Watch previous services on our YouTube channel at
https://www.youtube.com/@UnityPaloAltoSpiritualCenter

Hold the Vision – Build the Awareness
Seven Keys to Spiritual Abundance
Key #2 & Key #3

by Rev. John Riley

Awakening to Spiritual Abundance

Good morning, Unity Palo Alto. We are in the second week of a four-part series on the seven keys to spiritual abundance. The kingdom of heaven, that greater expression of our spiritual reality, our oneness with the allness of life, the realm of pure, unlimited potential and possibility is what that Kingdom is all about, and it is available in this moment to each one of us, and each one of us are a part of that. All we need to do is wake up.

Wake up and start practicing. And that first key that we talked about last week was the key of making the commitment. And we talked about abundance, abundance as a flow, a flow of energy, a flow of good, a flow of experiences of life.

Commitment as the Sacred Yes to Life

And commitment is the sacred yes to that flow. It is saying yes to life. It is saying, “Yes, I’m in this experience and I wanna live and move and have my being in this experience and I’m committed. I’m in.” Are you in? Yes.

A Daily Practice of Giving and Receiving

All right. So during this last week I gave us a practice, and that practice was to decide and look at how you are showing up in life, how you are giving to life and how you are receiving from life, how you are adding to life and the world around you. And notice I said how. It’s what experience, what value, how are you expressing this divine energy in your life? How are you giving to life and how are you receiving it?

I got a text from Jho, she took that practice and she started creating a journal and she gave me permission to read you some of the entries. Here’s the idea of waking up in the morning and affirming, “This is how I’m going to add to the world and how I’m going to receive from the world.” “Today I receive what is and I add presence and curiosity. I receive abundance, resources and support and I add wise management and loving stewardship. I focus on efficiency, speed and obliterate.” Now, if you weren’t here, three weeks ago?

Jho gave a talk based on the book The Game of Life by Florence Scovel Shinn. The practice of denials are taking those error thoughts, those things that we are holding onto, those stories that are running around in our brain that create that false sense of separateness, that sense of lack and limitation, that sense of strife in our life. You know those thoughts? It’s taking those thoughts and it’s letting them go. And instead of just gently brushing it away, Flossy says we’re going to obliterate them.

Obliterate them from our consciousness, letting them go, getting rid of them. When they show up, you press the delete button and they’re gone. So I love that idea. She goes on to say, “Today I receive the newness of life, her zeal, her sparkle, her giddiness, her quiet bliss, her warmth. To this bowl, I add gratitude, appreciation, reverence, honor, respect, holiness, awe, admiration, and wonder.

In this moment, I receive beauty, the beauty of life. I receive it by slowing down and being still!” In the stillness, I appreciate and add gratitude and humility. Thank you, God. Thank you, Spirit. Thank you, love.”

Receiving What Is and Choosing How to Show Up

What would it be like in your life if you woke up in the morning and set that kind of intention, and said, “Here’s what I’m going to add to life in the middle of receiving it,” receiving what is, all of it, whatever it is? Life is, and sometimes life happens, and things are things that we would not label as good stuff, yes? Yes. So instead of worrying about it and labeling it as bad, and then telling all the stories and creating the stories in our life, we can just say, “This is what is.

It’s here, and how am I going to show up in it?” Now, my practice for the week, I went the other direction. I went the I’m in. That’s the sacred yes, right? The knowing that when you’re in, when you say yes to something, and you have that conviction, that feeling, I’m in, it creates something different in you, doesn’t it? It creates an energy with you and a grounding within you, and it’s an opportunity for us to say, “Yes, I’m in.” So I woke up in the mornings, and I would say, “I’m in to life,” when I remembered.

I think that was twice. And then when I realized, when I found myself… I’m gonna say when I got angry or got upset or got fearful or was stuck in that box of stories, you know that box that we talked about last week? When I awoke to that, that I was stuck in there, that’s when I said, “Wait a minute. I’m in.” Whatever this is, whatever is showing up here, it’s for me to… It’s for me.” Why? Because I’m in it.

That’s how I know that it’s for me. So instead of being in the story and in the fear, in the doubt, in the frustration, I just stopped and said, “Wait a minute. I’m in,” and that re-anchored me in this idea of that sacred yes. I say yes to life.

Key #2: Holding the Vision

So if the first key is making a commitment, and saying yes. What am I saying yes to? That’s the big question. What vision am I holding? What inner picture am I giving my energy to?

And that’s the second key, is holding the vision. Commitment gets us going. Vision gives us direction. Commitment allows my feet to move and gets me in the energy and the flow. Vision points me in the right direction.

There’s a beautiful Buddhist saying that says essentially, “Our life is shaped by our mind. We become what we think.” The Apostle Paul said it a little differently in his letter to the Romans. He said,

Key #3: Building New Awareness

“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Now, if my life becomes what I’m thinking, if my experience of life becomes all of those stories, all of those frustrations, all of those things that I’m running around with, then transforming my mind is how I can renew myself. Renewing my mind is how I can transform my life. Renewing those thoughts and changing those thoughts puts me in a different mindset and allows me to live from an awareness that my life is shaped by the thoughts that I think, and the possibilities that I’m able to receive.

