Enrich Your Life With a Spiritual Mindset: Part 2 | Rev. John Riley

Have you ever felt that you were so hung up on something that it was just rattling around in your brain, you lost sleep over it, it was stressing you out? Anybody ever felt that before? Well, today we’re going on our journey. We’re continuing our journey of creating a spiritual mindset, and we’re using the eight verse poem that led off our master teacher Jesus, penultimate talk. The Sermon on the Mount. And this, this, uh, poem is called the “Be Attitudes.” And we’re using it to help us learn to live more fully from your authentic self, from your higher self, from that power that’s within you. And because when we adopt that spiritual mindset, when we start to live from these principles, our lives are transformed. And so to remember, as we’re going through this journey, we are going to be looking at it through fresh eyes.

We’re going to be hearing it with an open heart and an open mind, and seek to experience it as fresh and new. Because we’ve heard these before. I’m pretty sure everyone’s heard them at one point in time or another, whether it was passing by or, or in the child, the religion of your childhood or your neighbor’s childhood, whatever it may be, their ideas that have come up before. So we wanna look at it with a new perspective so that we can allow it to land in us fresh and new. And just a reminder, every ‘Be attitude’ begins with the word blessed. And so the meaning of the word blessed is to confer prosperity upon, to enrich, to lift us up to that place where we feel peace to that place where we feel joy, where we feel happy, and we feel blessed.

Blessed

And so we’re up to the second, “be attitude.” And this be attitude is blessed, are those that mourn for they shall be comforted, blessed for to. Blessed are those that mourn for they are comforted. Have you heard that one before? Now, on the surface, the face value, there’s many ways we can look at it on the face value. When you mourn, you are comforted. Because if you go through a natural, uh, if you go through a proper mourning process, then that’s really going through and experiencing your feelings and releasing whatever it is that you’re holding onto so that you can feel more comforted. But so much of it, especially in the religious realm, is that we look at it more from the perspective of suffering. Have you heard that one before? Oh, yeah. And when you suffer, I’m not gonna name names or when you suffer, that leads to salvation.

Two Ways to Come Into The Truth

So these are the old ideas that we’ve grown up with and that have been instilled in us for a millennia or two. But the idea of this “be attitude” goes far beyond that. So I’d like to read what Eric Butterworth had to say about blessed or they that mourn for they shall be comforted. He said, Jesus is telling us that there are two ways by which we can come into the knowledge of the truth and experience of the releasement, of your inner power, that splendid, that inner splendor within you, that power within you. There are two ways to get there. One is we can be poor in Spirit. That was last Sunday. If you forgot, you can go back and watch that talk to be born’s Spirit and to simply let go instantly with the receptivity of a little child and let your Christ self-express.

Let your divine self-express. Let your higher self-express. Know your oneness with Spirit, source and the allness of life, love and wisdom, and live from there. That was the core message. And then Jesus said that in a hundred different ways, and he demonstrated that in a hundred different ways. Just to bring us back to that one core message. The second way in which you can release that inner power and release that inner splendor is we can resist the truth of our divinity. And Tara, our life is devastated by the fruits of wrong thinking such as sickness, sorrow, and failure. Then in these experiences, we may find yourself, ourself will broken down and replaced by a new desire to reach for the absolute truth of God. And that’s what that song was talking about that Deborah just sang. We get to the point where, you know, if we, if we take one path, blessed of the poor Spirit, we’re letting go of our egotistical drive, right? We’re letting go of our pride, prides pride self, where ego takes the backseat and where Spirit drives. That’s one way. The second way is life conditions beat us down until we’re forced to let go of that ego, we’re forced to let go of that condition. It’s like we, we used to call in Unity that cosmic two by four that hits you right here, doesn’t hurt here or here, but right here.

