Gratitude & Tension Release Primary Essays
Tension Release & Gratitude Practice
The path to a sustainable and abundant experience of your true nature.
This final chapter introduces the practices of tension release and gratitude, highlighting their roles as complementary additions to an existing daily routine. The tension release practice is aimed at keeping our spiritual mechanism clear and unobstructed, akin to "clearing the pipe" so energy can flow freely. The gratitude practice, on the other hand, helps us stretch our hearts and use everyday joys to reconnect with our natural state of bliss. While these practices are not intended to fill the full duration of a meditation session, they serve as excellent ways to begin or end our daily practice, or our day.
It is recommended to start your day with a moment of gratitude while sitting on the edge of the bed—a practice passed down by Babaji and elaborated upon in the text. Ending the day with a tension release practice, also right there at the edge of the bed, is similarly recommended. Though these are not the only times to incorporate these practices, they are effective moments that ensure you begin to feel their benefits. The text will offer various other ways to integrate these complementary practices into your daily routine.
We hope this concluding chapter enriches your journey, providing a delightful touch that encourages continued growth and well-being. We are grateful for the opportunity to share this experience with you, as our practice thrives on the support of fellow practitioners. We look forward to training, retreating or working alongside you here at the ashram, or online, in the future.
Spiritual Ash and Tension Release:
Clearing the Path to Continual Growth
You've been engaging in a lot of meditation, pranayama, and perhaps living a more disciplined lifestyle during this meditation teacher training—‘burning your karma,’ as it is often referred to in this tradition. This means using the flame of consciousness in your heart to surrender and transmute the tensions of your day, turning them into energy and growth. You can quite literally imagine this process like burning logs in a fire. The logs represent your karma and the heavy things we carry around—our daily burdens, so to speak. When you place these logs in the fire of your spiritual practice, the practice burns them, transforming this dense matter into energy that fosters spiritual growth. This embodies the concept of “using your practice” in daily life, surrendering and growing.
Once the logs are burnt, however, a form of ‘ash’ can remain—ash that cannot be burnt further and must be removed. This is where tension release practice comes in; it helps to remove the ash, or residue, from our system. If you have ever had a fireplace you know that not removing the ash can eventually clog the fireplace itself, keeping it from achieving an optimal burn, and it is the same with our internal practice as well. Swami Rudrananda also likens this process to the physiological functions of eating, digesting, and elimination. You don’t just eat continuously; you also need to digest and let go of the by-products. If you neglect to release the by-products then the whole system suffers. This is the role of tension release: to release the by-products of spiritual growth. As Swami Rudrananda taught in Satsang:
Student's Question: If your life is going through alot of changes rapidly, and creating alot of tension, how can you deal with that tension?
Rudi: Firstly, tension is very strong energy, right? It's very strong energy, so if you (takes a deep breath) breathe deeper, right, and you draw the tension inside--It's just like chewing food right you'll have the sucking the life energy out of the tension, what you can't suck out, you drop out a couple of times a day, right? So you're eating food, right, digesting inside what you can of this food and then you're getting rid of the by-product. It's the only way you can grow consciously is by eating in the tensions of your day and then allowing what you can't eat to wash out so that your life becomes compact and becomes strong…
Not only is tension release a key part of the physiology of spiritual practice, it is also crucial to keep us progressing on our path. Something to be particularly mindful of is that when we neglect the tension release practice in our work, the tension that we have burned up through our practice can actually re-form within us. This is like saying if we don’t take time to remove the ash from our fire place then it can re-form into logs that we have to burn over again and again and again.
