Our current goals:
- Widen the horizons of our vision
- Take direct approaches to uncover the blocks that keep our vision narrow
- Lift those blocks, however briefly, in order to experience the sense of liberation that comes when the blocks are removed
- Intensify our motivation for freedom
Today’s lesson is a simple one. We are asked to be grateful today. However, in order for our gratitude to “pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of,” we need to be sure our gratitude is right-gratitude instead of mistaken gratitude.
Mistaken gratitude has judgment (comparison) in it. For example, mistaken gratitude might be grateful that my family is healthy as compared to sick, with plenty of food or money as compared to not enough, etcetera.
Right-gratitude has no judgment in it. It is not grateful for one circumstance as compared to another. It is simple gratitude for awareness-life-presence as it is.
Today’s lesson says, “We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him. And we rejoice that no exceptions can ever be made which would reduce our wholeness, … We give thanks for every living thing …”
The lesson points out that right-gratitude is healing. That’s because right-gratitude does two things:
1 – It focuses our appreciative attention on truth (awareness-life-presence).
2 – It bypasses judgment, which is a key element of the ego thought system.
As today’s lesson says, “Walk, then, in gratitude the way of love. For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. … Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge. … Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions.”
Whenever you experience any wrong-minded thought or emotion today, pause. Focus attention on awareness-life-presence, and let yourself feel gratitude for it. You can use your own awareness-life-presence to shift into right-gratitude, you can use the awareness-life-presence of another, such as a child or a pet, or you can notice awareness-life-presence in nature—in a bird, a flower, the breeze or in the sound of flowing water, etc. Whatever will help you make a genuine shift into gratitude for awareness-life-presence is acceptable.
Another helpful option may be to pause each hour, look back on the hour and remember the wrong-minded perceptions you experienced in that hour. Then, pause with each wrong-minded perception remembered and replace it with right-gratitude.
As today’s lesson says, “Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found. For gratitude is but an aspect of the Love which is the Source of all creation.”
Therefore, when we experience right-gratitude, we experience an aspect of our true Self. We are in genuine right-perspective when we feel right-gratitude.
