Your sense of gratitude toward Me is your awareness of My gratitude for you.

You do not have to be grateful. Gratitude is not an assignment you fulfill. As you come closer to Me, you feel more of My gratitude for Creation. You experience My gratitude and call it yours.

Of course, the closer you come to Me in your awareness, the closer I come to you in your awareness. Who is it Who seems to come closer, you or I?

It is not that you are to assume My attributes and so come closer to Me. It is that as you come closer to Me, you absorb more of My attributes. If, indeed, I have attributes! For, of course, I am attributeless. I would say you are My attributes.

As you come closer to the Oneness that you have never been apart from except in your thinking, you leave off attributes that do not serve you well. As you come closer to Me, you are left with the Oneness of love. One ray of love is gratitude. And what is gratitude but appreciation?

And so the closer you come to Me, the more you appreciate. You do not try to appreciate. You appreciate. You see more loveliness. There is no skill in that. You see it or you don't see it. Of course, you can learn to see. Appreciation is simply an offshoot of what you see.

Gratitude is an offshoot of what you appreciate. Appreciate, and you can only have gratitude. Do not force yourself to gratitude. It is not a skill to be learned. It is an awareness. When you have awareness, what can you experience but appreciation and the welling gratitude that accompanies it?

Appreciation fills your cup. Gratitude is overflowing appreciation. Gratitude is appreciation of appreciation. Your cup of appreciation spills over into gratitude. It is a natural event. Perhaps you have made a habit of grumbling or complaining or wishing. But that's all right too. Your awareness of dissatisfaction helps you to remove dissatisfaction. Remove dissatisfaction, and you feel more satisfied. Satisfaction seems to say you yourself achieved something. But appreciation seems to say you received a gift from God.

As you come closer to the Oneness that you have never been apart from and yet that you seek, the more you imbibe My consciousness. My consciousness is always here for you. God Consciousness alone exists. You are never out of God Consciousness although you may believe you are away from it.

Have an intention of appreciation, gratitude, and God Consciousness. Know they are yours. Any separation is arbitrary. Even the separation of God Consciousness into appreciation and gratitude and love is arbitrary. There are no steps to Me. We may speak of a golden ladder, but there is none. But if there were a golden ladder to Me, it would be rungless. There is no need to climb when I am right here within you. You are My Kingdom. I reside in you. Even though I am everywhere, there is no place for Me to be but within you. Perceive Me now. Perceive yourself. Perceive Oneness.

Meanwhile, perceive Creation, these emanations from the God-Source. Look at the world around you. Really look. Not at the news of the world, but at the world itself. It is made of color and texture and light and darkness, and it is a wonder to behold. And you are in it!

And when you can see outside through the windows of your room, you see the morning sun alighting on the side of a tree, and you love how sunlight falls and how it stays only for a moment so that you might notice it, and then it moves on to delight someone else.