Discovering Your Purpose | Rev. John Riley

Happy New Year. What a joy it is to see all of you here today. Now, you know my secret. My water is hidden behind the flowers. I hope you danced, I hope you danced. It’s New Year. It’s a new year! It’s 2022. Isn’t that exciting?

Letting Go

Now, it’s about this time of year when we get excited about the things that we’re going to do in life or the things that are happening, the new things in our lives. And last week, we had the spiritual practice — our talk title was “Exhale” – we had that great exhale where we were talking about releasing and letting go during our burning bowl ceremony.

Have you been practicing that letting go, that releasing, that big exhale this last week? Anybody? Yes. Good. Two. Yes, I’m taking roll here. Three. Three and a half? That was a little bit late, Joyce, right? The great exhale, the great letting go, the practice that we need to do every day. You know when we get stressed, when we get triggered, when we get anxious, when we get – when the adrenaline starts pumping. It can be exciting things as well. We tend to clench up when we have this. Our breath gets shorter. And when we realize that, when we have the awareness of that, then our ability to relax and have that big deep aaahhhh after the crisis is over, after the exciting movie or the ride is over, after the stress is over, we have that – we take that great big exhale.

Let’s practice that right now. Nice deep breath and aaahhhh. Can you feel your body kind of relaxing after that? That’s the intention. That’s our goal, is to have that relaxation. And we all have masks on so it’s okay. We can exhale. It’s the inhale that’s the – no, no. Once again, a nice big breath and exhale. Aaahhh. Just let it go. And as we create that space within us, as we exhale, we create within us as we let go, we create an opportunity within us to fill us up with something new, to inhale and draw upon that infinite supply of substance, that infinite supply of creativity, of wisdom, of joy, and allow that to fill us up as we inhale. So, with a nice deep inhale, let’s just feel ourselves uplifted. Together, and feel that rise in our chest, that rise in our consciousness, that rise within us as we take these nice conscious breaths.

Your Goals and the White Stone

Today, we are going through our second, our first of the year practices that we do in Unity. We don’t have too many rituals, but this is one of them. It’s our White Stone ritual. And it’s an opportunity for us, as Deborah was singing about, to find that true color that’s yearning to be expressed within you this year, and to allow it to simply flow, allow it to dance within you, allow it to be that expression through you.

Our White Stone ceremony is a little bit different than our traditional New Year’s resolutions. Oftentimes at New Year’s we have things that we’re going to let go of. “I’m going to stop eating too much. I’m going to read more books this year or a book this year.” Anybody have that resolution?

You know, the things that we’re going to do to improve our lives, the things that we’re going to do. But it’s all very external most of the time. And so, the White Stone service is really an opportunity for you to look behind those things and those ideas and those goals that you have. You may have some great goals for the year, things that you want to accomplish, some great things that you want to do this year, to show up as, to express, to experience. And what’s important is to look at what lies behind, what lies back of it because what lies back of it is the energy that it will take for you to actually accomplish those things that you’re hoping to accomplish.

If you have a New Year’s resolution, often if you look in your past, how many New Year’s resolutions lasted longer than a month? Anybody remember it being more than a month? Some of us do, yeah, because we put some intention behind it. But oftentimes what happens is it’s just something fleeting. We have an idea about what we want to accomplish and what we want to be, what we want to do.

And so, this is an opportunity to really anchor it, to set the intention to make it a year-long practice, a year-long experience because as we exhale, as we let go, which is a daily practice, we need to inhale. And inhaling is really symbolic of drawing upon that infinite resource that Lisa spoke about this morning, that God in you. I think it was Meister Eckhart who once said, let God be God in you.

And, of course, in Unity we teach that God is everywhere present and in all things and all people. It’s not out there somewhere; it’s right in here, it’s closer than your breath. And so when we look at life that way we have the ability to say let God be God in you, with each breath I take.

The Christ Consciousness

The great inhale is drawing upon that resource that’s within you. In Unity we call that the Christ consciousness. You may call it the spark of divinity, that higher consciousness, your better self. Whatever words you give to it, it’s that part of you that is drawing you towards your highest good, that impulse, that Spirit impulse that’s pulling you towards your greater good, towards experiencing greater prosperity, towards expressing greater abundance in every aspect of your life. That pull within you, that great inhale, is simply becoming aware of it and saying yes to it. Say yes, in this moment.

And that’s the beauty of it because pretty much all of us breathe, pretty much. If you’re here listening to me, then you’re breathing, I’m guessing. You may be breathing very slowly but you’re breathing. In fact, you get to the point where you realize that you are not breathing, you are being breathed. That spiritual impulse is always flowing in and out, always releasing and always expressing through you, and always being drawn in as your power, as your real spiritual power. And so, the practice of breathing is how we move through this and how we allow it to be present, how we become aware of ourselves in that true color that we talked about.

