Enrich Your Life With a Spiritual Mindset: Part 3 | Rev. John Riley

Thank you, Deborah. Thank you Russell. Thank you Ronnie. We are all one heart. Yes, yes. Can you feel that experience, feel that love, feel that harmony within you. For we are all it, we are all a part of it. We are continuing today, part three of our developing our spiritual mindset of creating and, and, and uplifting our spiritual mindset using what the master teacher taught during his the beginning of his, of the Sermon on the Mount. He called it the beatitudes, or we called it the Beatitudes. And it’s really that those ideas, those spiritual found, the spiritual foundation of the teachings that were attributed to Jesus. And so when we, what we know is that when we start to adopt these spiritual mindsets, that we are transformed. That we are transformed by the renewing of our mind. And, and so we, we look to deepen our experience of each one of these. And today we’re working on the first be attitude. And these two, I think go together really well. The two that we’re gonna work on today. The first one is blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Woohoo. Excuse me. So anybody get a little itch there? A little itch? When you heard the word righteousness. Righteousness, especially when I say it like that righteousness, or if I add the, the word in front of it, self-righteousness. So righteousness you know, when we look at it from a metaphysical standpoint, from a spiritual standpoint, right? Righteousness simply means right thinking.

So getting ourself, our heads, our thoughts in alignment with this right? Thinking, getting ourselves in alignment with this idea that God is everywhere present, that God is in me and in you, and that we are all of one heart. Now, as we grew up, we might have had the experience of thinking of this word, righteousness as the practice of living as a religious code. Anybody have that, that concept be in or adopted? Yes. Or how about the idea of, well, your righteousness when you’re carrying this is from Eric Butterworth, your prayer book. I don’t even know what a prayer book is. Does anybody know what a prayer book is? Maybe it’s the Bible. Anybody? Is that righteousness to you? Have you experienced that in your life? Eric Butterworth says it. You know, righteousness is not the practice of even going to church

It’s About Attitude

Unless it’s Unity Palo Alto, of course, that’s righteous. Or he says the repetition of pompous platitudes because Jesus deals in attitudes, not platitudes. Yeah, Butterworth was pretty cool. So think about that idea. I had to make sure I understood what a platitude was, right? That’s saying, that keeps getting repeated over and over again till it has no more meaning, it’s lost its flavor, it’s just the constant, you know, over repeating of things where it doesn’t mean anything to us. But what he really wants to hone in on is it’s not the words, it’s the attitude that you have. Because when you have the right spiritual attitude, the right mindset, then your words will follow suit. So the idea here is tho blessed are those who hunger and thirst for right? Thinking. Blessed are those who are really striving for right thinking, for being in alignment with, with Spirit, for being in alignment with your highest self.

Now, we all might have some goals or some dreams or some things that we’re seeking. And you might have be seeking something in your life, like maybe more health or wholeness. You might be seeking more prosperity or maybe even more purpose in life. You, you might be looking or seeking to overcome some things to overcome alcohol or smoking or overeating. You might even be seeking to achieve a goal or to just do life a little bit better. Can you find yourself in any of those ideas where there is something out there that we’re seeking some greater expression of ourselves? Now, this, this idea, as I’m, as I was going through and thinking about this idea, I’m also taking a class on Saturdays. I’m in my third quarter of what’s called integral ministry. And it’s where I’m learning how to apply integral theory to this concept of ministry.

Looking at How to Create a Better Life

Because consciousness is changing. And as consciousness change changes, culture changes. Has anybody seen any culture change in the last 10 years, let alone the last three years? Yeah, culture’s changing. And when culture changes, one of the last things to change historically have been churches because we’re so stuck in our old way of thinking. And so this class is all about loosening up and letting go and seeking out the structure, right? Not the platitudes, not the repetition, but seeking a new experience and a new expression, seeking a new attitude. And when I was in this class wrestling with this idea, one of my colleagues was talking about this idea of, of he meant, he said that he’s in a few AA programs. And one of the things that one of his sponsors said was, what you put on the inside is what you wear on the outside.

Now, that is true on so many levels, not just the physical level, right? What I put into my body I’m going to wear as I walk around in the world, but it works in the level of consciousness as well. The thoughts that I put into me, I’m going to express, I’m gonna show. So what mindset are you consuming? What mindset are you holding throughout the day? And what are you hungering and thirsting for? If we all have those goals and those dreams and those things that we’re seeking, how thirsty are you for it? Is there a lot of passion in it, or has it just become a platitude for you? You know, I, I’ve, I’ve gone on a few diets in my time and different, different ways of trying to lose weight and I want to lose weight and I get to a certain point, and it’s a platitude at that point, right?

