Enrich Your Life With a Spiritual Mindset: Part 5 | Rev. John Riley

Good morning. We are in the fifth of a five part series that I’ve been calling Spiritual Mindset to help us develop a spiritual Mindset. And we’ve been using the profound eight verse prose poem by the master teacher Jesus called the Beatitudes, or what author and unity minister Eric Butterworth called the Beatitudes, attitudes of Beingness. This is how we show up in the world. Now, these eight beatitudes really set the stage. It’s the foundation for the master teacher’s teachings for what he came here to impart To us, it’s the foundation of Jesus’s teachings, but not from a standpoint of conforming to a set of rules. And anybody hears a bunch of rules that we’re supposed to conform to. That wasn’t his message. His message wasn’t conforming, but rather transforming, transforming our life by adopting a spiritual mindset. 

Embracing Humility and Happiness in Spiritual Transformation

Now, what is your mindset? Your mindset is, is your established set of attitudes that you hold. It’s those thoughts, those ways of being that you are holding. Essentially, it’s your personal belief system that’s been developed over a lifetime of experiences, conditioning and storytelling. So instead of conforming, instead of conforming to your personal “BS”, sorry, belief system. What we’re here is to focus on what the Apostle Paul called the transformation of your life. Through the renewing of your mind, allowing ourselves, our minds to shift into a new perspective, into a new mindset, and so on. On this fourth journey, the way I read this last beatitude is the idea of steadfast on the path. But to get us there, what I want to do is go back to the other four and not go through the whole, you know, four hours of talk again, but just to reiterate what they mean and ground ourselves in it. Are you good? Yes. So we’re going to begin with being humble and happy. Happy beingness, humble and happy beingness.

Embracing Humility and Happiness in the Kingdom of Heaven

The first beatitude establishes the idea that the kingdom of heaven is in your consciousness here and now. It is a state of consciousness. When we are aligned with that one presence and one power in the universe, it is a state of conscious oneness. Not just talking about it, not just, you know, having an intellectual discussion about what oneness means, but really having an attitude and knowing of your oneness with Spirit, with God, with source, with substance, with all that’s around us, with each other. For we’re all one in this giant tapestry of life. By letting go of our egoic pride and narcissism, we become receptive to the ever-present expression of life, love and infinite wisdom that flow in through and as us. That idea of humble, happy beingness. We let our ego take a little break. And so let’s have our first affirmation on the screen. 

Embracing Peaceful Strength

I’ll invite you to take a nice deep breath and just settle into this affirmation. I’ll read it once, then invite you to affirm it. I am open and receptive to the inflow and the outpouring of all there is in God. Together I am open and receptive to the inflow and the outpouring of all there is in God. And so it is. Next, we will go on to the idea. The beatitudes that I term as peaceful strength. Peaceful strength. The next two attitudes talk about our deep inner longing for the gifts of Spirit.

Softening Rigid Boundaries for Spiritual Strength

That deep inner longing to, for that which is within us to emerge, that which was within us, that is trying to emerge every day. That’s that longing within us to be more, we may confuse it with external realities. We may confuse it with prosperity or abundance or money or things or power or relationships, but those are all the ways through which that omnipresent substance flows in all of those things. So that those things are not the focus of our attention, but rather the gifts of focusing on the allness of God, the peaceful strength within the awareness of our emerging within us, within the collective human consciousness is that greater awareness of oneness, a greater expression of unity with Spirit. It is the indwelling spiritual strength seeking to express itself. To allow it to express itself. We must soften what is rigid on the inside.

Allowing the Emergence of Spiritual Strength

We must soften what is rigid on the inside. That belief system that holds us to a certain way of being. We need to be able to begin to soften that and allow it to melt away, if you will, rather than being this hard, fast thing that we’re living our life based on. Allow that egoic structure to melt away so that we can allow more of that inner strength to emerge. More of that inner peace, more of that inner love to emerge and will we allow ourselves to express what is, what to soften, what is rigid on the inside. That underlying biases and beliefs, we open ourselves to that inner spiritual strength. And so our affirmation for that one was, I am open. Oh, I soften what is rigid within with inner peace. I am deeply in touch with Spirit. Together. I soften what is rigid within with inner peace.