Giving to LIfe

In a little bit, we’re going to go through the White Stone practice where we are really discerning what it is that we want to express this year. How do we want to show up in life this year? What is it that we want to give to life this year? And it’s more than the things that we have, it’s more than reading a book, it’s more than doing some healthy habits. It’s doing the healthy habits so that you can show up more fully and express that true color, that uniqueness, and dance in your own special way.

Discovering Your Purpose

So, when we look behind the goal and we look at what’s the true purpose, why is it that I want to achieve that, you’re getting closer to this idea. Why do I want to achieve that and why is that important to me? If you can continue to ask yourself that three or four or, as they say, eight times, you’ll get to the truth and you’ll get to the real core of your motivation. And if you focus on that core, you will accomplish your goals with ease and grace. You will accomplish that and more simply by focusing on that deep spiritual principle that is yours, that deep spiritual expression that you’re here to express.

Now, Eric Butterworth, who is one of my favorite Unity ministers and authors, late Unity ministers and authors, once wrote, “We are human in expression but divine in creation and limitless in possibility”. When we discover that divinity within us, when we discover that spark within us, we realize that we can accomplish anything we would like to accomplish that brings good into the world simply by focusing on that deep core spiritual expression that is ours, uniquely ours, to express. Each one of you has something unique to express.

And so, he says, “Dare to conceive of greater things for yourself. Dare to see yourself as strong, confident, successful, and possessed of the patience and the stability to keep on moving in the direction of your dreams”. Dare to dream, dare to see yourselves as greater than you are in this present moment. And it doesn’t have to be this lofty goal; just a little bit more, just one step closer, just one more feeling of experience.

Too often, we are looking at ourselves as, “I’ve got to be up here and I’m way down here”. But just take a look at three, four, ten years ago when your consciousness wasn’t even around that area. You’ve grown so much, and that’s really the path is just to take one step at a time. So, dare to conceive of something greater for yourself. Dare to see yourself as strong, as spiritually strong, that strength that comes from within of knowing that oneness with God. Dare to see yourself confident, confident, confident.

Confident is the new word for my – that’s one of my values. It’s a sub-value. Okay, here we go as I digress. It’s not one of my core values; it’s a sub-value. And the reason it’s a sub-value is because confidence comes from your power of faith. Confidence comes from your power of faith. Now, some say that faith is like a belief. I don’t think that faith is like a belief because there’s plenty of beliefs that I’ve held in the past that have dragged me down, that have gotten in my way of my spiritual growth. So, belief, in and of itself, isn’t the spiritual power. The spiritual power of faith is knowing that God is within you, expressing as you, and that you have the ability to bring that out into the world, to express that into the world, even if it doesn’t seem like it to you. That’s faith. And when you come from that standpoint, all the confidence in the world is yours.

Dare to see yourselves as successful. Now, we’ve talked about this in the past, about fear, the fear. Some people say, “Well, the greatest fear that we have is that we’ll actually succeed”. And others say, “You know, that’s not the greatest fear. The greatest fear that we have is that someone’s going to criticize you”. See if that resonates with you. Someone’s going to tell you that you’re doing something wrong, that you’re not good enough, that you’re not strong enough, that you’re not smart enough. That’s fear that haunts us the most.

So, imagine yourself as successful this year. Imagine yourself as moving forward and feeling that energy flow through you this year. Whatever your goal is, you’re coming a little bit closer. And even if you miss it, get caught trying.

I was listening to a Master Class this last – yesterday actually – a portion of the Master Class. And this particular one had Bill Clinton in it and he was talking about leadership and he said one of the keys is get caught trying. And I was thinking, well, what does that really mean? Well, if you have this goal and you don’t try, you’re never going to succeed. If you don’t move your feet – we pray and we move our feet – if you don’t move your feet, you’re never going to get any closer.

So, regardless of the fear, just keep going forward, just keep trying, get caught trying. That will lead to your feeling of success because even if we move a little forward, or even if we fail completely, at least we gave it the effort and through that effort, we grew. Through that effort, even in the face of failing, through that effort, we grew.

Patience

And “be possessed of the patience”. Everyone, take a deep breath. Now it said I had to be patient. “Be possessed of the patience and the stability”, the spiritual stability. Be grounded and anchored so that as you move forward, you’re always knowing your oneness. You can have that experience of feeling empowered and feeling humble at the same time. That polarity is very powerful. Feeling empowered, knowing that you are moving in the right direction, you’re moving with Spirit, you’re being guided and directed. Humility, that’s not me. It’s me. The humility of the ego where yes, I’m doing the work and I don’t always have to have the credit for it. Spirit also is moving me. The stability of knowing that oneness with God that, even when things go bad, I can come back to that idea of who I’ve come here to be.

