How to View and Live Life | Rev. John Riley

Good morning. Morning. Are we awake now? Are we alive now in Spirit? Oh, what do the kids say? Awake. Alive. Alert and wake and enthusiastic. Yes. You didn’t grow up in a wild u I think this I’m alive, alert, awake, and enthusiastic. Together. I’m alive, alert, awake, and enthusiastic. Yes. Yes. And so it is. Well, we are in our third week of Discover the Power Within You, a book by a one of the great Unity ministers and authors, Eric Butterworth. And we’ve been talking about the last couple of weeks, Jesus’, great discovery. The, the discovery that the kingdom of God is within you. The kingdom of God is within you, not out there somewhere, not something that we’re going to later, but here now and present within us. And that God is everywhere present. And God is not all, God is not powerful, but rather all power in the universe.

And God is not all knowing, but all knowledge in the universe. And that allness, as I like to call it, that the allness of life, love and wisdom, that spiritual energy, that movement, that power is in you. Yes, yes, yes, yes. All right. I guess I’m done . That power’s within you. And it’s not in you like, like, you know, saying the raisin in the bun. You get that, that beautiful looking oatmeal, no, what’s it called? The, the, the bra. No, the brand, not the cinnamon raisin, the bran raisin. You know those nice bake thick ones and you bite into it and there are no raisins in it. You have to go searching for the raisin. I hate those muffins. But God is in you. Like the ocean is in the wave. There’s no separation. You are flowing in it.

You are the action and activity of God. I was speaking with one of our congregants. I didn’t get a chance to ask if it’s okay if I use your name, but we were talking about God as a verb instead of God as a noun, right? God is a noun, is what we grew up with. That God in the sky, that dude that points down at us and blesses us. And that capricious God, but rather God is a verb. That energy and activity that we call Spirit, that moves in through an as us and you, for you are the expression. You are the verb of God. You are the hands and feet of God. Have you heard that before? You are the expression of it. And so there’s no separation in the allness is within you completely. We just have to remember it. We just have to realign ourselves to that idea that Jesus discovered that Christ consciousness, as we call it, that divine spark, that higher consciousness, whatever you want to call it, that isness of you that is divine.

And we talked about the idea, these ideas that Jesus began over 2000 years ago, that he really had that insight, that realization and the demonstration of oneness, of his Unity with the allness of life. And the idea that you and I are the same and can do the same things for the things that I have done, you will do. And even greater things you will do when you realize that oneness when you put that into expression. And so last week, I, I coined the, the term I I, you know, it came to me in the morning. We are in the age of emergence that consciousness is emerging in us and it’s our choice and our responsibility to either go along with it or fight against it. And that’s the great decision that we have to make. Are we gonna go along with these ideas that Jesus taught so many years ago and allow them to become our guideposts, allow them to become who we are and allow that consciousness to emerge within us.

Immersing Yourself in God

We’re talking about the immersing versus the emerging, right? The emerging is that which is coming forth. And the immersing is that which when we go within, when we immerse ourself in the consciousness of God, that’s when we allow that identity, that idea to come forward more fully than ever before. And what are the results? Well, and more joyful and more freedom, more peace in our lives because we’re now living that expression. And so today, today we’re gonna talk about what Butterworth called the forgotten Art of Prayer. And that’s the way we get into alignment. That’s how we immerse ourselves in the consciousness of God. Now, Butterworth says that that word prayer has absolutely no meaning in our world today. Because you can ask a little kid what it means, you’ll get one answer. You can ask an old person, an old person, my 92 year old mother, what it means.

And she’ll give you another. You can ask the minister what it means, and you’ll get another description. I’ll ask any one of you. And there might be something different because we have forgotten the essence that Jesus was teaching the essence that the kingdom of God is within you. So Butterworth talks about this idea that, that we forgot all of that. And, you know, prayers turn into flattery where we feel like if we praise God enough, then a vein, God will be moved by our praise. He talks about the ideas of pleading and supplication. Maybe we can coax a miracle, you know, out of this reluctant, God, please God, please give me a miracle. And he talks about vain repetition, vain repetition or repetition that has no more meaning for us, as if, if we’re long enough and loud enough that inattentive God will finally hear me.

Now, has anybody heard those kind of prayers as you grew up? Yeah. And that’s, that’s kind of the, that’s what’s happening because we miss the subtlety of prayer. We miss the intention of prayer to align ourselves with that infinite intelligence, to let go of this outer experience of the world and, and reveal that inner splendor of the world. And so, Butterworth likes to talk about this as the principles of prayer that Jesus taught because they were really universal and universally, you can universally apply them in all places, at all times. And by all peoples, everyone can use them. They’re not segregated by this religion or that religion or no religion. It’s, it’s a principle, a law that is always active. And all we have to do is open up into it. He talked about it as the a technique for achieving unity with God.

