The mind needs to understand that there is a difference between the intellectual conception of a profound truth and actually realising it. Right now the mind is covered by a veil of ignorance and what we call as the I or myself is a construct of this ignorance. So an intellectual conception in ignorance without the force of realisation accompanying it is like a cheque that one cannot encash because it doesn’t carry the authorizing signature. This signing authorizing is our own highest Self that we call as the Divine. We have to take the cheque to the authorised signatory. We (the lower ego self) can do so either through intense concentration and tapasya, the way of knowledge, or through devotion, service and surrender, the path of bhakti and karma. In the former there is no need of gratitude though here too the limited ego-self must abdicate and lose itself in the greater, higher true Self. This is evidently not easy and in fact incomplete as the heart and life do not engage in the seeking. But the other path is easier and more complete. It is here that surrender, devotion and gratitude become a necessity of the path.
So basically the refusal towards surrender and gratitude is the refusal of the ego that resists losing itself in the Divine. But the soul knows itself as the child of the Divine Mother and feels spontaneous gratitude. Try to find the true soul in you connecting with the Divine in the heart, and gratitude will spontaneously emerge.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