Passionately Expressing The Light Within

I am deeply in touch with Spirit. So we’ve established ourselves as humble and happy, just knowing that we’re one with the infinite flow of life, love and wisdom we’re allowing it to be. We understand that that wisdom comes from within, that peace comes from within. And when we have established inner peace that is expressed in our life, and we can move through it through life with strength and ease. And at that point we’re able to really start to feel and see the results from our mindset shift. And so then we start to passionately shine our light to passionately shine our light. When we taste that inner bliss of Spirit, we hunger and thirst for it. We consciously seek to express it in every aspect of our lives, and we focus our attention on our lying, our thoughts and our words and our actions with the allness of life, love and wisdom.

Expressing Love and Peace from a Spiritual Mindset

Imagine aligning your thoughts with the allness of Spirit, aligning your thoughts with the idea of love, with the idea of expressing harmony, with the idea of being that peaceful presence in the world in any circumstance. Being able to move from that and passionately shine your gifts, what you’re here to do in life, the gifts that you have for the world that each of us has something to give to the world, something beautiful. And so our affirmation for passionately shining, I keep my thoughts centered upon those things that I want to see manifest in my life. I seek with all my heart and mind. I passionately shine my light together. I keep my thoughts centered upon those things that I want to see manifest in my life. I seek with all my heart and mind, I passionately shine. And that brings us to Expressing unity. Gotta keep track of all the attitudes. So now that we’re shining our light, it’s really the idea of living that idea of unity, living that idea of oneness, of knowing that we are all one in the universe, and that we can move and express through that. And as you proceed in this manner, as you clean your lens, your view of life, you begin to see the world from a new spiritual mindset attuned to the infinite and expressing your noble higher self, your love and peace in the world, being that presence in the world, really expressing that unity in everything that you do. 

Embracing Divine Purpose in the Face of Adversity

And our affirmation for expressing unity was, I am consciously in unity with the illness. I am a radiating center of peace and love together. I am consciously in unity with allness. I am a radiating center of peace and love. And so it is. And that brings us to the final beatitude, the final section of our, of our series here, steadfast on the path. The beatitude says, blessed are they that are being persecuted for righteousness is sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you and falsely for my sake, rejoice and exceed gladly for great. Is your reward in heaven for so persecuted the prophets that were before you. Well, that sounds like a fun one.

Overcoming Resistance on the Path of Spiritual Transformation

Everyone excited for this one? So this sounds like it can be very much at odds with the other beatitudes, the other seven. Yes. Does it sound a little different? All of a sudden it was said that blessed are you, when you are persecuted, blessed on you. When people say all kinds of bad stuff about you, false stuff about you, evil stuff about you, for my sake. What we need to realize, and well actually some people throughout the years have interpreted this as the idea that you must suffer in this experience. You must be a martyr. And martyrdom is part of the path in this experience. Have you ever heard of that in your lifetime? Yeah. And that erroneous, I think erroneous thought has created that sense of separation within us has created a sense of you, you of suffering. 

That is just part of our experience now. But when you begin to shift your Bs, belief system. Belief system, thank you. Thank you Lisa. When you begin to shift your mindset, there will be pushback. Have you ever experienced that? Yes. You come across a new idea, a new way of thinking, a new way of being, and you want to express that out into the world. What’s the first thing you wanna do? Share. Share. Yeah. You wanna tell other people you wanna share because out of the goodness of your heart. Because look, this is something that has really made a difference in my life. And you wanna share that with someone else? And what’s been the reaction? Sometimes Rejection. Rejection. What was it? What? What show was that? I don’t remember. Yeah, family food maybe. Yes, that is, thank you. We want to share. And so we get so enthusiastic that we get a little pushy. What else? We want to tell people how it should be. Fix other people. Fix other people.