It’s good enough because I don’t have the hunger and thirst to be even more healthy or being more spry or being able to climb those hills a little bit easier. I’ve been on, on the road of spiritual journey, my spiritual path of learning new things and growing, and then I get to a platitude. Anybody get to a plateau where you’re just like, the view’s pretty good from up here. I’m done I’m good enough, I’m gonna sit right here. Even though someone up above me saying, gosh, the view is even better up there. That’s all right. I’m good until I decide I’m hungry and thirsty for more. So that hunger and thirst is really that striving, that being passionate and being excited about being in alignment, being in alignment so that you can create and experience a life that is more appealing to you. That we can do life better, life gets better, whatever you want to call it. You’re seeing things through new perspective. So what thoughts, words, and attitudes are you consuming? And how does it show up for you? How are you wearing it in your life?

So as you think about those things, if you think about that one goal or that one desire, that one dream that you’re really looking for, how can you amp up your own passion for it? How can you shift your mindset around it so that it is important enough for you to really go for it? To let go of the fear, the fear of success, the fear of failure, the fear of what other people are gonna think. Whatever those fears are, let them go and just really go for it. And so, I, I love this, this idea, Eric Butterworth had this affirmation, I seek with all of my heart and mind, and I shall find, I seek with all my heart and mind, and I shall find. Would you affirm that with me together, I seek with all my heart and mind and I shall find.

Finding the Right Attitude

That was good practice. Let’s do it one more time. I seek with all my heart and mind and I shall find. And what you find is how you are seeking what you find is the mindset that you’re coming to the world. You know, so often we think about this idea of, I want things to be this way, and they’re this way, but they’re still going in the right direction. But we get a little jarred because it’s not exactly what we thought it was going to be. But when you seek with all of your heart and all of your mind, when you seek with, when you seek with passion for right thinking, ah, now here’s the shift. It’s not quite seeking with passion for what you want out there. It’s let me just show up with the right attitude about what I want. And when I show up with a right attitude about what I want, then I’m easily able to maneuver and shift and change my view depending on how the universe answers me. And the universe always answers.

So seek that spiritual mindset, and as you do, you will be overflowing with possibility. And then you, you have the ability to move your feet from that state of consciousness as opposed to the limited view. I think of a horse, you know, with those blinders on in the city as they’re flipping down the, the streets. That’s how we go through life so many times. It’s just, we’re blinded by what we don’t wanna see, what we do want to see, and, and we’re missing out on so much. So seek first that spiritual mindset seek first that that willingness to be one with the allness of life. Now our second beatitude, blessed are the merciful, so they shall obtain mercy. Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s a platitude for me when I hear those words, blessed are the merciful. So they sh so shall obtain mercy. Yep. Okay, I got it. But what does it mean to me and what does it really show up in me? And how does that show up? I love what Eric Butterworth did or, or wrote in the book, book, discover the Power Within You. He defined this, this attitude, this spiritual mindset as this attitude reveals the law of consciousness.

If you want to be loved, you must love. If you want friends, you must be friendly. If you want just treatment, you must. And he says, life is lived from the inside out. So what the master teacher is saying here is this is a model for how to live. If what you’re seeking out there, what you’re seeking out there, you must first experience in here. And as you experience that in here, you will see it in the world. You will find it in the world, you will be attracted to it in the world, and you will move in that direction. It may seem like it’s being attracted to you magically, but it’s really you being in the right mindset and then moving in that direction of having that spiritual mindset and moving in that direction. Butterworth continues. You may, you may not always be able to change the world about you, anybody experience that, but you can change your thoughts about the world. And when you do this, you change your world, which is the world of your thought and your consciousness.

Where’s Your Spiritual Mindset?

So this, this weekend, it was a beautiful weekend. Yesterday was a beautiful day. I had just finished my class and my brain was overflowing after two hours of integral theory and, and spiral dynamics and all and how to apply it to ministry. And if you, if you want to know about that, then stick around for the next three years because we’ll be figuring it out together. And so I was unwinding, right? My brain was full, I was unwinding my brain and I’m just relaxing. And, and Ray is home, they, Ray’s got in in a, the Cinderella ballet coming up and my wife Tiffany and my daughter Ray, were fixing her outfit by jeweling, her costumes. She’s one of the, one of the fairies and which is a pretty decent role. It’s a good big role. And so she’s getting, they’re all excited about that. And the phone rings and Tiffany’s phone. So Tiffany picks it up and, and I can tell immediately it’s my son Ethan now. So Ethan is heading off to Santa Cruz Capitola to to visit his girlfriend and, his girlfriend prevents family for the long, for the long weekend. So he’s up heading up towards Santa Cruz and I hear one side of the conversation, “okay, was anybody hurt?”