As Swami Rudrananda teaches in Satsang (link below to listen to this teaching from Rudi):
Rudi: “And if you work any day, and you have an incredible experience, or you're going through a tremendous shock, and you don't do this negative psychic tension exercise, then you're a horse's ass. Because you work from one level to another, you rip it apart, you tear it apart, you suffer with it, you go through all this agony, and all of this gets torn loose. And it's like millions of molecules and you don't do anything and then you pay the price. Four days later this thing becomes solid again, it becomes exactly what it was. There is no such thing as growth without breaking down in the growth, the byproduct-- it should be growth which has been suggested, and allows the breaking down of energy and chemistry so that you can wash out of yourself just as after you eat food. You wash out the poisons, you psychically wash out through any creative process, the unassimilated energy so that you grow back in a different way-- you are changing human being. without ridding yourself of some of your chemistry consciously every day you will never change. Your mind will be fanciful and you'll have illusions, but you will not be a human being undergoing a creative and spiritual change. And this is essential. It's absolutely essential that you understand that your spiritual work is nothing unless your chemistry is consciously breaking down and admitting part of it's changing quality and its structure.”
Our meditation and yoga practices create incredible transformation, and tension release practice supports this by allowing you to release what you don't need from the inside. The practice resembles taking an inner shower, helping to prevent the accumulation of grime that can make meditation challenging. If you are ever doing your daily practice and feel stuck, or dull, it can be good to check in with tension release practice to clear the pipes and allow the prana to flow.
You can incorporate tension release practice into your daily routine. At the end of each meditation session for a breath or two, or once a week for 3-5 minutes. Another amazing time to do it is at the end of the day, right before sleep sitting on the edge of your bed, which helps you go to bed feeling clear and refreshed. It's also useful during commutes or any idle moments during the day.
Below is a simple step-by-step instruction manual for the practice to get you started. The instructions are broken down into layers, as this allow time for students to incorporate all of the instructions in a natural way, ie. You don’t have to load everything on them at once. This also allows you and your students to practice longer together, and to give more space for the breath flow.
After this entry you will see the more detailed explanation as presented by Faith Stone in her book “Rudi and the Green Apple”
Tension Release Practice Step-by-Step
Layer One: The Pranayama
Make sure you're seated comfortably in a meditation posture. Bring your hands to the sides of your body with fingers outstretched, lightly resting on the floor. Start by breathing in through your nose slowly, imagining the breath going in through your nose, over your forehead, down your throat, and into your heart. Do this a few times. Breathe in slowly and steadily for 5-10 seconds. Retain the breath in the heart for a similar length of time, and then try to exhale for that same length of time. There should be no stress in your breathing, no strain to breathe longer or deeper. Instead just slow your breath down and try to elongate it as a means of cultivating focus and depth.
Layer Two: The Visualization
We will now layer on a visualization into this pranayama. As you inhale, picture the clearest, purest prana flowing in through your nose, over your third eye, down to your heart. As you hold the breath in the heart, this prana circulates and attracts all the grime and debris from your psychic system. As you exhale, imagine a smoky, ashy substance flowing out of your heart, down your arms, and out through your palms and fingertips. Repeat the pranayama and visualization numerous times, taking your time and cultivating a rich sensory experience to support your practice.
Layer Three: The Mantra/Affirmation
The final layer is the mantra or affirmation. As you retain the breath in the heart without tension, silently repeat, "I deeply wish to surrender all negative psychic tension." This is a moment of communicating to yourself the intention of the practice. Try to hear yourself making this wish, and deepen the sincerity each time you repeat it. You can also explore deepening your sincerity within the visualization portion of the practice— seeing the prana entering, seeing the debris collect, and really feeling the release of tension through the palms and fingertips. It should be noted that Sri Shambhavananda has repeatedly taught that when the tension releases from the body it doesn’t ‘accumulate’ in the room, rather, it evaporates completely. This is because we are the glue holding this tension together, and when we release it it reassimilates naturally into the energy around us.
Concluding the Practice:
After your final exhale and release of tension. shake out your hands, wipe off your arms, and notice if you feel lighter. Over time, your visualization and inner focus on the wish will grow stronger. Be patient, and realize that this practice can greatly supplement your daily meditation and help lighten your load.
Recap & Reflect
Recap & Reflect
The essay "Spiritual Ash and Tension Release: Clearing the Path to Continual Growth" explains how disciplined spiritual practices like meditation and pranayama help transmute daily tensions into energy that fosters growth, likening this to burning logs in a fire. It emphasizes the importance of tension release practices to clear residual 'ash' from the system, ensuring continued progress and preventing the reformation of old tensions, ultimately maintaining the flow of prana and enhancing spiritual transformation.