And that’s the second way in which we can experience this transformation. Butterworth says there can be no sorrow or sense of tragedy to one who understands the dynamics of his own innate divinity. And so he affirms, I’m grateful for the challenges that lead me beyond my extremity to God’s opportunity. That’s one way to look at it in one approach. And when we look at the word mourn, I used, uh, Neil Douglas Claus’s book, “Prayers for the Cosmos.” I think there might be one more in the bookstore, two and some more on order. But the way, what he did was he went back to Aramaic and retranslated what was translated into Greek, and he translated into aromatic, aromatic aromatic, an aromatic language. So mourners can be translated into those who deep longly, who longly those who long deeply, gosh, I’m just my b my brain’s just turned around here.

Longing for That Connection

Those who long deeply for something. Have you ever longed deeply for something? Have you ever, you know, kind of we’re just soul searching for that? And it’s usually what we’re looking for is a way to connect with something or to have something that’s missing. And ultimately, I believe it’s the longing for our deepness connection with the divine, our deep connection with Spirit. We’re just misplacing it out there, right? That goes back to that first “be attitude,” become one with it. That’s what we long for. And when we forget that, you know, we, we make each other that source, or we make the things in our life or the, the materialistic things in our life, our source. So when we let go of all of that, when we look at that from that perspective, I’m deeply longing for something, for that connection with Spirit. And then I’m comforted.

And another translation of comforted from Aramaic is a return from wandering, a return from wandering. It’s being united by love. That’s what comfort can mean. And it’s that feeling of inner continuity, that sense of inner continuity where we understand ourselves top to bottom, and we have self-awareness of our, of what we’re thinking and, and what’s happening in our lives and how we’re experiencing life. Doesn’t it put a little different slant on that term for anybody? Okay, three people. I’ll keep going then. I was gonna let you out early. So when we’re stressed, when we’re in emotional turmoil, when we’re feeling that pull within us, when we’re, uh, when we’re in that state where we can’t sleep, where things keep waking us up, we have to remember to return from our wandering. And the wandering is in consciousness. It’s our mind that water wanders around.

Becoming Aware of Your Emotions

It’s our mind that all of a sudden feels something and then starts to create a story wrapped around it. Well, it’s because of this and that. And then well, this happens and I’m gonna do this. And we just start wrapping ourselves around in it. Our mind is wandering in the emotion. So instead of wandering in the emotion and creating something different, something more, something greater that, that turmoil within us, we need to return. Neil Douglas plot says this, embrace all of what you are feeling and allow all emotions to watch wash through you as though you were standing under a gentle waterfall. <affirmative>, anybody go to Hawaii or some other place where there’s, and you get to stand under the waterfall and just feel it pour over you. That’s what this is about. It’s like letting it just wash through you. But the problem is, we don’t let the emotion wash through us.

If we did, it would be over in about 90 seconds, according to scientific studies. That’s how long an emotion takes to go through our system, unless we throw fire on the, on the, on the emotion, right? Then that gentle waterfall becomes a huge Niagara falls upon us, and we are washed away down the river and tumbled on the rocks and stones and swept down the river. Anybody ever feel that? Yeah. And what creates that is the wandering of our mind. Instead of just allowing, oh, I’m feeling sorrow, I’m feeling anger, I’m feeling fear, and letting it just flow through you and say, and wash away. We say, I’m feeling anger because I’m feeling fear because, and here’s what it means. I’m feeling frustration because this and this and this and this, and this is happening outside of me.

Neil Douglas Klotz goes on to say, follow this flow back to its source. And there you will find the spring from which all emotion arises. So instead of being washed up in the emotion and being washed down the river, right, we become aware. I’m feeling fear, I’m feeling sadness. And if we go back upstream from that feeling, we discover what belief, what bias, what idea that sparked it. We discover its source. And that is almost always, it’s always within us, isn’t it? It’s always some idea that we have about a thing that creates this, this Niagara falls of emotion within us instead of the gentle flow. Now, for those of you who have taken the art and practice of living with nothing and known one against you, the Q class, the quantum living class, whatever names were, we’ve called it in the past, it kind of sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Who knew that Jesus was a certified quantum living instructor? I’m gonna ask Gary Simmons if he paid his dues or not.