Embracing Personal Growth in Unity

Anything else. You know, you know what you need. Anybody have a relative that they want to fix? You know what you need. And then there’s also the, you know, I want it my way, the great tune. I want it my way. Was that the way, was that, was that good? Was that key there? Thank you very much. Yeah. The idea that we want it our way, that it has to be the way that, that we understand it, this new idea. So yes, there will be external pushback, there will be external pushback. And what does that tell you? Quit pushing. Quit pushing out there. One of the things that’s interesting about unity is we don’t talk about unity from the perspective of proselytizing saying, this is the way you need to, you need to live your life in order, you know, to, to to live your life with grace or in order to be in God’s good grace in order to be present.

Liberation from Self-Imposed Limitations

There are many paths up this mountain, many paths and unity is, but one of them. But what we know is that when we try these things and, and, and practice ’em in our life and give them a chance, they have transformed lives, dramatically transformed lives, so that people are experiencing more openness, more a sense of personal freedom, more bliss, more peace in their life. Eric Butterworth likes this quote, but what he says about it, and this is probably more important, there is a deeper and more meaningful application of this beatitude. The emphasis is on attitudes. Yes. It deals with our thinking. The persecution takes place within our own mind. And the persecutor is our own err thought. The own is an errant thought in our own mind. We are the ones that are persecuting ourselves. 

Overcoming Inner Resistance

Now, this is true. Whenever you learn anything new, whenever you start to shift that mindset and you start to open yourself to something new, you know what happens? Everything that’s opposite of it begins to appear in your life. Everything that’s opposite of it, because those old belief systems start to fight back. They don’t wanna be destroyed. They don’t wanna be swept aside. They want to stand firm. That this is the way it is. And yeah, Reverend John, oh Sha, you’re almighty divine people. But I know the truth, right? Or you know, yes, this is the message of unity, but my family keeps calling me cold-hearted. This is the message of unity that I’m a spiritual being, but I’m not getting anywhere. I just got fired. I get, you know, things are not going well in my job, my relationship, the person just left me, or I’m just leaving someone for greener pastures and then greener pastures and then greener pastures and then greener pastures. I mean, you can say that about anything in our life, cuz that’s what happens. That belief system starts to fight back. You’re persecuting yourself for having these belief systems that don’t quite align with your current state of thinking. And so our goal here is, is not to, is really just to gently allow these attitudes to shift you, to gently allow the attitude and to stay steadfast on the path. To stay on the path. 

Navigating Life’s Wilderness with Spiritual Markers

In Lisa’s opening, she said two things that really sparked me. One made me cry. I had to get the Kleenex before I even came up. I’m gonna go with the first one. It was the National Park comment. My first experience. I’ve grown up camping all the time and, and you know, in a campground you can wander away. And I remember my parents gave me my whistle. So if I get lost, I can blow the whistle. But it was in a campground and I couldn’t wander very far. Right? I always made it back. My first real backpacking experience in the Sierras was at age 14. We weren’t camping, we were hiking up the hill for miles at a time. Now if you’ve ever been backpacking, the trails aren’t always easy to find, but they have markers, there’s stacks of stone, there’s markings on trees that market. And you need to look out for these markings so that you can stay on the path. Cuz if you wander off in the middle of the Sierras, what’s gonna happen? They’re gonna have to call the National Park Scissor Service. Someone’s gonna have to come and find you without a cell phone.

