Finding Peace in Life | Rev. John Riley

Finding Peace in Life

Well, welcome everyone. We are continuing our spiritual journey of advent. It is the spiritual preparation for the birth or the re awakening of the Christ potential that’s in each of us, the divine potential that is within all of us. And today again, thanks to Brenna, we lit again the light of flame of faith. The fam, the flame of faith. Can you say that five times fast, the fame of faith. Oh, nope. I can’t…I don’t think I can say it Once. Flame of flame. Yeah. The, the flame of faith. That experience that, that energy that flows through us, that that moves us along our path. Much more than a simple belief, but, but the actual deep inner knowing of Spirit in our lives. Faith is really the idea of affirming the power and presence of God. The energy and activity of spirit that moves in through, and all of us, the energy of the allness of life and however we experience it, we might experience it as that loving presence. We might experience it as that uplifting energy. But it, it’s, it’s that which moves us, moves our feet, and, and keeps us going down our path.  A quick example, my son Ethan, as as you may know, goes to Pese on the varsity football team. And I just a congratulations to the Palo Alto varsity football team for being division five CCS champions. You can give them applause. That’s right. And just last Friday night, they went to the, the Northern California Regional Division Six AA. I don’t know the, I don’t know the terms, but they went to those championships and guess how they did? They won. They played fantastic.

Except for a couple plays, but no, they were wonderful. They did lose, it was a very close game and very hard, hard fought. And of course, you know, at the end of a season, at all of the seniors who, this is the maybe their last football game that they ever played, a lot of emotion that creates in here. So what does this have to do with faith? So faith is that idea. So our family was there, this was Friday night. It had rained all day Thursday, if you recall. And so it was very damp and it got down to about 38 degrees. And so it was cold. Now, I know those of you who are, are not born and raised in California like I am, say 30. That’s nothing. You know this. What about in Minnesota where the snows falling horizontally and they’re playing football?

Yes. I don’t understand how that happens, but growing up in Southern California, we very rarely, I very rarely wore pants. So let alone 39 degrees in, in the night is pretty cold. So faith is like even in the loss, getting back into the car and turning on those warm electric seats. And my little electric car, faith is like that warmth that comes in and says, it’s all okay. God is present. The energy of spirit is present, even in the face of defeat. It’s all okay. We can still move forward. We can, we can take solace. We can, and we can honor ourselves for the, the, the, the goal that we that we achieved a change, you know, winning ccs for the first time in, I think 12 years or 14 years, or 16 years or something like that. So, and know that we are still comforted. We are still held by that loving presence. So that’s, that’s what this idea of faith is for me. And that brings us to the advent of peace. So coming from that energy, that’s the starting point, is faith. Coming from that energy, we move into the advent of peace. And peace is really true. Inner peace is developing our awareness of the divine consciousness that is within you. And practicing being a peacemaker in your own mind.

Peace vs. Negative Thoughts

My talk is a peaceful heart. And to have that peace in your heart, you must begin by settling down that thinking thing in your head that’s busy yelling at you, that’s busy telling the stories that’s busy criticizing you, because there are in our lives, going to be discordant thoughts. Yes, there are gonna be times when we fight hard and fail, and the other team wins. However, that shows up for us. There may be harsh, jarring or disagreeing thoughts. There may, may, the yabos in our life, you know, the yabos right, right down from the Flintstones. Oh no, that’s a different story. The yabos, the, I should have Shiites, they were ancient Egypt group of people.

All of those incongruent thoughts that flicker through our flame of faith, you know, that, that blow it. And, wave, wave us off of center. I’m looking at our candle and sometimes it’s flickering. And you know, that idea that sometimes that wind can just blow out our faith altogether because we’re allowing those discordant thoughts to be our experience of life. Now, there are times when we will grieve, and that’s perfectly healthy and normal and natural. And there will times when we will feel the sting of the pain. And that’s totally normal and natural. And we can feel all tho those things and still have within us that warmth knowing that we are guided along the way. And so the advent of peace is all about allowing those feelings without attaching ourselves to those thoughts, without making those thoughts, those discordant thoughts, our experience of life, our identity, if you will.