Finding the Love in the Moment

But that’s the whole purpose of that idea of mourning, is to say, “okay, this is what it is.” And it’s not because of all those things out there, it’s cuz I’m holding some error thought in mind. I’m holding some idea of separation, some idea that I’m not worthy enough, some idea that I’m not good, good enough. Some idea that, that I can’t have the things that other people have because dot, dot, dot some belief back there is what’s generating the story. So when we can go back from that error belief, we can start to unwind it. And that’s what he means by returning from the wandering, returning from the wandering of your mind. And we do that with self-awareness, we do that with intention. And when we do that, it creates within us unity, within yourself for with the one through love in that very moment. And in that very moment, you will find inner peace.

So simply by allowing that emotion to, to wash through you, going back to source and, and realizing this is just an idea on one with source and with that se sense of inner love, self-love, self-compassion, we come back to knowing our oneness with source, Spirit and the allness of life. And that creates within us that peaceful experience. So blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. And the next one, blessed are those. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Now, let’s look at modern day times. Yeah. So if you look at this just at face value is this reality.

The people who are meek are not the ones running the world. I think at least this experience of the world, if we look at it from a more traditional religious standpoint, we might think of it as, uh, blessed are the meek for some time in the future and some next millennia, they will inherit the earth at the second coming. So don’t worry, stay down where you are. Don’t, don’t get too hoy toy. Don’t get too excited. Just stay where you are, because sometime in the future, maybe not in this lifetime, but in heaven, that future heaven, you may inherit the earth. But Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is now, it is a state of consciousness when we live from that understanding of our oneness. When we live from that, knowing that we are part of this beautiful tapestry, this beautiful flow of life, live and wisdom.

So in the Aramaic, meek can be translated into gentle or humble. And behind these words are the old roots that carry the meaning of two, uh, of, of one who is softened by, uh, that which is unnaturally hard within them. So Neil Douglass Klotz and translate that as one who has softened what is naturally hard within us. So those rigid thoughts within us, those that crystallized consciousness, this is the only way, right? There’s no other way. This is, you know, what’s I, can I, I’m not worthy enough and I can’t grow any more than this. I’m just gonna be who I am. So the word meek really means to soften those ideas, to soften those ideas where we think there’s only one way to look at the world, to become more curious about how life shows up, to become more engaged in how life shows up with us.

It’s like the story, the story and the meaning that we’re putting around our emotions are washing us down the rocks. But when we loosen and soften that story, we’re able to be in that waterfall and just allow it to wash over us without any issues. He also translates the word that was translated into Greek and then into English as inherit. And then the broader sense of that root word, it means receiving from the universal source of strength and rep and reciprocity, inherit receiving from the universal source of strength. So when we soften, which is that which is rigid within us, our underlying biases and beliefs, our underlying, this is the only way when we soften that it opens us up to the flow of our inner strength.

Inner Peace Brings Authenticity 

That idea of being peaceful, being centered, being present. And from that peace comes our inner state, our inner strength. From that peace comes our ability to stand in our authenticity, to speak up for what we wanna speak up for, from that place of peace, to be more consistent, to be more centered amongst the river. So I have a great story for you that I think really articulates that and shows how this is so applicable in our, in everyday life. And, uh, this is courtesy of my wife Tiffany. So here’s what’s going on in the life of Riley. I know you’ve always wanted to know we’re nearing the end of the end of the school year, of course. And Saturday, Ray had dance rehearsals for Cinderella and Ethan had a baseball game, one of the playoff baseball game that he was going to.

And Tiffany, of course, is doing her volunteer work with Ford Dance Connection and spruce up all of the costumes doing a lot of costume work. I don’t think she slept at all last night. And, uh, um, and I was here during cla, had a class, um, Ethan took the van and stopped at Subway to get a sandwich. Now Tiffany is driving Ray to dance and then going to Joanne’s for fabric and then trying to get back to get the costumes and then make everything up. So you got, you got the story so far, and I’m just hanging out back there in my class. So Ethan gets out of Subway, he comes back to the car and he puts the key in the ignition, and he tries to turn it, the ignition isn’t turning, the key isn’t turning. He can’t start the car.

