought is that my gratitude is more to do with just life, right? Just, you know, I'm consciousness, I'm here, I'm eternal. You know, I have the divine source with me. I'm, you know, life is blessed. And so if from that state, if I bring feelings of gratitude about my whole life, then it doesn't matter. It's not conditional upon, oh, if the book is doing well, then I'll be fine. If the book is not doing well, then I won't be fine. Right? I mean, whatever it is, I am still fine. Life is perfectly imperfect. And so whatever it is, I'll be fine.
• 18:17
  Speaker A: That's right. And. And, you know, of course, we do have desires and we do have things that we wish to create. And so there's. There's also benefit in, along with a general sense of gratitude. To be, to be open to things resolving themselves in the perfect way. Because we can't. The thing is, like, this is like, it gets into a sticky area, isn't it? Because if we say, oh, it doesn't matter whether things happen or not, and whether I get what I want or not, because it's not really being honest, is it? Because we all do.
• 18:51
  Speaker B: Complacency, right?
• 18:53
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 18:54
  Speaker B: We have to Be complacent.
• 18:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, we wanna. So let's say someone wants to finish a project or they want to, you know, have a house or they want to. These are practical things that actually do make a difference to our life. One option is to say I'm going to be grateful only after I get it. In the meantime, I'm going to be stressed out running around. The other option is to say I'm, I'm already a spiritual being to start with, so I'm alright at the beginning, so everything's fine to start with. Secondly, I'm grateful for all the things I already have and I'm grateful for being alive. And then thirdly, I'm grateful in advance for this situation to, to, to manifest in the best way it can. And I'm going to feel at peace with everything working out perfectly. And I, I don't know how it's going to work out and I'm not thinking about all the details, but I'm open to whatever the highest path is and for this to work out and I can hold in mind the outcome I want for the highest good or something better.
• 20:08
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 20:10
  Speaker A: And there it is, right? And so then gratitude becomes a state of receivership that you're receiving in advance, the feeling of success on multiple levels, which is much better way of going about your daily life than not doing that, right?
• 20:38
  Speaker B: So let's go back to this book, right? So let's say I have this, okay? I will be grateful if a lot of people take benefit from this book. And I'm sitting here thinking, okay, now how do I feel grateful in advance that in advance I'm feeling grateful that a lot of people have taken benefit from this book. How will I feel that? Right? And so I could visualize and say, oh, a lot of people are taking benefit from this book and I'm feeling grateful. You know, I'm feeling these feelings. Or I could just come into the feeling of abundance. I can come into the feeling of contentment. I can come into the feeling which is different from complacency, right? I can come into the feeling of being blessed. I can come into the feeling of what you were saying about receivership. I can come into that feeling based on other things, spiritual things, and then assign those spiritual things to my feeling about the book. Do you see what I mean? Like, it's not always for me at least it's not always, oh, let me first visualize this book. Many people taking benefit and then let me feel grateful. It's not as easy as spiritually, I'm feeling these things and then I'm blessing the book.
• 22:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. So what we're saying here, I'm sure there's plenty of other podcast books, trainings and all the rest of it where people essentially say, imagine what you want. And I think this is still a good method to have, but it's not the highest method. Imagine what you want. Imagine you've already attained what you want and feel grateful for it in advance, which is significantly improved version of going about things than to imagine things going horribly wrong and feeling stressed. Right. So if your only choice is either imagine what you want as if it's already done and be grateful for it now, or you're stressing out about it and thinking about worst case scenarios, then you definitely want to be focusing on the gratitude in advance. What we're talking about is there's another layer to this which is even better, where you come into a feeling of gratitude just in general, because you're an eternal being in life.
• 23:13
  Speaker B: Right.
• 23:13
  Speaker A: And, and then you can hold a vision if you want, but it doesn't matter that much either way whether you do, because the feeling of gratitude itself has a certain magic power about it, separate from anything else you do.
• 23:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. And it's not conditional gratitude. Right. It's generative gratitude. It's not reactive gratitude. It's like you're creating gratitude. And that feeling itself, like you're saying that feeling itself is so wonderful, the.
