In this episode of “5 Minutes,” Dr. Robert Svoboda explores the Ayurvedic understanding of gratitude and how appreciation strengthens our connections with others and with reality.
One of the first pairs of Sanskrit words I learned when I was at the Ayurvedic College in Pune was the pair of words for grateful and ungrateful: Kritajna and Kritaghna. They are very similar words. Krita means something that has been performed. It is the past tense of the verb kri, which means to do.
In Kritajna, the jna is the same as in words such as Prajna or Jnana. Sometimes people in India pronounce this sound as “gyan.” Prajna means wisdom, meaning not simply knowing something but truly understanding it, perceiving it as part of your reality. Therefore, Kritajna means that when something has been done for you, you truly acknowledge it, appreciate it, and recognize that it has become part of your awareness.
Kritajna means grateful. The opposite, Kritaghna, means ungrateful. Ghna means to kill. So Kritaghna suggests that when someone does something kind for you, instead of responding with appreciation and openness, you kill that connection by failing to acknowledge what has been done.
When someone does something beneficial for you, even simply reconnecting with them through appreciation creates or maintains a healthy relationship between you. This is especially important when working through Rinanubandhana. Rina means karmic debt, and Anubandhana means connection.
It is important to remember that everything that happens to you in life comes through your own karmas. Those karmas may come through people, places, objects, animals, plants, or many other forms, but they are your karmas, and these different beings and situations are simply the vehicles through which those karmas reach you.
When someone does something kind for you, what is really happening is that your good karmas are being delivered through that person. Should you not be grateful to the person through whom those good karmas are arriving? Appreciation helps maintain a healthy connection and allows that karmic relationship to continue developing in a positive way.
If someone does something kind and you ignore it, you weaken that connection. The Prana that is moving toward you through that person is not acknowledged or returned. As a result, you are not working through the Rinanubandha properly, and you may discourage further positive exchanges from occurring through that relationship.
This is why gratitude is so important. Gratitude is closely connected with faith and with the movement of Prana. Simply having gratitude encourages Prana to move in a positive direction within the organism.
You may ask, what about people who do things that are not good for me? If you are able to learn something from that experience, then you can also be grateful. You are learning, you are working through a karmic connection, and you are gaining understanding. As my mother always said, there is always something to be thankful for somewhere in any situation, and things can always be worse. We can be grateful that circumstances have not become worse, no matter how difficult they may be.
Vimalananda used to say there are three things you should do at the beginning of every day. First, be thankful that you are alive. This should become part of your Niyama, part of your Dinacharya. Be grateful for life. Second, remember that you are going to die. Do not pretend that you will not die. You can even be grateful that you will die because, considering the condition of the world, living forever would not necessarily be a blessing. Third, he said, “Please do not let me cheat my consciousness.”
We should be grateful that we have a conscience, that inner awareness that helps us recognize the right direction and the appropriate way to move. We may not always follow it, but as long as we can still feel it, there remains a greater possibility that we will choose accordingly.
Gratitude is a great thing. I am grateful for gratitude.