God Undefined

And its limitless life, substance and intelligence. That’s what prayer is. It’s, it’s getting us in touch with that which we already are, immersing ourselves in it so we can allow it to emerge in our lives more fully every day. In John chapter four, verse 24, Jesus said, God is Spirit and they that worship God must worship in Spirit and in truth. So what was Jesus talking about here? God is Spirit. He wasn’t trying to define God. He wasn’t trying to to say, no, this is what God is. Because when you define a thing, you limit it. And that which is the allness cannot be limited. But what he was trying to do was re reframe our thinking of the time, our free, our thinking of that capricious God that grants good things and you know, sends in the locust when you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing. I hate the locust. It’s like that raisin that you can’t get. I don’t hate the locust. I’m sure they have a divine purpose, just not around me. And so prayer, this idea of moving inward into Spirit, moving inward allows us to connect and realize that that’s that flowing energy, that activity of God that’s moving in through and as us, and it expands our thought of God. And it provides a deeper insight into us.

The Adverse Ego 

We’re not supposed to just show up and say whatever the prayers are without any meaning. It’s supposed to have meaning for us and must have truth in it. It must acknowledge the truth that God is the one presence in one power. There’s no other force other than my adverse ego trying to take over the world. I dunno what’s happening here, but it expands our awareness of that allness. And it helps us direct our thoughts in a way that is away from the finite form of life, right? How many of our, how much of our prayers are all about, give me this, give me that, fix this, fix that all in the outer realm, right? It takes us away from that outer realm of thought of, of Spirit and truth, and brings us back into thinking. And it takes us away from God, of us thinking of God as superman as that marvel hero.

What was that Marvel hero? The adverse ego. Whereas the adverse ego, sorry, that’s the others. That’s Skippy. But that’s what we see as God as, right, the, the counterpart to that. And it takes that, that separateness, that duality thinking, that separate thinking away so that we can realize that we are one with it and allow it to be a part of who we are. On his famous sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter six, verse seven, he gave us a simple practice. When thou pray, enter thine inner chamber and having shut the door, pray to your father who is in secret, and the father who sees in secret shall recompense. So here’s a great example. What he’s teaching is close out the outer world, turn within, close out that sense of, of form and, and, and function out there and turn to the inner possibilities, the infinite possibilities within us.

What is Prayer? 

The mind is the connecting link between God, our our mind is our connecting link between the mind of God or divine mind. And so Butterworth says, prayer is not a matter of words or outer forms. It’s a matter of inner consciousness. That’s what Jesus is saying by close the door and move into the silence. In Unity, we have a five step prayer practice that, you know, we start with relaxation. And we have a mini, we have a mini example of that after every service when we pray, when we, when we meditate. So we, we, we relax. Everyone got that one. We know what that one is. And then we meditate. And meditate is, is training, is focusing our consciousness, our awareness from the outer world, the sense consciousness to the inner world. And we start to meditate and bring ourselves into the silence. And that’s our union with God.

Ego’s just at peace. The mind is at peace. And we are one with that infinite intelligence. And from that great power within us that comes, that draw upon in that place, then we make our affirm, our affirmative prayer, our truth, prayers, our truth, principles, things that are true, not things that we want to be, but the reality of who we are. I am one with the infinite. I am the divine expression. I’m the hands and feet of God. And then we give thanks. It’s a very simple practice that we do every Sunday. And yet it’s very powerful. And here’s the thing, prayer. The activity of prayer of consciously praying is the training ground. Okay? You get this. This is the daily practice, that’s the training ground so that you can live your life from that consciousness. There’s that phrase, you know, I pray with, pray with the goal is to pray without ceasing.

Well, what does that really mean? It doesn’t mean carrying around your, your, your Bible or your books or hitting yourself or whatever the practice might be. It’s, it’s not about the beautiful songs that simply manifest themselves in the middle of the sermon <laugh>. But it’s a letting go of all of those things so that we can be in the consciousness concentrated, rightly directed, spiritually oriented, positive thinking. And we are in that awareness daily. And that takes practice. Anybody notice? Is that easy? No, it’s not always easy. We’re too busy trying to take over the world, or at least to control our version of it, right? We’re too busy trying to control what our life looks like. But rather the practice is to go in secret, to go into that inner chamber, to close that door so that divine love, that non-material force that lies back of all of your dreams and all of your senses can come forward, can emerge in you.

