Enrich Your Life With a Spiritual Mindset: Part 1 | Rev. John Riley

Well, happy Mother’s Day. Thank you. Happy Mother’s Day to all of the brand new mothers, to all of the, uh, people who are grandmothers and great-grandmothers and great-great grandmothers. And, uh, we today we are honoring and celebrating that. And, uh, we’re just so blessed. And it what a beautiful day for Mother’s Day. Yes, yes. Here in the Bay Area. It’s just gorgeous outside. And of course, no matter where you are, it’s always a beautiful day in our consciousness. Yes, yes, yes, indeed. Well, today we are beginning a spiritual journey. We’re beginning a journey, uh, of creating a mindset, a that is really lifting us up a little bit, creating a spiritual mindset. Now, I know that most of us here, if you’re here at Unity, you, you’ve been working on this and you have a spiritual mindset already. Yes, yes, yes. We’re gonna just expand that a little bit more.

Is that cool? Yeah. Yeah. All right. You’re all in. I love it. Well, on this journey for the next few weeks, what we’re going to do is we’re going to use the, um, the backdrop of the amazing Be Attitudes. This is, uh, the preamble that Jesus, not the preamble. This was the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. Uh, if you’re interested in reading, it’s in Matthew chapter, five through seven. And the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, spoke eight an eight verse poem, prose poem. That was really the foundation of his spiritual teachings. He kinda laid it all out for us. This is the framework of, of his teachings and, and how we can live life more from that spiritual perspective, more from a, uh, a spiritual attitude. And I love Eric Butterworth in his book, discover the Power Within You, because he talks about it there as be attitudes.

In other words, attitudes for being right, the attitudes that we can come to the world and express in the world that lift us up. And so these are our – this is how we create a spiritual mindset. It’s living from your higher self. And as, Rusty talked about, it’s really putting the law of mind action into action. Because the thoughts that we have, the thoughts that we hold onto, right? Not the fleeting thoughts that kind of drift by, but those that we really hold onto. Those are the thoughts that create our experience of life.

Reach a Higher Consciousness & Experience Life

Our thoughts create our experience of life, because life is consciousness. And the thoughts that we hold onto is how we see the world around us. So whatever thoughts we’re holding onto for a, a great deal of time, that affects how we show up. And that affects how we, what we look for in other people. And that affects how, you know, other people show up to us. And so, this spiritual mindset helps us take control or helps us raise that mindset, raise that understanding, that mind action, so that we can live more from the experience of that higher consciousness. And when we adopt that spiritual mindset, we, our lives transform. Our lives transform. We become more of who we are created to be. We become, become more of who we have come here to be. And personally, it’s, it’s like if you look back 10 years at your life and, uh, or 10 minutes, maybe for some people, how has your life changed?

How has your life changed? And when you came to the service today, and you walked in and you heard Margot’s beautiful voice and Russell and Ronnie playing, did that uplift you? Did you feel transformed in that moment? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Catherine. Yes. So these, these, these four eight verses are what we’re gonna be talking about as the backdrop for our lifting our consciousness in the next few weeks. Now, what you’ll notice is the be attitudes all begin with blessed are those. Blessed are, you’ll notice, he didn’t say, you must do this. He didn’t say, thou shall not do that. Right? He was, this wasn’t a directive. This wasn’t a, this is what you have to do. It was really about, um, if you live in this way and apply these truths, then you will be uplifted. Then you will be blessed.

What a beautiful way to look at it. Not from a “you gotta do this.”  Anybody have one of those upbringings? You gotta do this for more. Hey, here’s how we can live more fully, more fully with each other, more beautifully. Because Jesus was not speaking about conforming. He was really about, you know, shaking things up. And he was thinking, he was really talking about transforming. So instead of conforming to these, these rules, and these, these ways of being, we’re here to, to transform our lives so we can experience and grow and discover what’s new for us to have and to hold. So spiritual growing, spiritual evolving, and a way of being in the world. That’s what is this spiritual mindset is all about growth, transformation, and being more of who you’ve come here to be your authentic self. And so, beginning of this journey, we need to be able to look at it with fresh eyes.

What Does it Mean to Be Blessed? 

We need to be able to hear it with an open heart and an open mind so that we can seek to experience it as fresh and new. Because here’s the thing, anything that’s rote, anything that we, you know, we say over and over again, doesn’t it lose its flavor after a little bit, it starts having any impact on us. Anything that you’ve seen that is uplifting, that is inspiring. Once it becomes a bumper sticker, it’s kind of lost its flare. You know, it’s like, got milk. That was awesome back in the day. Anybody remember when that first came out? And now you just can’t get rid of it. So whenever anything becomes a cat poster, it’s time to shake it up a little bit. Now, we all love cat posters, don’t we? Oh, yeah, yeah. But we don’t love it because of the phrase, what do we love it for?