He starts to panic because he has to be at school in time to get the bus to go to the baseball game. And if he’s not there, you know, he can’t, he’s, he can’t go, he can’t, you have to be on the bus. So he’s stressed out. And, he immediately texts Tiffany or call and, and says like, the key won’t turn. I can’t get it on. And Tiffany starts thinking, oh my gosh, you know, because she is stressed out, she’s dropping off Ray, she has to go, go to Joanne. She has to saw all the costumes. What’s wrong with the car? Did something break? Did you know? Did he, did he break something? Because he’s a young driver. He, she also knows, you know, the, the, the steering column is a little off the plastic. Maybe there was something wrong with the plastic, was jamming something so she couldn’t figure out.

So she runs over to Subway, picks him up, leaves the van there, and takes him to, um, takes him to, to the baseball practice, takes him to Pali so he can be dropped off so you can feel the stress, right? Yes, you can imagine the kind of stress that was going on. And as she’s driving over there, she was able to, you know, start to calm down. She was able to soften those ideas and just allow them to drift away. And when those, those thoughts of panic and what’s wrong with the van and am I gonna get to here? Am I gonna get to there? Went away. She remembered, oh yeah, when you turn off the car and if you go like this to the steering wheel, it locks. Anybody remember that?

And she thought, gosh, had I just been in my peaceful state of consciousness, my peaceful mind, I would’ve remembered that. And I could have told him, well, here’s what you do. But instead she was stressed about it. But as soon as she realized, as soon as she softened what was rigid, as soon as she let go of the ideas and wasn’t holding onto the stress anymore, wasn’t holding onto the concern, or we’re going to get to Pollion time and to Joanne’s in time and to do everything. When she let go of all of that, the answer came in that piece came the strength. And it’s like, oh, okay. No big deal. And when she got back and I got back, we were all together, we went and got the van, and then we explained to Ethan and I had, I, you know, if you’re a new driver, you don’t always know these things, right? And it’s not something that came to my mind to teach him. But so he went out and I said, well, here’s what happens. And it was hard to, he had to finesse it. So he gets in, he’s trying.

I said, dude, just relax. It’s like a finesse thing. You just kind of, you know, and then you feel it and click, okay, I got it. Okay, we’re off. Of course. Then he asks me, why does it happen? Why do they do that? I I tried to make something up and it’s a safety thing. Yeah, but he’s too smart for that. So, uh, uh, I don’t know. And any one of us could have looked it up on the web, I’m sure, and found out, but we didn’t care that much to be right. So y’all can tell me after the service, what does that mean? So just remember this week, remember that we are blessed and prospered and enriched when we stop our wandering mind.

Our Wandering Minds

We are blessed and prospered, enriched when we allow our emotions to flow fully without throwing fuel onto the fire. Just allow the emotion to be, we’re blessed and prosperous and enriched. When we soften what is rigid on the inside, when we soften those error beliefs, when we just soften the idea that I’m not worthy, I’m not good enough, I’m not wanted, I’m not dot, dot dot. When we just soften those, come become curious and allow those to just drift away. We are blessed and prospered and enrich when we do these things for we you not unify ourselves with the divine Spirit, through divine love, through self-compassion, through self-love, and through understanding. And when I do those things, I experience peaceful strength. Now think about anything in your life that you’re struggling with. It could be a situation, it could be a relationship, it could be something that happens in your life. And where are you rigid in that? Where are you wanting to be? Right? Where are you taking that idea and throwing fuel onto it? Preco, catastrophizing, I think is the word that we came up with. Thank you, Lisa. Where are we planning our revenge? And what would life be like if you just softened those thoughts? If you looked at the situation from self-love, self-compassion, knowing that you are loved, knowing that you are the expression of love. And can you see that love showing up in someone else? Even if it doesn’t appear, can you know that it’s there?