Reflect on ways that you do maintenance on important mechanisms in your life— oil changes of your car, weeding your garden, cleaning the kitchen, etc. Is the concept of tension release something you can relate to easily? Is the visualization process effective for you? Are there any questions about the experience?
In Depth Tension Release Practice By Faith Stone
as written in her book “Rudi and the Green Apple”
A flushing or inner cleansing exercise is essential for anyone doing spiritual work. Rudi explained that the inner excavation done by attempting to grow spiritually can clog up the plumbing of our psychic system. We all have lifetimes of accumulated tension, karmas, and debris that need to be cleaned out of our minds, bodies, and psychic systems. Rudi taught a daily ten- sion release technique, and he advised doing a deeper cleans- ing once a month. He said the daily technique was like taking a shower on the inside. Just as you shower and wash your body daily, it is equally important to wash on the inside with the breath flow. He recommended the exercise be done just prior to meditation as a preparation for meditation, and also to be done for a short time before going to sleep at night. The result being that you wouldn’t be taking the tensions from the day into your sleep and then into the next day. You could start the next day all fresh.
The Exercise In Brief:
Sit on the floor or in a chair with the spine straight. Inhale and exhale through the nose. Have the hands open to the sides with the fingers apart. Hands can be raised off the floor to shake off the fingers with the exhale; but when the fingers get heavy, it is fine to rest the hands on the floor, keeping fingers spread apart. With the inhale, let the breath fill the forehead – washing over the third eye chakra. Follow the inhale to the throat where you can sometimes swallow to relax the throat. Draw the majority of the breath into the center of the chest – the heart chakra. While holding for a few moments or longer, ask from the heart, “I consciously wish to surrender negative psychic tensions.” The more sincerity you bring to your wish, the greater the results.
Feel the wish expand and break up the congestion within your being. With the exhale, let the negative tensions flow down the arms; out the hands; and into the floor. You can shake off the fingertips. Repeat the exercise with every breath flow for about 15 minutes or until you feel cleaner inside with greater circulation of prana throughout the body and psychic system. After practicing, you’ll feel better, lighter, and happier.
Every person is unique and experiences things according to his or her nature, but it can be helpful to hear another describe their experience. Here’s my description of doing the practice.
My eyes closed, I relax into myself in preparation for practice. I begin by withdrawing my senses from my external environment and the world outside. I focus for a moment on each of my senses. I tell myself, “The eyes, they gather information from the world around me. They are always looking outward gazing, studying; now let them look within.” Look inside into the center of your being or at first be aware of a perception of darkness with the eyes closed, but observe how that quickly gives way to seeing the body within as light. I relax the fore- head and feel the inner eye open, the third eye. This often gives me the perception of life as energy. When I’m not look- ing with normal vision, I see subtle energies with the third eye. It’s nothing very dramatic; anyone can do it. It doesn’t have to be crystal clear. It’s mostly a feeling of relaxation and openness in the forehead.
Next I go on to my sense of hearing. I think about the way we normally hear and listen. We take in the sounds from the world around us. We hear/feel emotions in the voices of others: happiness, sadness, anger. Now listen inside yourself. Listen to the sound of your breath flow. Hear the natural mantra of the breath – Ham with the inhale, Sa with the exhale. Concentrate so completely on the sounds within that you let go of the sounds around you. You become so absorbed in simply looking and listening within. Listen to your heart beating. Can you hear the blood pulsating throughout your body? Then go back to listening to the breath.
Now go on to your sense of touch. Feel your heart beating, the blood pulsating through your body. Feel the breath flow. Feel the lungs touching the breath like a thousand little fingers. Actually the lungs do touch the breath that way. Feel the quality of the breath. Each day has a different quality, a different feel- ing; a different energy. What does it feel like today? The energy of the breath, which is really prana or vital life force, is it sweet and light? Is it dense and heavy? Is it fairly neutral like the feel- ing of potential or something about to happen? Tuning in to the breath energy is not the same as tuning in to how you feel today, mentally and emotionally. It’s tuning in to how the world or life feels today. With a little practice you’ll be able to identify – to feel the energy of the day.
