Everyone talks about the importance of having and expressing gratitude for all the blessings that come our way – although less emphasis is placed upon when they are tough situations that ultimately turn out to be blessings in disguise. Many say gratitude is paramount to keeping the flow of abundance in our lives non-stagnant, but picking and choosing what we are grateful for based on our comfort level or perceived gains materially is still a form of selfish gratitude.

When one chooses to travel the path of the Bodhisattva - the hero’s journey of the selfless, compassionate spiritual warrior - gratitude becomes all encompassing. In his book A Separate Reality, Carlos Castaneda quotes his mentor don Juan Matus as saying, “Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.” Challenges are doorways of consciousness, and how we chose to approach and deal with them (or run away from them in fear and attachment) determine whether we advance, stay stuck in our personal status quo, or regress. If we understand challenges as gifts - no matter how difficult they are - a full-spectrum comprehension of gratitude can be actualized.

That sounds great, and generally inarguable, but in practice it gets a bit trickier. Having the financial rug pulled out from underneath your feet, your heart shattered in a million pieces from a love relationship turned sour, abuse of your trust by another, a diagnosis of a terminal disease – these and similar types of deeply affecting personal challenges are hard to wrap pure gratitude around. Shock, anger and grief are natural first tier responses, and gratitude may never arrive in one’s being until much later – if at all. Realistically, it’s difficult to find gratitude if all you’re experiencing is loss. But if that’s all you are focusing on, then you are missing the opportunities for inner growth inherent in each of these scenarios. That’s where you discover the spiritual blessings within the challenge, which leads you in the direction of not only gratitude, but greater compassion and empathy for any type of suffering that anyone experiences, and what keeps you from falling into the snares of victimhood.

Someone who has made the commitment to personal awakening for the benefit of others via their influential energy field of higher consciousness is grateful for everything that reveals any inner shadows that sit between them and the place of awakening.

The owning of spiritually non-productive repetitive behavioral grooves each of us possesses, and their subsequent transcendence via humble, radically honest self-inquiry is the purest gift we can give to humanity, as it allows us to lead by clean example. And when we see that we all have old spiritually self-destructive patterns as an innate part of being human.

I’ve been observing a disturbing interwoven cluster of behavioral shadow patterns for the past couple decades: jealousy, envy, competitiveness, and lack of genuine support, acknowledgment and happiness for the spiritual advancement for our fellow companions on the path. I started seeing it when I was part of a spiritual community in the mid-eighties wherein I spent considerable one-on-one time with the teacher the group had formed around. I was an “inner circle” student even before I arrived in Los Angeles to begin formal studies with this teacher by his own choice to work with me privately long distance as soon as my application was accepted. Although I felt humbled and awestruck by this, once I moved to California I soon encountered bitter jealousy and energetic attacks from other close students. I realized that not one of them was genuinely supportive of someone else attaining advanced states of consciousness before they did, a reality that shattered my naïve illusions. Since then I have witnessed this phenomenon repeatedly, and I still don’t get it on the heart level, but have come to understand it on an intellectual level. Individual and collective humanity only gains when anyone breaks through to higher consciousness states, but it is such a threat to a controlling ego that the individual becomes an enemy to take out, either literally or energetically. This is perhaps one of the most insidiously dangerous realities of the non-awakened human condition.

Instead of indulging in these lower vibratory fear-based emotions, we should be cheering our companions on for the sheer fact they bring increased light into a world so steeped in darkness. We should feel grateful, not threatened, for each person that breaks through is a living example of the power of the possible for everyone. Anyone who is teaching in the spiritual/personal growth field should rejoice in the work of colleagues who are aiding others in the process of deep, authentic transformation that is motivated by the collective awakening and unification of humanity for the greater good. If they refuse to extend support, then they may have shadow issues of scarcity, superiority and selfishness still within them.

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