Question: Which is more important in our life of aspiration: cheerfulness or gratitude?

Sri Chinmoy: If you have cheerfulness, you will make progress. And when you make progress, then your gratitude-heart expands. This is absolutely true. But when you want to see the capacity of gratitude and the capacity of cheerfulness, it is gratitude that is all-powerful. Gratitude has the power of all the oceans put together, whereas cheerfulness has the power of ten or twelve drops. Gratitude is unparalleled in God's creation, both in Heaven and on earth.

Again, there are many ways to develop gratitude-power, and cheerfulness is one of the ways. It is one of the strong ways to conquer frustration, depression, anxiety, worries and other negative qualities. It is a great help, and from this help we can develop gratitude-power.

Aspiration and gratitude are inseparable. They are like the obverse and reverse of the same coin. Aspiration takes us high, higher than the highest; and gratitude takes us to the vast, to the vaster than the vastest. The aspiration-bird and the gratitude-bird are the same. When it spreads its Wings, it is gratitude, and when it flies up it is aspiration. But it is the same bird, the same inseparable reality.