Yeah. So what emotion did you just feel? Now think about that as if it as if it were your 17 year old son or child. So okay, and, and is everyone, you know, is everyone staying there? Yes, we’re trading insurance, we’re getting pictures of everything. No one’s hurt. Car looks fine. It he was. And then here’s what happened. And then we’re, we’re moving on. What else should I do? So we talked about get everyone’s phone number, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, all those things that the parents talk about, you know what they’re talking about, right? You know what to do if you’re get the little fender bender, right? I don’t have to, I don’t have to go there, get my motion’s back in check here. So so he said, okay, he does all the things. I’ll text it to you when I get to Capitola. So he starts up the hill to go on 17 to go to go over over the, over the hill. You go up the hill to go over the hill. In this particular case, not always. That’s a different talk. So

Yeah, this is a good one. So he’s like, okay, you know, so first is everyone okay? Second, here’s what you do. Third, what the heck did he do? What did he do wrong? Fourth. Okay, it wasn’t his fault. So it turns out, you know, they were all coming onto 17 from Highway nine in Los Gatos, and there’s a lot of bushes. And it came to a stop and the person in front of him stopped. He stopped the person behind him. Didn’t quite stop soon enough, bumped into him, bumped in the front car, they all got off, everything’s fine.

So where’s my spiritual mindset now? I’m like, okay, everything’s, everything’s okay. You know, no one’s hurt, everything’s fine. 10 minutes later there’s another phone call. This time on my phone because I, apparently Tiffany wasn’t hearing her phone. So the second phone call was okay, the car stopped, the all of the lights are going on. There’s smoke coming out of the engine. I pulled off the side of the road and I turned and, and some guy came up who had a firefighter, you know, t-shirt on and told me to turn off the engine. I mean, these are things that you don’t think about, right? This car’s smoking. Do you turn off the engine? If you’re a new driver, maybe you don’t think about these things. So I’m sitting there thinking, of course you turn off the engine. Where’s my spiritual mindset now?

So it’s like, okay, we’re coming to get you. So you’re safe, you’re off the road. It’s a giant turn off on 17, they now have like three, right? Normally it’s like this narrow. He was that one of the, he stopped amazingly, he had the insight to stop at the right place, not amazingly. See, there’s my spiritual mindset again. Where is it? What did he do wrong this time? And and as we’re going, we get in the car and Tiffany and I are driving up there and I’m calling AAA and they’re meeting us there. And I’m like, oh, okay. I, I got back to no one’s hurt it, you know, it, this happens. We’ve all had this happen to us at one point in time or another. Everything’s fine. Tiffany, the mother is like, yeah, I’m not there yet.

It’s all good. I understand, I understand. So getting back to that spiritual mindset of just seeking, right? Thinking of that spiritual mindset of knowing if you want love, be loving. If you want calm peace in your life, be calm and peaceful even in those situations. So I, I’m, I’m running through this in my head, not saying it out loud. There was no there there yet, and that’s okay. Just allowing her to be. And we got there, we, we, the tow truck got there and the more we went along, we, we followed the tow truck back to the, to the place. So they’re gonna check it out and, and it’s like, okay, we were going back to that spiritual mindset. Even when things don’t end up the way you want them to end up, right? I would’ve loved to have said prayers and have him magically appear in Capitola without a scratch. That’s not how prayer works. Prayer gets us our mindset to that highest point of thinking. That’s what prayer is, getting us into that spiritual mindset that we are one, regardless of the situation. And it’s not always easy. I think when we’re there, it feels like, what did I call it? Passionately shining. Have you ever experienced that? When you’re passionately shining, it may be about a thing, it may be an experience. That’s when everything’s clicking and that’s what these two beatitudes are talking about. When you have that mindset, you can be passionately shining in life. And when we’re not use these tubey attitudes to get back to a place of balance within us,

That’s what it’s all about. It’s always about returning. Cuz we’re, we’re in this rhythm of ups and downs in life, of things going the way we want them to go, and not so much. So these mindsets help us move back into that space where we’re one, where we’re one heart moves us back into that space where, you know, wherever we’re at right now, God is.

Casey was talking about the third principle in unity. And this is really what that third principle is all about. In this message, Jesus is asking us, inviting us actually to step up into a greater consciousness within us, to step up to a greater understanding within us and with what’s happening in the world. And to step up in our mindset, to invoke a higher and an intentional way of living, of living that law. Of the third principle, the law of mind. Action for those things that we think about and give great attention to are how we see the world.