Keep feeling. Feel within yourself. Feel the chest rising and falling with the breath. Let that spread down so that you breathe fully into the abdomen and all the way down to the body base. Then feel the whole body breathing. (If you ever watch a young child, a baby, or an animal sleeping, their whole body breathes.) Breathe this way now. The senses of taste and smell are more subtle in meditation, so I just suggest to myself that they also be included.
Next I center in the heart as the heart chakra is the main psychic center that we use for Rudi’s flushing exercise. The heart chakra is located in the subtle spiritual body which is not the same as the physical body but has a similar area. You experience the heart chakra at the center of the chest. To center in the heart, have the idea that everything about you originates from the heart. You have the idea that your vision begins from the heart. You listen from the heart. If you would speak, it would be as though the words originated from the center of the chest. Your consciousness is focused, anchored, grounded in the heart. Bring your awareness to the center of the chest – the heart chakra. Breathe in a relaxed way through the nose with both the inhale and exhale. There is a valve at the heart center that connects with a tube, like a hose, running down the arms. We will be utilizing this channel for flushing. The center of the palms is the other end of the opening. Smaller channels also run down to the fingertips.
One last preparation I do is sitting with my spine straight and eyes closed. I breathe through the nose deeply and strong- ly in to the forehead area. This floods the forehead and third eye chakra with prana, vital life force. Then slowly exhale, through the nose. I repeat this up to three times. It causes the forehead and also the mind to relax. Three strong breaths while focusing on the forehead or third eye helps this to hap- pen very quickly.
Now begin the flushing exercise. Sit quietly in a comfortable position on the floor with your legs crossed or, if unable to do this, sit in a chair. Have the spine straight, hands open and fingers spread apart at the sides. To begin you can have the finger- tips resting on the floor.
As you breathe through the nose, the breath or prana energy floods the forehead and third eye chakra causing them to relax. (Yogis say that when the forehead is relaxed the whole body relaxes.) This takes only a moment and about a third of the inhale. The inhale feels like sweet, clean energy washing over the forehead and then down to the throat. Swallowing unlocks or opens the naturally tighter chakra in the throat. As you inhale the remaining two-thirds of the breath, feel your awareness drop with the swallow to the heart chakra at the center of the chest. (If you don’t have much awareness of or sensitivity to the heart center, don’t worry. It will come with practice. To help, you can put a fingertip on the center of the chest and draw your attention as well as your awareness to the fingertip. Next imagine and soon actually feel the heart chakra spreading out and becoming bigger. Once you’ve established the feeling in the heart, return your hand open to your side or resting with fingertips apart on the floor.)
The breath is held in the heart, sometimes for just a few moments, sometimes longer as you feel the negativity breaking up in the subtle body. In review, the initial breath is like taking a sip of water up to the forehead before drinking the whole glass, which is brought to the heart area.
While holding the breath in the heart center, Rudi taught us to ask as if the wish were coming from deep within your heart, as though your heart were talking, “I consciously wish to surrender negative psychic tensions,” “consciously” means, I wish to feel it and gain awareness of the process. “Surrender” means to let go voluntarily of any tightness or blocks to spiritual growth. As I do this, I feel my Inner Self waking up. At this point I often feel a deep yearning for God. Sometimes I feel an ache in my heart, the heartache of wanting to be completely united with God. Other days, I must admit, I simply feel thick and resistant. It’s different every day because each day is new.
Regardless of whether it’s easy or hard, you continue. Rudi often told us how important it is to work consistently, not only when it’s easy, but also when it’s the last thing you want to do because then your growth becomes strong. You grow in all kinds of weather, so to speak. You don’t need a greenhouse or very specific favorable conditions. Certainly life is not like a greenhouse, and we need to be prepared for anything that may come our way. Consistent spiritual practice gives us great inner strength.
