philosophy
Can gratitude become an obstacle to spiritual growth if it creates attachment to blessings received?
What the tradition says
The Gita teaches acting without clinging to results. The concern is not with noticing or appreciating what comes to you. It is with holding on, with needing things to stay, with making your peace depend on keeping them. Gratitude in the tradition is more like an open awareness. You see what is present. You do not grip it. That kind of gratitude does not pull against non-attachment. It actually points in the same direction, because it means you are paying attention to what is here rather than chasing what is not.
Two kinds of gratitude
The tradition quietly separates two things that can look the same. One is a clear recognition that something good has come, that it was not earned alone, that life has given something. This is seen as honest and grounding. The other is a kind of bargaining, a hope that being grateful will keep the good thing in place, or bring more. That second kind does lean toward attachment, because it is really about wanting things to stay a certain way. The first kind does not cling. It simply sees.
The Advaita view
In Advaita thought, the deepest problem is the sense of a separate self that owns things, loses things, and needs things. Gratitude that comes from a softening of that sense, a feeling that the blessing did not belong to you alone, is not seen as an obstacle. It is closer to a loosening of the grip. Teachers in this tradition have pointed out that real gratitude has no object to cling to, because it does not say mine. It says given. That shift is part of the path, not a detour from it.
Where the confusion comes from
The worry makes sense on the surface. If you are grateful for your health, your family, your good fortune, does that not mean you are attached to them? The tradition's answer is that the attachment was already there. Gratitude did not create it. What matters is the quality of the feeling. Does it come with peace, or with fear of losing? That is the real question, and it is one the tradition has always left to the individual to sit with honestly.