Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Transcript

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Thank you. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna.
We will discuss on the topic of thoughts on thanksgiving. Write a journal daily. Sometimes when I can’t think of anything to write at that time I just type thank you krishna and then let my keyboard let my finger just move on the keyboard.
I try to thank krishna for whatever good things have happened in my life. I thank him for whatever good ideas for writing that I may have got because writing is my main service and ideas are essential for me to do this service and then I have that I also thank him for whatever good service I was able to do because I know that you know in every successful endeavor so many things need to go right so I’m grateful that those things did go right and I’m grateful that the many things that could have gone wrong did not go wrong and as I keep writing like this I’m often surprised at how easily I meet my daily journal writing quota. I attempt to write around 500 words daily.
More importantly actually as I write about I write my thankfulness I start feeling thankful, feeling happy, feeling cared by Krishna, feeling loved by Krishna, feeling protected by Krishna and even more importantly I don’t just start feeling thankful but I also start seeing more things to be thankful for. I started recognizing things that I had overlooked in the rush of life but then that thing that I was reminded of those things when I started pondering on them while writing so it’s a revealing and inspiring experience for me when I realize that the attempt to thank more specifically the attempt to express my thanks through verbalization nourishes when this attempt nourishes my attitude of gratitude so this is one of the reasons why I cherish writing, journaling as a daily ritual. Nourishing our higher side is in fact the purpose of rituals.
Rituals provide a impetus and a structure for expressing and thereby experiencing refined emotions. Now when we meet someone we shake hands or we fold hands we greet that is the way we express respect. So now with respect to gratitude the ritual for nourishing the emotion of gratitude may be private like journaling or it may be public like Thanksgiving festival that is being celebrated in this week in America and elsewhere.
Now as an Indian wherein Thanksgiving is not celebrated here I hadn’t heard of Thanksgiving at all before I was introduced to bhakti yoga. Actually I was educated in the convent school and there I heard about some Christian festivals but I heard primarily about Christmas and Easter. So after I was initiated in bhakti yoga as a part of deepening my appreciation for bhakti yoga I started studying other traditions also and that was when I encountered Thanksgiving for the first time and my initial impression was uncomplimentary, unfavorable and no guesses required for that.
It was because of the killing of turkeys. Now the whole idea of killing a creature to thank the creator struck me as counterintuitive and counter-demotional. Counterintuitive in the sense that how are we actually thanking the creator by killing something, someone who he has created and counter-demotional.
How are we expressing our love to our father by killing a fellow creature, a brethren. So but still putting aside this negative impression as I read more about the festival I found that its core spirit was good. The spirit of thanking God for the gifts that we have been blessed with.
Now of course it’s true that many people celebrate Thanksgiving giving as just an occasion for having a good time but that degeneration of festival to fun happens can happen for all festivals. It happens for Christmas and Diwali which are reduced to just material which are reduced by misdirected, reduced or misdirected by materialism to just some noise and purchasing and socializing blowing crackers where their spiritual significance is entirely overshadowed. So it can happen for any festival but still there are people who celebrate Thanksgiving as a genuine expression of their gratitude to God for the gifts they have been given.
Now because they are brought up in a culture where non-vegetarian food is the norm, they don’t even consider that the form of Thanksgiving militates against the spirit of Thanksgiving. That killing a creator, creature of God is not, is hardly the way to thank the one who has created that creature. So thankfully, now thankfully we are talking about Thanksgiving festival and there are things we have to be thankful for.
Thankfully we live in an age of increased awareness of animal consciousness and animal rights. So further science has, we are becoming, we are becoming more scientifically aware of how vegetarianism is a feasible and even preferable dietary choice and further many thoughtful people, many thoughtful religious practitioners also are probing deep into their tradition to understand the significance of the rituals they practice. So therefore we can hope that progressive celebrants of Thanksgiving will evolve in their consciousness and replay and find non-violent alternatives to turkeys as a means for expressing their gratitude.
So for bringing about this change, instead of eating turkey, we need to talk turkeys. Talk turkey is a phrase that means to talk seriously about a situation to find a solution. So if we, if actually people talk turkey about Thanksgiving, then they will stop eating turkey.
Now as I pondered further on Thanksgiving, going from its substance, from its form to its substance, it struck me how the, how being grateful to God who is the giver of all things is a principle that is enshrined in all the traditions of the world and yet that which is universally endorsed is becoming universally elusive. We find it quite difficult to be grateful amidst today’s materialistic culture. Why is that? Because materialism makes us believe that we can find happiness only in material things and therefore the more material things we have, the happier we will become.
