This week we celebrated Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a non-denominational national holiday in the United States that was started during one of the terms of George Washington when he declared that we should set a date aside, every year, and make it a holiday wherein we give thanks for all that we have been given, and thanks to the one God who created us all for what he has done to maintain and sustain us.
It’s interesting that we have set a date aside to give thanks, to make thanks at the core of what we do for a day. Of course, what it’s turned into is a feast of abundance and a day to watch football. I don’t know how much the “thanks” part is still in it, but we need to reflect on that part. We need to reflect on our gratitude to our Creator for the abundance that he has given us. We need to reflect on the position that we’re in, and how we are thankful for that position.
Which brings us to an interesting question: what is our default state? When we aren’t trying to be a certain way, what are we? Where are we? Is thanks our default position? When we are not involved in any particular activity, when we’re sitting still, when we’re not pushing or pulling the world, what is our default position?
Have we understood that for us to be truly human we need to be in a constant state of thanks, in a constant state of gratitude, in a constant state of submission to that gratitude?
It’s interesting; gratitude, thanks, all of these things are tied in to qualities that belong to Allah. The opposite of these qualities: resentment, need, desire are things that are not with Allah. So there’s a lot to be learned from Thanksgiving. If we can stay in a state of thanks-giving, then we stay close to our Creator and as we move away from thanks-giving, as we move into, “I don’t have enough, I need this, I need that,” we move away from our relationship to Allah.
Allah doesn’t need. Allah has, and Allah gives. We often, as humans, feel that we are lacking, that we need, that we are in a state of attempting to fill holes within ourselves, to somehow get more than we have because something is missing.
Do not believe that the beggar holds his two pennies in his fist any tighter than the king holds onto his kingdom, both hold on as hard as they can, because they somehow feel that is what protects them, and sustains them.
To shift from the understanding that what we do protects us and sustains us, what we have protects us and sustains us, what we earn protects us and sustains us. To shift to understanding that Allah provides, and what Allah gives protects us and sustains us, is a great change in our nature. And if we can actually do that, we then change our default position, so when we are in the midst of difficulty, we are not in the midst of difficulty because we’re grateful, and if we can stay grateful, then difficulty can’t affect us.
It’s when we lose our gratitude that everything else can slip in. So, the question becomes: how do we maintain our gratitude? The problem with maintaining gratitude is that we have an eye that wanders and sees everything around us, and begins to enter into comparisons.
“Well he has that, and he has that, and I don’t have this, I have this but I don’t have that.” And then the mind begins to interact with those comparisons, and somehow concludes that we need more. And as soon as you enter into comparing and concluding, you have begun to be trapped in the chaos of illusion, you’ve begun to be trapped in the fact that you need more illusion in order to be more peaceful.
Now, when you look at it that way, it seems a little bit absurd that these kinds of thoughts and feelings can enter into us. But, everything outside of us is maya; everything outside of us is illusion.
So how is more illusion going to make us happier? For instance: actors want to be famous, and when they lose their fame, they sometimes go into depressions, and they believe that the cure to their situation is more fame. More illusion is going to cure that situation which illusion has gotten you into.
People who are interested in money believe that more money will solve their emptiness. More money will somehow make them whole. More money can’t solve their internal situations.
Macbeth’s wife tried to wash the blood off her hands, and she did wash the blood off her hands, but she couldn’t wash the internal blood off her hands.
We need to be able to wash on the inside. We need to be able to become content on the inside, and then when we become content and pure on the inside, the outside cannot affect us…