Navigating Roadblock

Someone else will have to call the National Park Service. Stay steadfast on the path. When you start to encounter these roadblocks within you, these thoughts within you that say, well, I’m not good enough. These thoughts within you say, well, he’s not talking about me. These thoughts within you say, you know, yeah, but these other people don’t agree with me. You know, they’re saying something completely different. When you start to hit these roadblocks, stay on the path. That’s how you know you’re heading in the right direction when things get tough, because unity is not for, I’m not gonna say it, it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s for people that really want to transform their life. People who really want to experience a greater sense of peace, experience a greater sense of wholeness and wellbeing and bliss and joy. And it’s not like life is gonna be perfect, but it allows you to show up differently with a different mindset, with a different way of looking at the world. So that when you, when the road gets tough, you’re able to draw upon those other mindsets. 

Draw upon your inner strength, draw upon your inner peace, draw upon your, your, your sense of wellbeing and wholeness. And knowing that you’re one with the infinite flow of life. Love and wisdom to set aside some time to meditate so that you don’t have to spend all that time with your bs. That’s the point. That’s ain’t a word. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. They’re not with you vibing with you on that one. Try it again. Word. Word. Go. Got this section over here. We gotta work on that section back there, it’s that being in a line, it’s, it’s really like, I don’t know where to go. I’m hitting this roadblock. I don’t know where to go. But what I do know is that I could turn within that internal GPS system, to that internal wisdom of God, to the internal intelligence that leads me on the path. And I do it with love because harmony is the energy of love. And when I do it with the idea of harmony in my life, the path opens up to me. When you hit the roadblock, keep walking, find your bearings, get back on the path, and move forward. Just keep going. One step at a time, one day at a time. When you fall back, when you’re off the path, when you fall to the wayside, sit down, take a breath, take a breath, meditate, find your bearings. And then when you’re ready to get back up and get back to the path, just keep returning.

Embracing Imperfect Brilliance

That’s the brilliance of, of his teaching. Cuz it’s just like, no, it isn’t perfect. Life is not gonna be perfect. Just like Deborah’s saying, life is messy and exciting and scary and juicy and barren. It’s all of those things. And yet when we meet it with that spiritual mindset that I’m one with the infinite flow of life, love and wisdom, that all of my good comes from within, from source, from that idea that, that just, it’s always there. We will find our way. So keep learning, keep growing, keep going, keep building your consciousness because there is something within you that’s seeking to express itself and it’s coming out great. More and more in, in the collective human consciousness and the collective ego consciousness. And we know it is because it seems like the opposite is happening everywhere. Have you noticed that? Or is that just my judgmental thinking?

We are the ones to bring that energy to the world. We’re the ones to express that goodness into the world. We’re here to stay on the path and keep going. Now, there are lots of classes. Any class that Unity teaches or offers is one way to learn, build your spiritual intelligence, and deepen your spiritual experience. One of my favorites is what I call, what we call the Quantum Living Class. Don’t get caught up by the name. It’s not my name. You know, I’m a licensed quantum living teacher. It’s their IP, intellectual property, and that’s what they call the class. So get over it. I like the idea of the art and practice of living with nothing and no one against you. That’s provocative. The art and practice of living with nothing and no one against you. Will there be people against you? Will there be people throwing tomatoes at you as Brene Brown’s? Are there people in the cheap seats? Yes. Don’t worry about them. You need more tomatoes in your diet anyway. I don’t know, just keep going. Keep returning to that presence within you. Keep allowing it to flow through you. 

So the Quantum Living class teaches us a process through which you can do it, because what comes up, some of the things that come up in our belief system are old wounds. Things that happened, you know, what was, it was a three year old that happened, you know, this happened to me and I’m gonna ruminate on it. That’s what comes back up. And so it helps us move through an aware peace session that allows us to move through it and to give ourselves our own sense of healing. Because true healing always comes from within the Spirit, always moves from within. Our healing doesn’t come from, you know, the magical check that’s coming into your bank account. It always comes from inside out, leading you to your higher good, leading you down the path where you can express and experience a greater sense of abundance, a greater sense of peace, a greater sense of joy and oneness and relationship with yourself, with God, with each other. And so our affirmation for today on my spiritual journey, I bless and press on past my human limitations to a deepening awareness and an increasing releasement of my potential divinity.