How Ego Relates to You

Because those discordant thoughts aren’t created by the situations out there. They’re created in here in our mind, and they’re created by ego. Now they’re created by ego because ego always sees itself as separate. Ego sees itself as separate from everyone else, and ego blames everything and everyone else outside of it for any of those experiences. Have you noticed, just ask ego and ego, is that that voice in us that you know, starts to criticize ourselves? Even that voice that starts to put ourselves down, ego, or the, the adverse ego, as I like to call it, is, is the wounded shadow part of us that lashes out. But then there’s the other side of us, the divine side. And our divinity knows itself as one with the whole, our divinity knows itself as one with the whole, our ego may see itself as separate.

I’m separate from all of you and I’m competing with all of you. And you know, we have to work together if we’re gonna succeed, or I’m gonna push you out. You know, all of those things are of ego. Seeing ourselves as separate ego by nature is a dualistic thinking is a duality. But our divinity, that truer self within us knows that we’re whole, that we’re one with the whole, that we’re one with the allness of life. And divinity is here to express that. To express it. And here’s the thing, divinity, as spiritual wholeness knows its spiritual wholeness in all actions, in all activities, in all experiences. Even when we lose divinity is that warm, comforting feeling. And divinity knows that ego is just an ever evolving part of our soul. You know, a lot of times we have this idea, or I’ve heard this idea that we have to get rid of ego so that our divinity can shine.

I don’t believe that’s true at all, because our divinity, our ego, is simply part of our expression. It’s part of who we are. It’s the it’s the fun part. Yeah. It’s also the shadow part. Yeah. It’s also the unfun part. It’s the part that comes out when we’re frustrated and angry. That’s, that’s ego. That’s our adverse ego. But our positive ego is the one who celebrates all of the joy and all of the experience. Excuse me. And so divinity knows that that’s just part of our evolving consciousness, to know our wholeness, to experience our wholeness. And that ego is what’s seeking to learn more and to grow and seeking transformation.

The Ego and Resistance 

And so when we allow that ego to be, without blaming it, without shaming it, without should of biting it, without, yeah, biting it, just allowing it to be the path for the ego to recognize itself as one with the divine is through the heart. It’s through the heart. And the path that the ego can take that we can all take, is the practice that we can take is the path of releasing and recognizing. So we’re releasing ego’s resistance. Notice I’m saying ego not your right. Let’s not identify with it. Let’s just say this is part of me that’s resisting. Part of me is resisting the cold. Part of me is resisting the loss. Part of me is resisting what’s happening out there and everything that we resist, everything that we focus on, right? As we talked about last week, don’t focus on the problem, focus on God, don’t focus on the loss of the lack. Allow it to be and allow it to move through us, but focus on the solution. Focus on what’s outside of us. Because when we re resist, when we re what re resist persists, in fact, it shackles us to the situation. Pardon me, I need to get a glass of water.  Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you very much. Thank you for your understanding,

So how much of our resistance, how much of that stress and strain that we’re focused on is really distress, not based on the present on what is, but based on what was, how much of our discordant thoughts are based on the past? What happened in a relationship? What happened, you know, 30 years ago? What happened five minutes ago? How much are we fixated on that past? And all of this creates discordant thoughts within our heads. And so instead of focusing on the past, focus on the present, focus on the presence and power of God. That’s everywhere present. That is within all of us. And that’s the source, that spark that’s within us of our divinity.