So recognize the manner in which I’m thinking shapes how I receive things, shapes how I give to the world. And so with our mind shaping our experience, it’s important for us to remember and to develop a greater understanding of ourselves, a greater understanding of this idea of divine mind, of being an expression, allowing that divine spark to flow through me. It’s important for us to develop a deeper awareness of who we are and who we’ve come here to be, and it’s important for us to remember to live life more intentionally, more consciously, to get up and write your journal.

I’m gonna call it Jho’s Journal, trademark. To get your own Jho’s Journal and wake up in the morning and say, “Here’s how I’m going to give to life, what I’m gonna add to life, and here’s how I’m going to receive it, whatever it is.”

The Box We Build with Our Thoughts

Last week, we talked about living in a box. Do you remember that? That box is, those four walls that we construct with our thoughts. They’re based on our stories, our old routines, our fears, our assumptions, our habits, and we get stuck in the box, and we’re running around in a circle. And on the side of the wall are all of our stories, and each time we come around, it’s like, “Oh, there’s my story again.” And so we’re stuck in this loop.

And when we’re stuck in that loop, we’re unable to see beyond the four walls. We’re unable to open ourselves to that flow of life. We are constricting our own sense of goodness. But the good news is that box has a blueprint, and the blueprint are your thoughts, are your belief systems. The blueprint are your old habits.

The blueprint are the things that you tell yourself over and over again, and those are the things that we can dismantle. Our blueprint, are built by our old beliefs and our beliefs in what we think is possible. What we think we deserve because we don’t think we’re worthy, we don’t think we’re welcome. And it’s built with the idea, the concept of the life as being against us rather than for us or supporting us. If the box has a blueprint, we have the ability to dismantle it and to create more inner freedom, because that inner freedom has a blueprint too, and the blueprint is your vision.

Our old beliefs build a small room, but the vision opens the window so that we can see beyond it

You Will Never Rise Higher Than Your Vision

There’s a saying in The Keys to the Kingdom that says, “You will never rise higher than your personal vision for yourself.” You will never rise higher than what you think you’re worthy of, than what you really believe you’re capable of. You may create all of the vision boards and your goals and write them down, but if you don’t really believe in them, you’re never going to accomplish them. Think about an area in your life that you wanna transform, There are five different areas that we tend to work with.

There’s our health, our finances, our relationships. There’s our career and creative expression, and there’s our spiritual and personal growth. So in those five areas, pick one of those, or some area in your life that you have been wanting to transform, that there’s been something in you saying, “I want to experience and express something different.” Because that pull within you, that’s Spirit. That’s the pull of the universe saying, “This is your direction.” Your vision transforms your present state of experience.

True Vision vs. Fantasy

The vision is not fantasy. The vision is not, “I want a million dollars, and I want it by Thursday.” I’d be okay with that. But fantasy is an escape from the present moment. Those kind of visions, those kind of wants are an escape from what truly is. But a true vision is really transforming the present because it’s transforming our consciousness about it.

Instead of going from, “Wouldn’t it be nice that something out there would change?” it’s what is calling from within me to be of greater expression in this moment, and am I willing to see it, to feel it, and to move towards it? That’s a good vision. That’s a true vision. What is calling within me to express in this experience? That’s why last week we talked about commitment.

How will I show up? What values will I bring to that? How will I give to the world? And now we can add the language of what. What will I give to the world?

What will I add to the world? What will I receive? What am I receiving from the world? Once we have the attitude, we can then add onto it the more detail. Vision is the inner blueprint of your higher possibility.

Think about it like this. There’s a light shining, and you can see to the edge of the light, yes? When you get to that edge where you can see, you can see greater distances. When we get to the edge of what we can see for ourselves, new possibilities, new opportunities will open up for us. So what’s next in your life?

What’s your next highest possibility? Think about how you will add to life so that you can break out of that box. Think about what you will add to life and give to life so you can create a greater and greater vision and have something, a place to move forward to, have that edge of your horizon to move forward to. Renew your mind with a greater experience and expression of your own spiritual nature. Praying for a new life while rehearsing an older version.

We have our visions and we read it, and then we go back to our old version. We go back to the box. The whole idea is take that vision with you, take that intention with you, and every moment of the day, every aspect of life, you can apply it to life, and you can move forward a little bit more. You can bring that sense of joy and appreciation. You can bring that sense of bliss and courage.

So in those areas of health, finance, relationship, career and self-expression, spiritual and personal growth, Health: energy, endurance, strength, clear mind, focused self. Finances: security, a greater sense of impact that I can give to the world. Freedom, flexibility, wisdom. Relationships: open-hearted, healthy self, self-candor, cooperation, positive forward focus. What would life be like if you led your life from that vision?

