A Season of Thankfulness
November 1, 2016
Dear all,
In this month of November, we turn our focus to—gratitude!
Here in the U.S.A., the Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated in November. Historically, Thanksgiving was a way of giving thanks for the year’s harvest. Now, it is a time to gather with family and friends to offer gratitude over a shared meal. As Siddha Yoga students and seekers new to the path, we can make time this month to remember the abundance in our lives.
As I look back on this year, I am particularly grateful for Gurumayi’s Message.
Gurumayi’s Message for 2016 is
Move with steadfastness
toward becoming
anchored
in Supreme Joy
Gurumayi’s Message asks us to take action and initiative in our sadhana—to move, to become.
I have experienced the Message guiding me in all the active steps I’ve taken over the year to put the Siddha Yoga teachings into practice:
- I have renewed my meditation practice and created an area in my room specifically for meditation.
- I’ve been listening to chants each day as I walk to work, infusing my entire workday with vibrancy and focus.
- By focusing on my breath and repeating the mantra, I have connected to an inner stillness that I can offer to all the people I interact with.
- And I have practiced gratitude.
Definitions of gratitude include “to return kindness” and “the readiness to show appreciation,” and these show that gratitude is active. In expressing gratitude, we are not simply saying thank you; we are also offering our own love and good will. Expressing gratitude toward others honors the divine in each of us. This month, we can show gratitude toward those who have supported us, challenged us, or inspired us. It is important to honor our own accomplishments, as well, recognizing the efforts we have put forth this year that have helped us to grow.
I am so grateful and appreciative of the ways the Siddha Yoga path website has helped guide my steady effort through the year, rooting me more deeply in the Self.
The key teachings that have been featured on the Siddha Yoga path website in 2016 will be reprised throughout this month, so you can revisit the stories, letters, and images that most inspired you. Gurumayi’s talk, “Love in Action,” for example, helped me to see that love, like gratitude, is active—something we not only experience within ourselves but we also give to others.
Additionally on the Siddha Yoga path website, every day this month we will have the chance to discover gratitude anew! Beginning today, each day the website will feature a word for gratitude in a different language. We will be able to see the word and also hear it. Words have such power, not only in their meaning but also in their sound. So, this month take in each of these words for gratitude; listen to each word throughout the day; and ask yourself, what can this word teach me about gratitude that I haven’t considered before?
By focusing our attention on gratitude this month and by reflecting on our own abundance, may we remember to practice gratitude all year round.
Best regards,
Jyoti Arvey
Siddha Yoga Student