Spiritual Consciousness

Now, the White Stone ceremony is a practice, a ritual, that we’ve drawn from a chapter and verse in the Book of Revelation, chapter 2, verse 17 and before I read it I want to talk about that because the Book of Revelation is often one that is misunderstood, at least from Unity’s perspective. We don’t believe that the Book of Revelation was ever meant to be taken literally. Rather, it was a vision and a metaphor that came to John. And when he wrote this Book of Revelation, it was about the idea of consciousness. It’s spiritual metaphysics, if you will. And so, we can look at this from the standpoint, not of “What are we supposed to do in the future? What happened in the past?” but rather, “How can I live in the present moment and how does this relate to me in consciousness?”.

Revelation 2, verse 17: “He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna. And I will give to him a white stone and the name written on the stone which no one knows but the one who receives it.” Then the practice at the time, actually, prisoners who were released from prison were given a new name and it was actually written on a white stone and that’s what they could carry forward.

But in consciousness, metaphysically looking at this idea, it starts with “he who has an ear to hear”. This is so important. How many of us have relatives and friends who wish they would understand the wisdom that we understand? They’re not there, or at least they’re not there to hear it in the same way that you are here to hear it. Those who have an ear here are somebody who is open and receptive, who is willing to receive that information, who is willing to try it on and see if it’s real, to test it and see how it shows up for them, for those who have ears to hear, who are willing to hear the spiritual message and then apply it in life.

What Spirit has to say to churches, metaphysically, the churches are our consciousness. The churches is that aspect of us that is judging us, that is guiding us. So that when we can, in our consciousness, hear these words, hear this – and it’s not always words; sometimes it’s just the impulse. It’s a knowing what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s a knowing of whether to turn left or to turn right. It’s just a knowing of what’s the next step. And sometimes we take a step and ego says “well, this is the right way” and then it’s like “oh, no, it was over here” so we just change course correction.

So those who have ears to hear and willing to hear what Spirit is saying to them, to those that overcome that condition that we have within us that “I’m right and you’re wrong”, when we overcome our, and we let go of all of those things that we’re holding onto, that’s the part of the exhaling is letting go. Once we overcome those things, now we have that hidden spiritual manna which is that spiritual energy. When we let go and release and exhale, we can inhale and draw upon that rich substance of life, love, and wisdom. That’s the hidden manna.

What Is Yours to Do

And so, as we go through this process, it’s really this idea of taking this object, this little white stone, and letting it be a touchstone for you. Everyone should have received one when they walked in as well as a pencil. If anybody doesn’t have one and wants one, Anne has one right next to us here, and right behind you as well. Anyone else need a white stone and a pencil?

And so, our practice is to just take a moment to look at your stone, whatever stone that you chose, whatever stone has chosen you, take a moment to look at it and see the intricacies. Mine has a little shimmer in it in places.

Now, as we go through a meditative process, what I’m going to invite you to do is go back into that practice of exhaling and letting go, and inhaling and drawing upon Spirit to see what is yours to do this year. What new name will you give yourself? And one word is enough. I know, and this was me, I’d write one word here and there’s another edge there, I’d write a phrase there and a couple of sentences over here and another word, and eventually got down to one idea. So, however it shows up for you, that’s fine. And you may not get a word today, but it may come to you in a week or two.

Now, we don’t worship the stone. The stone is not something that has any power over us or gives any power to us. All it is, is a stone. But it’s a reminder, it’s an idea, it’s a reminder, it’s a touchstone for who you’ve come here to be. So, for me, I carry this in my pocket most days. I don’t always, but most days I have it in my pocket when I’m giving talks or throughout the day. And any time that I feel like I need to go back and I forget who I am, who I’ve come here to be, I pull out the white stone and it reminds me. There’s no words on it anymore. It’s rubbed off. But it’s just a touchstone for me, saying “this is who I’ve come here to be”. I know other people put it on an altar, they make a little garden out of it. You can do whatever you want with it. It’s just a symbol of who you’ve come here to be, how you’ve come here to shine and express that spiritual magnificence that is within you.

Prayer for Protection

And now our Prayer for Protection. Together:

The Light of God surrounds us;
The Love of God enfolds us;
The Power of God protects us;
The Presence of God watches over us;
Wherever we are, God is!
And, all is well.

Happy New Year. Love and blessings. We’ll see you soon.