What would it be like today if you left today and said, “Okay, I’m gonna practice, take one of those things, and I’m gonna focus on what it would be like to have more impact in the world”? And then how can I give of that impact? How can I give of my time, my talent, my treasure to create a greater sense of impact in the world? Going from that sense of fantasy to a true vision is going from a consciousness of conflict to peace.

If peace is my focus, is my vision, how much conflict am I expressing and experiencing the rest of the day? If prosperity is my vision, how much lack am I experiencing in my thoughts, my words, and my actions? If having a loving relationship, how much disappointment am I focused on? How much resentment am I focused on? You see, we have our vision, but if our experience of life is really 90% of the time all of these other things, then that’s what we’re going to create more of in our life.

So what vision are you really holding? The vision we rehearse becomes the life that we recognize. The vision we rehearse becomes that experience of life, and we’re stuck in that box again. So when we start rehearsing a greater vision for ourselves, we can break out of the box. And it’s not always clear.

I can see to the end of the horizon, but if I take one step towards that, one step at a time, one moment at a time, I’m moving in that direction. I’m out of my box “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” And that brings us to the third key: Build New Awareness. To get out of that box, we have to look at our life, and look at our thoughts, and look at our words, and look at our habits and our actions, and make a choice to shift, make a choice to build a new awareness of who I’ve come here to be in this situation.

A new awareness of how I’m going to express my higher self in that situation. Our limiting beliefs are not a moral breakdown. Our limiting beliefs are our human experience. They are old conclusions formed in childhood, formed in disappointment, formed in a sense of survival. It’s formed in grief, formed in times of actual scarcity, formed in times of fear.

And at some point, they may even have helped us feel safe, those old thoughts and those old beliefs. But once that becomes our mindset, then that’s all we can experience in life. That which once protected us may now be constricting us. A limiting belief is not the truth. It’s simply a practiced thought.

It’s a thought that we’ve been practicing over and over again, and we’re really good at it ’cause we’re having a human experience. So let’s start to shift out of those limiting thoughts, yes? Yes.

This Week’s Practice: Time, Talent, Treasure, and Vision

So our practice this week is to continue with Jho’s Journal. Ding. Continue looking to see how you can add to life. How will you add to life? What values will you bring?

And then what will you add to life? What will you give of your time, your talent, and your treasure? What will you give of your time towards your own personal spiritual growth? Now, there’s a practice that’s, an Old Testament practice. It’s called tithing.

It’s a 10% amount. And so you tithe 10% of your time, 10% of your talent, 10% of your treasure. Your time is what you are dedicating to your own personal growth. 10% is 90 minutes a day. Every aspect of life during the day when you are focused on your higher good, when you’re focused on this intention, when you’re focused on shifting your thoughts into something more productive.

Every time you let go, you obliterate those thoughts of negativity, those thoughts of lack and limitation, and reaffirm your oneness with the allness of life. That’s spiritual practice, yes? 10% of your talent is four hours a week. Giving your time and your talent to an organization that you want to uplift. Giving of your time and your talent to something that you want to see thrive.

10% of your treasure is giving to that which you want to see lifted up, which you want to see thrive. Giving to that place which you are spiritually fed. Giving to that place which you want to help grow. Why 10%? it’s enough for us to get to the edge of our comfort zone, yeah?

How many are comfortable with 90 minutes a day for your own spiritual growth practice? Oh, you guys get the gold star. We have four people. So if 10% is easy, just turn yours up to 11. Yeah.

When you need a little bit more, a little more energy, a little more sound in there, ours goes up to 11. Turn it up just a little bit more until you get to that edge of your comfort zone. When you stretch your comfort zone, you create a greater flow, a greater opportunity for your good to flow to you. You create a greater channel for your good to flow to you. That’s part number one.

Part number two, pick one area of your life. Your health, finances, relationships, career, creative expression, spiritual and personal growth. Pick one area, just one for this next seven days, and write a vision for what you want to experience. How do you want to feel and experience that vision? Pick one thing that you will look at through this whole week and then each day do one thing that will bring you a little bit closer to that vision.

Pick one thing that will allow you to put on that experience of vitality and strength and wholeness. And each day do one thing to move yourself closer in having a greater experience of your vision for yourself, and then add that to your Jho’s Journal. Are you in? Yes. All right.

Feel that energy. Feel that sense of, “Yes, I’m in,” and give that gift to yourself. When you wake up in the morning, “I’m in on life. I’m in on what’s happening after the service. I’m in on taking a walk and seeing the beauty.

I’m in,” and really be in it, yes? Yes.

Let’s move to our affirmation, Ethan. I’m gonna read our affirmation, and we’re gonna do one line at a time, call and response.

I’m open with the infinite flow of source.
I obliterate worn out beliefs.
My mind is renewed in divine intelligence.
I see myself spiritually whole, wise, and wealthy.
And so it is.