We haven’t yet understood this secret place, this unity with God. I think we’ve had glimpses of it. We’ve talked about it here in Unity, right? We have an intellectual understanding of it. I can test you at the end of the service and are you ready for your test? But until we put it into practice, it’s just words until we put it into our daily practice, that’s when we start to really allow it to emerge in our lives. And the result is life is better. And we’ve had glimpses of this, right? Anybody, we’ve come out of a meditation or we’ve come out of a prayer, we’ve come out of some experience of life. It could be a walk in the hill, it could be your weekend retreat, whatever. And you’re floating, right? Cuz you’re in it and you’re allowing it. And then we allow ourselves to be pulled back to earth.

We allow ourselves to be pulled out of that consciousness of heaven, which is the consciousness of God, act active within you here. And now we come back to sense consciousness and sense reality. So we have thought as of prayer, as attempting to perform miracles rather than having a miracle mindset ourself rather than realizing that this is all a pretty darn good miracle. When you think about, when you go outside and see the, the budding with hysteria, when you go outside and see that we still have trees standing after those winds and storms. When you go outside and smell the air, when you go outside and hear the birds miracles, an amazing expression of the infinite and the divine.

How to Understand God

Eric Butterworth says this about prayer. God does not have what you want or need. God is the substance that you need. Now just think about that for a minute. God doesn’t have the McLarens or the lotus’s, neither do I at the moment. But God is the substance that that lies back of those things. God is the substance that lies back of all of your dreams. God is the substance from which we draw into manifestation, those things that we want to create in our lives. He says that you don’t have to ask God for life, for God is life and God is you that source within you. You are the projection of that life into visibility. The key to healing is to lift up your thought to the consciousness of the wholeness of life in you. You do not need to ask God for it.

God is that wholeness. But you must accept it into your mind, which has been seeing in part. So we’re seeing not just that wholeness, but we’re also seeing the separateness. And so we need to change our consciousness and realign it with that idea of wholeness. You do not have to ask God for wisdom, for God is wisdom. Your mind is an activity of the infinite mind of God. If there is any break in the flow of the inspiration of the Almighty in you, that break is in you, not in God, not in that which is the allness of life, but rather our realization of it, our understanding of it. We’ve broken our story about it in some form. I love this quote from Wal Ralph Waldo Emerson. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and a jubilant soul.

It is the Spirit of God pronouncing his works as good, pronouncing that word, those works as good all around us. The miracles you, you are the good, you are that expression. And the more we acknowledge that and take ownership over that, the more we are able to bring that idea into the world. So how, what’s the, what’s the best way to do that? Anybody know? Here’s the extra credit. That was chapter nine. Did you have your books? Well, we’re going back to chapter eight. The law of non-resistance is the most effective way to be in the flow of Spirit, to be in the world, but not be of the world to allow that energy to flow through us. Now, chapter eight is a very big book, cha chapter, I’m just going to narrow it down to this. Butterworth says, life is a great and continuous process of growth. We moved from classroom to classroom and in school we expect to be tested. Yes, school may not be an unhappy experience, but it is a happy time. Only if we are non-resistant to the process of growth and change. Everyone take a nice deep breath cleansing breath.

Learn From Life’s Tests 

If we accept the tests as blessings to us, if we are non-resistant to life’s demand upon us, then we will forge happily ahead toward that ultimate graduation. In other words, get out of God’s way. So how often in life are we looking at the things that are going on around us and not wanting to go into that classroom? How many of us are dropping that class halfway through or doing just enough to get a C? Anybody remember that for, yeah, none of you, of course, but all we have to do is it’s really about getting out of God’s way, allowing that presence to flow through us. So I have a great example for you. I think it’s a great example. I’m sure you will too, because there will be a test. Speaking of classes, my oldest daughter is graduating her undergraduate degree from UC, Irvine in art.

And she’s 28. She took a gap leap year and took some time off after going to one of the largest populated schools in the country and being lost and taking about four years off gap leap year. Get it? No one laughed. So yeah, I thought it was pretty clever. And then got and then said by herself, okay, I’m gonna get back to school. And she started off at Foothill College and she got a’s she was on the honors list, and then she got accepted into uc, Irvine in the art program. Now, last quarter, you may have remembered, I I told you that she took five classes. She took five classes. These are all upper upper division. She’s graduating in June. And she, she thought, oh my gosh, I’m never gonna do that again. I just want an easy, you know, an easy quarter.

So she just took three classes. Of course there was an independent studies class and the graduate thesis exhibition and critique class, that’s like the highest level this is, as they say, this is what grad school for artists look like. This is the taste for grad school. When she came out of that, she said, you know, this was the hardest quarter I’ve ever done in my life. It was the hardest thing she ever did. Now, the graduate thesis exhibition critique, that sounds like a fun class, doesn’t it? <Laugh>, here’s the thing, there are no formal assignments. You come in, you bring your work and it gets critiqued. So half of the class is sitting there thinking, wait, wait, what’s the subject matter? What do I have to paint? What do I have to draw? What do I have to create? What’s my, what’s my inspiration? Nope, this is up to you.