• 23:49
  Speaker A: Feeling itself is the, is the actual wealth. You know, like spirituality, if you really tune into it. Spirituality is about internal things that are wealth, that aren't to do with anything physical. So love, bliss, peace, joy, freedom, happiness, purity, power, and all the different spiritual powers and spiritual awareness, spiritual knowledge, this is all wealth, Right? This in and of itself is actual real spiritual wealth. So we can come into that wealth and then that, that energy itself has a certain power that affects things in our life just by itself. And then whatever we hold in mind in that feeling and in silence tends to manifest as a consequence of potentiality, manifesting not because we're forcing anything to happen, but the feeling itself is the, is the more important part of it than imagining specific outcomes.
• 25:05
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 25:07
  Speaker A: So that's how we do it. You come into a feeling of overall gratitude based on spiritual things first. And if that's all you did and you didn't imagine achieving anything in the future, it would still have beneficial effects on your future outcomes. And there's no reason not to imagine good things happening, because that, I think, does actually help, you know, like, like give an example of this the way you're living, right? In your mysterious place that no one knows where it is, which we like. So you had. I'm sure you had some sense of what you wanted before you got it, right? And did you imagine some version of what you wanted before you got it?
• 25:54
  Speaker B: No, not really, actually, you didn't.
• 25:57
  Speaker A: You didn't write it down. You didn't know what you wanted. There was no.
• 26:01
  Speaker B: I mean, it was all very like, okay, we want a room for meditation. We want this, we want that. It wasn't like, oh, let me visualize this. No, it wasn't like that.
• 26:14
  Speaker A: You said you wanted.
• 26:15
  Speaker B: I was very stressed, actually. It was very stressful.
• 26:18
  Speaker A: You were very stressed out. It was a miracle. It worked out. But you've. I'm sure you've other things you've had, like writing your book, and you wanted them, you thought about them. Because if you can't visualize what you want, you won't do anything about it. That's what. What I'm getting at here is that we can't be too detached about this and say, let's just come into a feeling of gratitude and not think about any outcomes.
• 26:41
  Speaker B: No, I agree. We do need to. I do, like, let's say for the book, right? I do visual. I visualize, okay, this is how it should be, and this is what I want to say in it. And.
• 26:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, so. Because what. What I'm concerned about in these sort of conversations, if it gets to the point where we say it doesn't matter at all what you're thinking about it, all that matters is the feeling of gratitude. It's an incomplete system because our mind and our visualizations in that feeling actually do affect the world and also affect our behavior. So if. If I'm. If I'm feeling wealthy and at peace and joyful and liberated because of spiritual reasons to begin with, and then in that good feeling, I hold in my mind an outcome. I want whatever it is, some physical thing or some state, whatever. And I feel not lacking or needing, but I'm feeling a state of wonder and peace that has a very profound effect on my. On me psychologically, and goes in the subconscious, and it changes my actions. I've seen this happen in my life many, many times where I come into a feeling of. Of gratitude in advance, hold a vision, and then all of a sudden, like either afterwards or a few days later or whatever, I get an idea, oh, you could do this thing. And that step then leads to something, something, something, something, something, and that ends up creating the outcome that I want.
• 28:24
  Speaker B: Right, right. You know, everything in life. Right. And I feel in Raj Yoga, in the way, what our life is really about, the mid path, not to go to either extremes. It is the mid path. Right. You can't say, oh, I'll just have this feeling and nothing and, or I won't do anything. I'll just have this, you know, or you know, it, it can't be extremes. It has to be the mid path.
• 28:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. We can't be like, I'm not going to do anything, I'm just going to hold a vision or, or I'm just going to run around constantly stressed until I get what I want and I'm not going to feel good till then, which is not very effective. So in between, this is where we feel blessed to be alive. We're aware of who we are. We come into a state of receivership and blessings and wealth now and then in that state we can hold a vision of what we want and then we let it go. You know, and if this isn't supposed to happen this way and it's supposed to happen a better way, then that's fine.
• 29:31
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, at some point we have to understand that the universe is working for our benefit because it is. Right. That's a fundamental decision you have to make for yourself. And is it working for your benefit or not? And I feel it's working for my benefit. So everything is wonderful, really. If it's not happening at some point when the time is right, it will happen.