Next feel the wish in your heart expand. There is actually no limit to how much the heart can open. It is not determined by the physical size of the body. As the heart expands it breaks free of the “negative psychic tensions.” Rudi taught that a “sin- cere wish” is a very powerful tool for growth. It is! Some days the tensions in your life can make your body feel like an oak barrel, the tensions being the metal bands that hold the slats of timber together. Your wish can break apart the metal bands causing your heart to open like a giant flower. You then feel your wish expand and break up the inner congestion.
With the exhale, you release the tensions, blocks, and psychic debris down your arms, out the hands, and into the floor. Breath is not just air or oxygen from the yogic perspective. It is prana or vital life force. In this exercise, we are using the prana to flush out negativity from within us. Rudi taught that most tension can be broken down and used as fuel for inner growth, but there is a waste product that must be washed away. It has no further nutritive qualities. If we don’t empty out this “garbage,” we eventually become “full of shit” so to speak. As you exhale, feel all the crap from your day, your life, and past lives draining away from you. Drop the tensions off, down the arms, out the hands, and into the floor.
The basic flushing exercise is to breathe, ask, and release. The breath does not need to be held for any particular count, but sometimes you will find it beneficial to hold for longer in order to break down deeper tensions. Rudi taught that the exercise can be done with every breath flow. So naturally sometimes the breath is not held at all – only a little pause as you repeat, “I consciously wish to surrender negative psychic tensions.” This is your mantra with the breath flow. (Mantra means that which is repeated over and over.) After a while, you may feel the inhale spread down and include the belly area – the navel chakra. That’s fine. You can release even more accumulated negative tensions from here. Periodically, raise the fingertips off the floor, keeping the hands open to the sides. With the exhale or release of the breath, feel the tensions draining away from the body and psyche, down the arms, out the hands, and then shake the fingertips as though shaking gunk or goo off the hands and fingers. You are!
I have had a number of experiences while practicing this exercise. Sometimes the inhale feels like fresh, clean, pure water washing over my forehead and then down into my body, very much like taking an inner shower. As I pause with the breath, the pure water mixes with the “dirt” of my day and life, loosen- ing the clumps of debris. The exhale feels like the waste water washing down the hoses or plumbing of my arms and draining away from my body and mind. After a short while, I begin to feel clean and shiny inside. Sometimes I feel buoyant as though my body becomes lighter, freed of all that heaviness, and I have a sense of floating upward.
Other times I have encountered tensions that feel deeper and tighter. Then I ask from deeper within myself, trying to overcome laziness and resistance. I try to bring as much sincerity to the wish as I possibly can. Finally, I’ll have an experience of the wish busting up the tension. It feels or looks in my mind’s eye like shatterproof glass or a windshield breaking. It crumbles into thousands of little pieces and falls away.
You can do Rudi’s flushing exercise anywhere. It can be done in preparation for meditation. If you find yourself in a tense situation at work or in conflict with another person, you simply hang your hands down to the side. (No one need even be aware of it. You could be sitting at your desk or riding a bus), take a breath into your heart, and with the exhale let the tensions flow down the arms, out the hands, and away from the body into the floor. You’ll find yourself much calmer and less likely to explode and add to the tension of the situation. Problem-solving and harmonious resolution to conflicts become easier.
Under Rudi’s guidance, we usually practiced for about fifteen minutes before meditation, but you can work longer if you’re feeling really blocked or congested. Also practice about five or ten minutes before going to sleep at night. This exercise is extremely helpful for non-meditators. I taught it to my moth- er who has used it for stress release and to let go of mental troubles. While it is helpful for anyone, some kind of flushing prac- tice is essential for aspirants to Self-realization. Rudi’s Flushing Exercise is one of the most simple and effective practices I have ever come across.
Cultivating Contentment
The Daily Practice of Gratitude
This is an all-time favorite practice for so many of our Sangha as so many say that when they do the gratitude practice they feel the benefits instantly and abundantly. The gratitude practice comes to us from Swami Rudrananda, and is an incredible way to achieve grow two different aspects of our practice. First, it allows us to use our gratitude to deepen our connection to our hearts as well as sustain joy as we experience it in our lives. Second, the gratitude practice itself actually helps us cultivate more gratitude in our lives, as the yogic tradition has taught for millennia and scientific studies have shown for decades.