Oh, and by the way, you can’t bring in anything from another class. It has to be brand new for this class. And we’re gonna start, you know, in a couple of days. So half of the class is panicking because they’re like, they’ve never been in that situation where they didn’t have that prompt. They couldn’t say, they didn’t have somebody saying, okay, here’s what you need to do next. Go think about this, go think about that. No, just bring your work and show it. And so my daughter Erin and her and her friend, they, they have a body of work and they have this concept, they have thoughts and they said, okay, well we’ll just go first. We’ll get it outta the way. We can throw something together real quick and then I can refine it as I go along. So she’s thinking, you know, that will take the pressure off of everyone else.

So the two of them go and they present, and then afterwards the instructor goes, well, the bar’s been set really high. And she’s like, oh yes. And oh, sorry guys. That wasn’t her intention. Her intention was just to help. So by the way, I don’t know if I said this or not, but when you hang your art, there’s no explanation to it. There’s no response to it. You walk up, you hang your art, you sit down and you listen. And when you’re critiquing someone else’s art, there is no like, I like or I don’t like, those words are not allowed. So talk about non-resistance. If you’ve just created something, whatever it is, and you’ve all done something and you’ve shown it to somebody with the hope that someone will like it, right? Yeah, no, this is your life’s work and no one can say they like it or they dislike it, nor can you explain to them what it is that you’re showing.

Express, Listen, and Grow

You just have to show it. The practice is to express, to listen and to grow. I express my art, I hang it, I sit back and I listen and then I grow. I refine my, my thinking. I change my patterns. You know, I, I work on my criti on my technique. That’s life. Have you noticed? But the problem is, we don’t sit there and say, but wait, you didn’t see this part right here. Right? We don’t, we don’t have the non-resistance of someone else’s critique. We take it on personally. And this class taught her, don’t take it personally. It’s not about you. It’s not about your art. It’s about their interpretation of your art. And by listening to their interpretation of your art, of their, of your art, you can get a greater understanding of who they are. Now, how often have we actually listened to all those people that we’re arguing with?

Not so much. That’s what non-resistance is, hearing another person’s point of view without reacting, without responding, even just hearing, listening, growing and growing from that. Because everything that you hear is part of your class. And if you look at it from that perspective, this is just a class and here’s my master teacher in front of me critiquing my art or me or my clothes or how I show up or the words I use or the things I do. And we take all of that personally. We resist all of that. And that creates separation between us, between God. That’s the, that’s the big clog in the drain that prevents the flow of Spirit to move through us. Non-Resistance. What she learned from this class, she said, I learned how to see other people’s art differently. No longer I like it or dislike it. Just what am I learning from it?

What am I growing from it? How can I, what am I taking? What am I experiencing in the expression of it? Now, what would life be like if you had that same concept with the people around you, those that you love? How can I express, listen and grow? She said this, li this class changed her life. It changed her life and her and I can hear it the way she’s talking. And now how can you apply that? Because I’m always the minister. How can you apply that in other areas of your life? Because it’s universal. It’s a universal practice. Art is the beautiful express. It’s a ministry. It’s a beautiful expression of what is in coming, what is emerging within somebody. It’s a beautiful expression of the shadow that’s trying to be healed. It’s a beautiful expression of how we give to the world. Just like words, just like my speaking up here, get out of the way and let God be God in you.

Now at the end of the class, oh, well I’ll tell you that in a second. So what if your life, what if in your life you could be bold, spiritually bold, not recklessly bold, we’ve all been there, but spiritually bold. You say, okay, this is who I am. How can I express that? What if in your life you listened to all of those master teachers without taking it on as personal attacks, but rather listening to grow, what can, how can that inform me about me and the other person and the experience? What if you actually approached the life, life as a classroom with the intention to grow with the idea of saying, okay, here I am, I’m ready. Give me the material. What if you can live life with no likes or dislikes? Just what is just allowing, what is to be and what if you took the highest view possible?

Always, always in alignment with Spirit as best that we could and grow. And learning how we can do that even more. How we can do that more fully. What if we allow God to be God and me? So the end of the story is this is finals week, but she didn’t have any finals. So she’s home and she’s hanging out. Next week is spring break, so she has two weeks off. And she told me after the class, the instructor, this is the only undergraduate class that this guy teaches. Everything else is graduate work. But he told her, you know, the two people that went first, the two of you should take the class again. She got an A by the way. And she said, the two of you should take the class again. Now how many of us are gonna go through that again?  Yeah, no, no hands. I dunno why this is up, it isn’t me. She and her friends said, yeah, we’re taking this again. Not only that, they talked to five other of the honors students that they have studio time with and convinced them all to take it too, because she realized the depth of growth, not just in her art, not just in how she expresses, but in life.