So naturally, we start craving for more and more things and because we can never possess everything, and because there is always more, we can never have, because what we don’t have will always be more than what we have. So we always stay more dissatisfied than grateful. And what aggravates our obsession, we become obsessed with what you don’t have, thinking that that will provide me the happiness that is missing in my life.
And what aggravates our obsession further is the aggressive advertising industry whose mission statement seems to be parading before us the many things we don’t have. And such a parade fuels within us the desire for those things. As that craving burns our heart, we find little if any reason to feel grateful.
We can’t even notice the things we are so caught in looking at the things that we don’t have, that we don’t even notice the things that we have. And if we don’t even notice, how can we be grateful for those things? So in this way, today gratitude is very difficult. Now for cultivating gratitude, a more spiritual worldview, a spiritual vision of life is much more conducive.
And the spiritual vision of life, we understand that happiness comes not by material acquisition, but by spiritual realization. The Bhagavad Gita is an ancient spiritual text that helps us systematically, philosophically, logically develop a spiritual vision of life. The Bhagavad Gita informs us that we are not our bodily shells.
We are at our core, souls, eternal beings. And we can find eternal happiness in spiritual love for God, Krishna. And we are actually meant for that supreme happiness by cultivating spiritual love for Krishna.
So now, with this spiritual vision of life, with this more balanced vision of life, then what all can we be grateful for? Firstly, everyday news tells us how much, there is so much death and disaster and destruction all around us. So, just being alive amidst all this mayhem is itself something wonderful that we can be grateful for. Further, and so many people in the world don’t have even the necessities of life.
Now, that we have the necessities is also worth being grateful for. More importantly, however, the most important thing to be grateful for, however, is having a purpose for life. Now, we are not referring here to the material purpose for our life that we may assign for ourselves.
Yes, that can also add value to our life. It can bring happiness to our life if it is well chosen. And we can be grateful for that.
But the most important thing to be grateful for is the spiritual purpose of life, the very purpose, the very resonator of our existence. Gita Wisdom explains that purpose to be love, love for God and love for all living beings in relationship with Him. This love brings real meaning, deep fulfillment and it actually adds a supreme value to our life.
Not only does it make our life in this world meaningful and enjoyable, but it also makes our life into a launching pad, a trajectory for attaining life eternally. How? Because when we lead a life of loving service to Krishna, then our consciousness rises from the present material level where we suffer death due to the destructibility of our bodily shells. So, from this destructible, death-filled level of consciousness, devotion raises us, the practice of bhakti, raises our consciousness to spiritual level where we realize and relish the indestructibility of our spiritual core and the indestructibility of the immortality of our love for Krishna.
So, this purpose is what is the most cherished gift of God and God offers us this gift through the scriptures and through the living traditions that keep those scriptures accessible and relevant for us in today’s times also. So, understanding God’s message to scripture and imbibing, harmonizing our life with that purpose, the purpose as given in the scriptures, that is actually the opportunity for that, opportunity to perceive and pursue this purpose of life, that opportunity is the greatest blessing of God and that is what we can be supremely thankful for. The Bhagavad Gita explains that those who accept this opportunity for spiritual enlightenment, they are rare, special souls, one among thousand.
Very few endeavor, Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, endeavor to understand spiritual truth. Now, moving further, once we understand the purpose of life, the spiritual purpose of life, then that enables us to be thankful not just for the good things in life but also for the bad things. How bad things? Because we understand that they are all parts of God’s plan for elevating our consciousness.
The Srimad Bhagavatam, which is a classic bhakti text, features a prayer by a great seer that Tenu kampam susumikshmano bhunjan evatma-pritam vipakam vriddhvagu purvir viddham namaste jivetayo mukti-pade sadai bhag that O God, for whatever adversities come in my life, I thank you with folded hands and bowed head. So, this prayer actually concludes the bold declaration that those who can be thankful amidst adversities will attain, they become rightful inheritors to life eternal. Actually, what is the rationale for this declaration? Who can be thankful to God amidst adversities? Only those whose heart is fixed not on material things, because if it were fixed on material things, they would be afflicted with feelings of loss.
But those whose heart is fixed on their spiritual gifts, their heart can stay strong even amidst material losses. They can stay grateful. And this spiritual redirection of our heart is actually the process for rising to the spiritual level of reality and relation life eternal.
So, we live in a multicultural world, we live in a busy complex world where life is complex. We live in a multicultural world where religion seems complex. So, in such a situation, Thanksgiving can be a striking reminder for us of the simplicity by which we can go close to God simply by saying a heartfelt thank you, thank you God.