The cat, the cats? Who doesn’t love seeing a cat hanging from the curtain? I don’t know. It’s awesome. Half of TikTok are cats. I’m told by my daughter and my wife there, look at this cat. We love the cats, but we forget the message altogether become, it’s, it’s because it’s become rote and stale. It’s lost its flavor for us. It’s like, you know, month old bread, it’s gotten a little moldy. So it’s time for us to really shake things up and look at it from a new perspective so that it can be fresh and alive within us. And so, every btu you’ll, as I said, begins with the word blessed. So what does that word really mean? What does blessed really mean? Well, if you look at the root word, it’s talking about to confer prosperity upon or to enrich. That’s what blessed means, to confer prosperity on someone or to enrich something so that they feel more of that, of that richness.

Thus, when he says blessed, it makes a wonderful promise, letting you know what will happen if you live more from this experience, if you condition your mind to live from this state of consciousness and to fully accept and to fully use and utilize these attitudes of life in our daily living. So that’s where we come from. The idea of being blessed and conferring upon us and and enriching us. You’re making us more, it’s, it’s kinda like being more happy. Is that a word? Is that grammar? Uh, no. Whatever. Yes. More happy. Yes. Thank you. It’s being more happy. Can we make a bumper sticker out of that?

The first, the attitude. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Right off the bat, very first line of his talk. You know, this is what they tell good speakers to do. Right? Give them the wow moment. He’s, he’s telling you the key to the kingdom of heaven. Right off the bat, anybody notice blessed of the poor in Spirit. Now, unfortunately, for 2000 years, we’ve been told that by interpreting that literally that poverty is a virtue. Have you heard that one before? Yes. Did you grow up in that? Yes. That if you’re poor, if you’re patient, if you suffer, then one day your future in heaven, somewhere, someplace, sometime later, you will be rewarded. But Jesus wasn’t talking about heaven as some future place up in the sky. He was saying, this is a state of consciousness. Heaven is a state of consciousness where we know and understand our oneness with the allness, our oneness with Spirit, our oneness with source, our oneness with the allness of life, love and wisdom.

Enrich Your Viewpoint

That is our consciousness of heaven. Now, we all know what the consciousness of hell is, right? Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. We’ve all experienced that, right? In fact, just the other day, no, I won’t go into that. We’ll say that for another talk. So this idea of the consciousness of heaven, um, blessed are those who are poor in spirit. So what really does poor in Spirit mean? Well, it comes from the, the root word of ruok, which is the Aramaic, that that means pride or narcissism, or that egoic, you know, it’s all about me. Anybody recognize those things? No. Well, not in us, of course, but and those other people. So blessed are those who lack pridefulness. Blessed are those who are not narcissistic. So let’s just think about our lives for a moment. And the question isn’t if the question is when, because we all go through this human experience, this ego egoic experience of feeling these things now and then, and what is helpful is, is to not realize, oh, I’m doing it. Oh, but under what conditions does it come up in me? Under what conditions do I become prideful? You know, what stressors are acting upon me that are causing me to do that? So here are some ideas for you to just think about. When does it happen? When you are not committed? Or when does it happen? When you are committed to being right?

Under what conditions? When does it happen that you’re committed to blaming others for the anything that’s wrong in your life? Anything that’s wrong in the world? When does it happen when you’re trying to manipulate others to get your way? When does it happen, when you’re being judgmental about their attitudes or being judgmental in your attitude towards them? So being blessed for the being poor in spirit really means being committed to not being right. Nope. That’s not it. Not being committed to being right, that’s it. Not being committed to blaming others, not being committed to trying to manipulate others, and not being committed to judging others for their attitudes or your attitudes. Instead, what would your life be like if you used this idea of poor and Spirit being, you know, being blessed, being uplifted, being infused with that, that sense of, of oneness, of wholeness, of Spirit. What would your life be like if you were committed to being curious instead of being right? How would that affect you? How would that affect how you approach things? Now what I notice is that when I’m trying to be right, I come in all, you know, puffed up. I’m the minister. I know exactly what this is. Four phases of consciousness. I got it. There aren’t anymore. Shirley and quit calling you Shirley.

Being curious instead of being right. What if there were five phases of consciousness? What would that look like? What if I didn’t have all the answers? What if I can listen to what someone else’s ideas were and see if I understood them more? So when I’m curious, instead of wanting to be right, I’m open. I’ve got that open heart, I’ve got that open mind, and I’m seeing things through a different lens. Just the, the whole physiology of me changes. I’m like light and like, oh, I’m buoyant. But when I wanna be right, I’m dug in. I can feel my, you know, the, the bunker being built right in front of me. What would your life be like if you took responsibility for your stuff instead of blaming others, right? Instead of, you know, I, I had a to terrible experience the other day. And, uh, for example, we’ve got flowers for all the mothers after the service, you have to wait till after the service. Sorry, if you leave early, no flowers. I’m just saying.

Don’t Shame or Blame Yourself

And I went to the, I went to the San Francisco Flower Mart. It’s one of my favorite places in the world who doesn’t like buying flowers. And, uh, of course, everyone has their roses out because it’s Mother’s Day. And what I didn’t realize is it’s Friday before Mother’s Day. And even though I left at six in the morning to get there, it’s open at three in the morning. And so I spent more time in the parking lot trying to park and trying to leave than I did in the Flower Mart, because I had to get home that day because to give my card to my son so he can get to school, blah, blah, blah. So anyways, I’m sitting here in the parking lot and I can feel the tension, the stress. It’s like, oh, okay. And I’m like, well, I’m spiritual. I know everything. There is no loving presence.