Let's start by discussing how to use our gratitude to deepen our experience of the heart and sustain our joy. I'm sure you have the occasional moment in your day or week when things are going well, and you feel happy. It could be because of a particular song on the radio, a task completed at work, a great meal, a sunset with a loved one, etc. But as we know from our discussion on the heart, eventually that feeling passes, and you wonder where it went. What if, in the moment when your heart is opening, you could take all that energy, absorb it deeply, and let it soak in so it continues to support you even after the experience is over? That’s one priceless benefit of the gratitude practice— it helps us find the source of our joy inside while we experience it, which not only invests that joy inwardly, but illuminates its source, sustaining it. This is such a fundamental practice that the Vijnana Bhairava dedicates multiple entries to it, as seen in Dharana 46, “On joyously seeing a long-absent friend, permeate this joy” and Dharana 47, “When eating or drinking, become the taste of the food or drink, and be filled”. When you see a long lost friend, instead of squeezing them harder to express that joy, take a breath into your heart and feel gratitude for the moment and you will discover its source. When take a bite of your favorite food or drink, take a moment to offer up some gratitude between swallows and you’ll see that the joy keeps bubbling up long after the seltzer goes flat.
The practice of feeling gratitude in the happier moments of our life allows those moments to last longer, as we don’t squeeze the joy out of them but rather sit back and allow them to occur. Sri Shambhavananda often teaches his students to treat this joy like a soap bubble— if your reach for it it will pop, but if you surrender it can land on you and remain. Utilizing a simple form of the gratitude practice in these moments puts you in the space of the observer, allowing your mind to focus on the joy without the object. It might feel a little silly, like, "Oh, why did I let go of that good feeling?”, but as Babaji teaches, "Only through gratitude and surrender can we receive more energy and more inner nourishment." By offering up gratitude in these moments, we actually create more space for this gratitude to continue to flow and nourish us. Offering it up attracts even more, so don't be afraid to offer up that joy when you feel it, because this is the trick to attracting even more of it right in that very moment. You’ll see how it works the moment you try it, as the Shiva Sutras teach, the path is revealed as we walk it.
The physics behind this phenomena is based on using our practice to release our mind’s natural inclination to attach to the object it perceives as the source of joy. As Patanjali teaches, “The seed of attachment is pleasure,” meaning that anytime we feel joy we tend to attach ourselves the object that brought it to us. When this occurs, we begin to squeeze the joy out of every situation, and the more attached we get to the object, the faster the joy fades. Babaji often tells the story of a person who had a heart opening moment after climbing a mountain, and then proceeded to climb that mountain a dozen more times hoping to find that same experience, but never did. If they had taken a moment to offer up their gratitude on the mountain top they might have had a very different experience. As Patanjali also teaches, “In becoming the master of one’s own intellect, one can encounter an object of enjoyment without attachment, and be content” (2.7, 1.15). Contentment is under-rated! Sri Shambahvananda recently taught in Satsang that all of the light-shows of an out of body meditation pale in comparison to the simple joy of inner peace and contentment. Gratitude helps us release the object, but retain the joy, also known as contentment.
Gratitude is also essential in the moments we don’t feel joy, as the yogic tradition and science have shown that gratitude is actually a conduit to attract more joy into our lives. Similar to how exercise for our body is a challenging yet essential aspect of physical and mental health, gratitude too is a challenging yet essential aspect of our spiritual physiology. The gratitude practice is like a workout for our spiritual hearts, a way for us to stretch and strengthen our capacity for Joy as well as break through the apathetic dross that we can so easily spend our days.
