This week, Kriyabans from the Assisi Institute share aspects of the spiritual life as Isha Das turns to other work on our behalf. Today’s passage comes from Roger Palma.
Each moment is a gift which presents one more opportunity to feel God within and without and one more opportunity to see God in others. Our gratitude should be as boundless as the presence of God. A short time ago at an Assisi retreat, I sat in the temple in the front row, closer than I had ever been at a Kriya service. I looked upon the faces of the gurus and the flowers that surrounded them and I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I was alive at that moment and that I could be in the midst of such grace. I have had the very good fortune to spend time near the Pacific Ocean at Yogananda’s Lake Shrine and his Meditation Gardens. Their combination of spiritual power and beauty had been unmatched in my experience until that moment in the Assisi temple. Now, I will now be able to reconnect to that special feeling every time I return to our building. For this, I will be eternally grateful. All of us fortunate enough to spend time in our special place for contemplation and communal reflection should be deeply grateful.
Underlying that, I am grateful for the serendipitous turn of events that brought me to Assisi in the first place. I can best describe that time as, “I didn’t know I was looking for something until I found it.” Such is the beauty of life when I keep myself open to the possibility of God’s love. Having once faced the moment, many years ago, when my future was reduced to the probabilities of a gaming table, I assume nothing about tomorrow and hold gratitude for every moment of today. Gratitude informs my first waking moment as well as the final seconds before I sleep. In that spirit, I turn to the Sufi poet and mystic, Rumi:
“Wear gratitude like a cloak,
and it will feed every corner of your life.”