The right and perfect parking space will open up right now. And lo and behold, it did. Actually, it in absolutely. I just waited and the car pulled out and went, and I pulled in, and then I went to get my flowers. And I, you know, I loved looking at all the flowers and, and imagining things. Um, and, but I was in a hurry. So I, I grabbed a bunch of, you know, these bags of roses, and I got back out to my car, and guess what’s parked right behind my car? Another car. It was a minivan. It was filled with stuff. There was no one in it. The keys were in it. And I’m like, Hmm. But then the parking attendant comes by and says, yeah, the, the car, the battery’s dead. I’m like, “Is this karma for being all righteous?” I don’t know, for being prideful about how good I was manifesting a parking space. Hmm.

Anyway, so I can feel my, my sense of this is not right. They should have done this. They should have done that. And, you know, I’m just in my, my fuming, you know, blaming everyone from my being late. And like two minutes later, the parking attendant pull comes out with a little charger and says, yeah, don’t worry about it. I got it. He charges it up. He backs it up, and I’m out in no time. All the while though, being aware that I’m now judging everyone else in the world except for me, my own thoughts.

So, noticing that, just notice it. Notice it for yourself this week. Don’t blame shame and guilt yourself, cuz that’ll just take you down another rabbit hole. This is just noticing. It’s like, oh, there I am. I’m, I’m down below that line of, of human, of I’m in the, the line of down below the line into egoic, prideful behavior. I wanna be above the line. I wanna get out of that, that idea. Get out of that consciousness. And so how can I own my stuff? And just own it? Okay, that was mine. The reality is, I wasn’t late. I got home in plenty of time. My son even had plenty of time to get to school, and all was well. But in that moment, I was experiencing that consciousness that wasn’t quite heaven. And we’ve all been there. Yeah. Yes. So what would it be like to take responsibility for yourself instead of blaming others?

What would it be like to be true to your authentic self instead of judging others or manipulating others? So, let’s talk about this thing called our authentic self, because our authentic self is not always what we think it is. You know, sometimes that I hear that phrase and people are, I’m gonna say my truth, and they’re angry, and they’re, they’re lashing out at people. They’re blaming everyone else, but that’s not the truth of who they are. Right? In Unity, we talk about the truth of who you are, is that that divine essence that’s within you, that better self, that higher self, that, that takes ownership for us. And that can say, you know, I’m really love, that’s who I am, and how can I be in this situation and express self-love to myself? So being able to express that authentic self-love, self-compassion, and then being able to express that authentic love to all of you, to self-compassion to other people.

What would your life be like if you were able to do that a little bit differently? So if you can adopt this spiritual mindset, the mindset of blessed of the poor Spirit, for they shall inherit to the kingdom of heaven, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. When we come from that space, our consciousness is uplifted. We’re buoyant, we’re curious, we’re amazed by the beauty in the world. We’re amazed at, at the funny things that happen in the parking lot on the way to the flower mart. It just becomes, you know, something that’s interesting and, and creative and something that we can use in our life.

Attitudes

I love the book, the Prayers of the Cosmos. This is by Donald Klotz. And what he’s done is he’s taken the “be attitudes” back to what he believes is, is closer to the original language that Jesus would’ve spoke, would’ve spoken. I’m getting the C minus of my grammar today. So what he did was take these, uh, interpretation and reinterpret them from the Native Eastern language that Jesus most likely spoke, which was close to the modern day Aramaic. So he took these words and then he re re reinterpreted them. So how does this sound instead of blessed are the poor and spirit for theirs? Is the kingdom of heaven happy and aligned with one, sorry, happy and aligned with the one? Are those who find their home in the breathing, to them belong the inner kingdom and kingdom of heaven? How does that sit with you?

Happy and aligned with the one? Blessed are those who are poor in Spirit. Blessed are those who have let go of their ego and allow their higher self to you. We call it the Christ self. Your spark of divinity. Your, better self, your authentic self, being in that state of consciousness and awareness, being in that understanding of your oneness with the allness, you find your home and your breathing, just take a nice deep cleansing breath because that’s all it takes. Just a nice deep cleansing breath to return to that state. And when you find your home and your breathing, that inner kingdom and kingdom of heaven exists.

Now, Klotz, he, translates the root word rook a little differently because it may also be translated as spirit, breath, soul, or whatever moves, stirs, animates, and links us to life. So what I’d like to do is just take a few of his interpretations and use them as our meditation. Does that sound okay to you? Yes. And just allow them to sink in and, and hear them through new ears, right? Hear them as something new. Open your heart and allow this idea to permeate you this basic fundamental teachings that were attributed to Jesus, this way of living and being this adopting this spiritual mindset. So let’s take a moment just to prepare ourselves and we take a nice deep cleansing breath and close your eyes if that feels comfortable, or soften your gaze as we begin to tune out the outer experience of life.