There are countless studies on the benefits of gratitude. Harvard Health published an article about two psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons from the University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E. McCullough from the University of Miami, who have conducted extensive research on gratitude. In one study, participants were asked to write a few sentences each week on specific topics. One group wrote about things they were grateful for that had occurred during the week. Another group focused on daily irritations or things that had displeased them. A third group wrote about events that had affected them, without emphasizing whether they were positive or negative. After 10 weeks, those who wrote about gratitude were shown to not only be more optimistic, but to also feel better about their lives. They also exercised more and made fewer visits to physicians compared to those who wrote about sources of aggravation.
The take away is obvious— gratitude is essential for our health and well being, but like any exercise routine you have to actually do it for the benefits to unfold. Luckily, this is one form of exercise you can do anywhere and at anytime— even on the edge of your bed, as Sri Shambhavananda often teaches, “I have been telling everyone lately that the first thing they should do before they get out of bed is to find something they feel grateful for and to offer up their gratitude. Your life will improve greatly if you do that instead of rolling out of bed and thinking, “Ugh, its Tuesday, when is this going to end?” That is not being grateful. I believe the lack of gratitude for all the richness that we have in our lives is what prevents more of that richness from coming” (SP, 28). The gratitude practice teaches us how to focus our awareness inside and stretch open our hearts without doership or willfulness, but with the effervescent qualities of surrender.
Like exercise, we may have resistance to the practice of gratitude even if we know its good for us. That’s not only ok, its a part of the equation. The skillful practice of gratitude starts small, much like Swami Rudrananda’s explanation of the wish to grow— it may be the strongest force in the universe, but we have to repeat it over and over and over again to realize its true power. Gratitude is much the same— it starts small, but if it’s real, then even the smallest seed can grow an entire tree. As Yoga Sutra 1.33 teaches, “In order to recall one’s natural expansiveness, especially after encountering the above obstacles, the practitioner should cultivate friendliness, compassion, and gladness…” We don’t always have to be grateful, sometimes just being polite is enough, just being gracious, just being neutral. Faith Stone often teaches that when a situation is very challenging, bringing gratitude to a situation may be the simple practice of not adding to the tension, of finding a neutral space to stand. And for anyone who is dedicated to their practice, and is willing to do their practice in any and all settings, they know this to be true. So what do we do when we aren’t feeling grateful? Try being polite, neutral, or simply observing your reality from a space of objectivity. As Subramuni Swami often taught— more often than not, at any given moment in our day, things are actually more OK than we like to admit, which is why he advised students to repeat to themselves, “Everything is OK right now”.
Another way into the gratitude practice is contentment. This is often my way into the practice, as I ask myself to take a few moments to stop needing and wanting more, to just exist in the space I am in with ease and objectivity. Perhaps one of the easiest ways to viscerally feel contentment is by smiling. Zen master, and dear friend of Sri Shambhavananda, Paul Reps, once wrote that “A Slight Smile Stretches a Mile.” Go ahead and try it now while you read this, and you’ll feel the stretch that he is referring to— the stretch is in our hearts, not our cheeks. The practice of friendliness and gladness, as Patanjali referred to it, is really that simple— a slight smile. Sure, it might feel like wax lips, but as our wish to grow increases through this practice that slight smile begins to resemble our true nature, little by little. As Sri Shambhavananda teaches, “I love you guys and I am here to help you. I am not here to do the work for you. You have to really apply yourselves. …Remember gratitude! If you want to see some gratitude, every single day you have to find something in your heart to be grateful for. You really must get to work on that, and you will be a much happier person. You also have to practice smiling. I see some of you racing around thinking, “I have to get this done. I’ve got to do this.” I look at them and think, “There is not a happy bone in their bodies.” Practice smiling, too” (SP, 112).
Gratitude practice is not only a way to sustain our joy and re-discover its source, its also a way to cultivate that joy on a daily basis, and by committing to this practice, we can unlock a deeper sense of contentment and joy, even in challenging situations. As Sri Shambhavananda emphasizes, starting each day with gratitude can significantly improve our lives. The practice of smiling, as simple as it sounds, can stretch our hearts and enhance our natural expansiveness. Remember, the key to gratitude is consistency. Even when we don't feel particularly grateful, practicing gratitude can slowly but surely transform our outlook and attract more joy into our lives. Let us all commit to this practice, offering our gratitude daily, and watch how it not only enriches our own lives, but those around us, as the ancient text, the Chandrajnana, taught, “Just like the moon, shining in the sky, beautiful like a flower, captivating the mind, instantaneously fills this world with happiness. In the same way, when this heroic yogī wanders about in this world, with the rays of their knowledge, they purify and fill it with supreme bliss right from suffering to Śiva.”