• 30:03
  Speaker A: That's right. So we, we don't exactly know quite how things are going to work out and most plans that we come up with fail horribly. You know, plan plans are a bit of a joke really most of the time because things happen the way they're meant to happen.
• 30:20
  Speaker B: So also sometimes, you know, let's, if you're talking about, let's, let's go back to this book. Right. I want a lot of people to take benefit from this book, but I don't do the necessary work. I'm kind of expecting it just magically happen. I don't know if it just magically happens. Nothing just magically happens. You know, I have to put in the work. I don't know, does your life magically? Just things appear.
• 30:54
  Speaker A: Sometimes. But the, the point we're making in this podcast is that we come into a feeling of good, higher level feelings because of spiritual reality. Then we can hold in mind that which we want and then because of that, things can change in our environment without doing anything. But more Importantly, there is certain ideas that arise as a result of that. So, I mean, this, this is what, this is the world that I live in all the time, pretty much all day long is I feel good, I hold a vision and then I get ideas and I write them down and I'm like, right, well, I have these 10 things that I need to do now. Most of my best ideas come when I'm actually on a walk and I haven't got a pen and paper, which sometimes stresses me out because I'm like, oh my God, I need to like, figure a way of not forgetting this. But then I take action. And if I didn't take action and actually implement those things, then it's very unlikely that anything would come of it.
• 32:03
  Speaker B: And I feel, because, I mean, it's going a little above the scope of the episode. But many times we, we feel stressed and we feel, oh, things don't work out for me. And I can't be grateful for things because things don't really work out for me is because we don't really put in the what is necessary, right? Not. I'm not just randomly talking about doing hard work. Like some things are necessary, and I feel that kind of necessary work that needs to go in, which makes it more sustainable, right? If you get something, it's not sustainable, and so your feeling of gratitude will be there and then it's not sustainable and it goes away and then there's no feeling of gratitude, then.
• 33:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, the gratitude is, is part of the process. It's not the whole thing. If we don't do anything, then we are not going to create anything because we are in this great game of life where, where karmic actions lead to karmic consequences. So we have to do something, don't we? But part of it is the inner game. Because if somebody doesn't feel, I mean, because I see this in my work, right, Working with people who are setting up companies and stuff like that. If somebody is ungrateful and stressed, even if they do all the hard work, they often don't get what they want or they're not happy about it when they do get it because the energy behind the whole thing is off. So. So we're. Our goal is to come into a feeling of wealth and abundance first.
• 34:05
  Speaker B: Imperishable, right? Based on imperishable things. Based on imperishable things. And then that feeling, then you bless the perishable outcomes with everything work out.
• 34:17
  Speaker A: Exactly. May everything work out with ease and grace for the highest good of all. Holding the vision and then letting it go and then getting the ideas, inspirations, and then looking at the clues. Because oftentimes when we do that, we start like in your book about the Matrix. There's. There's all these programs going on here in between the soul and our perception of. Of life and the world. When we have an elevated feeling, we actually see different things than when we're in a stressed state. So a lot of the time, we'll actually ignore stuff that's just right there. You know, now there's all these opportunities, and we can't see any of them if we're stressed because we're in a state. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Right? So gratitude actually allows us to see life differently and see our opportunities differently and take different actions and notice things that were there that can help us in our life and enjoy the process rather than being in a constant state of panic. So, yeah, so this is a very deep topic. So in essence, come into a state of receivership. Hold the vision, get the inspiration, take action, and enjoy the process. And don't wait around for everything to work out perfectly before you can be happy, because otherwise you might wait, be waiting for the rest of your life. And. And if one thing Oprah said, which I really appreciated, this is one of her classic quotes, is that if I can't be grateful for my life now, why would I be grateful when I get whatever I want? So enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Yeah. Is it. Do we have gratitude in your book?
• 36:15
  Speaker B: We do.
• 36:16
  Speaker A: Oh, very good. Well, we should read that one then.
• 36:19
  Speaker B: Appreciation. Discovering the positive in other people and situations has become a part of who you are and has changed you. Uncovering your essence of kindness. You feel a sense of contentment from this simple yet powerful practice.
• 36:44
  Speaker A: Yay. So try these things out, see what happens, and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy in advance the fact that you've already attained everything.