Question: Is there one divine quality which encompasses all the rest or does a seeker have to meditate on each one?

Sri Chinmoy: For a seeker one quality is enough, and that quality is gratitude. And in God’s Life one quality is also enough, and that quality is Compassion. Inside your gratitude you can feel the presence of all your divine qualities, and inside God’s Compassion you can easily feel all the divine qualities of God. If you want to see all God’s good qualities or all your own good qualities individually, you can easily do that too. But if you want to see one good quality that embodies all the good qualities, then in God’s case it is His Compassion and in man’s case it is his gratitude.

If there is any shortcut in the spiritual life to arrive at the Golden Shore, then gratitude is the shortcut. If there is a secret and sacred way to love, please and fulfill God, then it is the way of gratitude. Gratitude embodies and reveals all our divine virtues. It is by virtue of gratitude that we can bring down God’s infinite Power, infinite Light, infinite Love. Gratitude is the master key to open up all the doors of Divinity’s Palace.

To express gratitude
At every moment
Is to have a shortcut
To arrive at God’s
Heart-Palace.”

Sri Chinmoy
from “Gratitude” (Selected writings of Sri Chinmoy)