Recap & Reflect
The essay "Cultivating Contentment: The Daily Practice of Gratitude" highlights the immediate and abundant benefits of a gratitude practice, rooted in Swami Rudrananda’s teachings. It explains how expressing gratitude helps deepen our connection to the heart, sustain joy, and cultivate more gratitude, leading to greater inner peace and contentment, supported by both yogic tradition and scientific studies.
Have you ever practiced a form of gratitude practice regularly? If so, did you have similar experiences to the scientific studies and Yogic tradition? If not, how do you plan to incorporate gratitude into your day? When, where and how long?
The Gratitude Practice as Taught by Faith Stone
Excerpt from her book, “Rudi and the Green Apple”
Rudi felt it was important to close one’s meditation with a feeling of gratitude or saying thank you. When we meditate, we contact spiritual forces, enlightened beings, Gods, Goddesses, and Bodhisattvas who assist us. He thought we should always offer some sweetness or thanks for the help that we receive and as a way of offering something in return. One evening after class he taught this little exercise.
Cup your hands together at the center of the chest, the heart chakra, with the fingers pointing upwards. (This could be called the universal prayer mudra as it is used in all religious traditions. “Mudra” is the yogic term for hand position.) Then breathing through the nose, take a breath into the heart center. Hold the breath in the heart chakra and feel some sweetness and love well up in the heart. Keeping the base of the palms together, let the fingertips come apart “like a lotus flower open- ing and blooming,” Rudi explained. See this as an expansiveness of love and an expression of the overflowing love in your heart. Raise this flower and your hands heavenward. As the hands rise higher, the palms separate and the arms reach upward and out- ward to the sides above your head. The shape of your arms becomes like a huge bowl with the base at the heart. Feel your love, gratitude, and all the sweetness in your heart being offered upward. Make a gift of love and thanks to your Gurus, teachers, and the enlightened beings of all times for the tremendous opportunity to be alive and to be able to grow – to do spiritual practice. Feel gratitude for their help and assistance. Feel a sense of humility. Offer all these upwards. With the exhale, you can let your hands rest back down into your lap. Sometimes I let all the sweetness rise with the exhale while my hands are still up. The exercise can be done once fully or you can repeat it several times.
Every time I do this practice, I feel ten-fold blessings shower back down upon me. I’m offering love, sweetness, and as much thankfulness as I can gather in my heart. I’m the one who is supposed to be giving now, but the heavens rain ever so much more back upon me. Already I feel I have received so much from my meditation. When I say thank you, I receive an even greater abundance of spiritual energy and love. It’s a remarkable little exercise.
Thanks, Rudi!
In studying thangka painting, we always close the practice by “dedicating the merit.” You offer any benefit of your practice to all sentient beings. My painting teacher once explained that this is something like putting your blessings in the bank, or really more like giving them away. In this way, you can’t ruin your good work, you’ve made it an offering to all sentient beings. Even if you were to step outside the room and somehow become involved in an argument with someone, the blessings are safe. You can’t take all the precious good energy you got from painting deities and muck it up, because you’ve already given it upward, you’ve already dedicated the merit. Rudi’s exercise works in a similar manner. Don’t misunderstand. It’s not to be used as an excuse for willfully going around causing trouble, but it does help spread out the blessings and protect them.
So as we conclude this Training Manual, perhaps you could take a moment to offer up some gratitude for the teachings of the Shambhavananda Lineage. Think of Sri Shambhavananda and Faith with love and respect, as well as the ashrams they have created for so many individuals to discover this path inside to their own Hearts. In this way we keep the energy moving, and allow ourselves to become a part of a bigger flow. Sad Guru Nath Maharaj Ki Jay!