Our Wounds

The path of releasing, recognizes, releasing ego’s, attachment to the wound itself. Sometimes when we get so attached to the challenge and the wound that we had, we make it a part of our identity and it creates unforgiveness within us. And all unforgiveness shackles us to the wound itself. So you’re getting – are you getting the clue here? It’s really about looking at, acknowledging all of these things that are within us and allowing them to recognize, “oh, this is what’s driving my life.” This is what’s been driving my behavior. What if I can let go of that concern and look at the solution? What if I can let go of the pain and the suffering that I’m creating within me and allow that warm comfort of God to hold me, to embrace me? What if I can release the wound that I’m holding onto and let it heal all by itself? Now, how many of you, when you were a kid scraped your knee, anybody scrape anybody not scrape their knee? Gosh, you got that big raspberry, you know, it turned into a nice big scab. Anybody remember that? And then what did, what did our nice little 10 year old kid do? We picked at the scab and it just kept getting worse. And parents kept saying, just leave it alone. Do you remember that? Yeah.

That’s like us as adults, we have this wound and we keep picking at it. We keep picking at it, and it gets worse. It almost goes away. We keep picking at it and it comes back. What if we release it, release the attachment to it, release the –  you know, do what you need to do for your scraped knees. I’m not saying don’t do anything for your wounds, right? We can go ahead and we can get the help that we need to get. We can process it healthily however that means to us. But we don’t have to allow that to run our life. We can release it and allow it to heal and let the healing happen all by itself. There’s… I think this is a part of the scripture that I really like, and I have it down there.

Going Back to Faith 

I’m gonna grab it in a second that really comes alive for me. It’s from Paul’s letter to the Colossions. And this is it was written people thinking around 62 of the common. So 62 years after Jesus’ death. And it was actually written after Paul was imprisoned in Rome. And some it even says that it was written by Paul and Timothy or Brother Timothy. And many scholars believed that it was actually Timothy that wrote the body of the letter. And then Paul signed it at the end. But the the words that it talks about really brings out what we’re talking about here. Let me grab it.

The Colossians at this point in time were, what do we call it? Off the path. They were reverting to old behaviors. They were reverting to some less savory behaviors. This is a good chapter if you wanna read it. It really talks about “don’t go back to those old behaviors that you were doing.” Go back to faith. And it says in there, therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Anybody have a disagreement with that? No. Be gentle with yourself. Allow yourself to be, you know, kind and compassionate. Be gentle, gentle with each other. Have humility and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. If you have any, if any of you has any grievance against someone, forgive. Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. Now, we’ve talked about forgiveness a lot here in Unity.

Of course, forgiveness isn’t an outer act. It isn’t saying it’s okay what you did, or it, you know, it’s, it’s not making it okay? It’s not becoming a doormat or ignoring it. Forgiveness is an inner releasing of our own that we’ve created, right? As they say, unforgiveness is like poisoning the other person and expecting, poisoning yourself and expecting the other person to die. All forgiveness is internal. All forgiveness is within. And so forgive and let go so that you can live more from that place of your divine self, of your divinity, of that Christ’s nature.

For the Unmotivated – Open Your Heart

And all over and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace, peace of Christ rule in your heart. Let that Christ consciousness, that idea, that divinity within you rule. Allow that perfect peace that is always strong. All was whole to rule since as me members of one body, you were all, you called to peace and be thankful. What a great practice for us. So for me, this really comes to the idea of when I’m feeling thoughts of fear or doubt. When I’m feeling those discordant thoughts of frustration or anger, when I’m feeling scared, when I’m feeling stuck and I don’t have the motivation, anybody not have motivation. Sometimes it’s like, “oh, I’m not gonna do it today.”

My practice is very simple. It’s the words “have an open heart.” Cuz what that does for me is it takes me immediately out of the discordant thoughts and puts me in my heart, how can I in this situation have an open heart? How can I embody peace? How can I embody kindness and compassion? How can I embody humility and patience? How can I allow that to guide me? And as soon as I do that, I’m out of my head. My ego is like, okay, I’m now working for spirit. I’m now working for my divinity. How can I be in this moment and be at peace and have a peaceful heart? It goes back to the idea of affirming the presence and power of God within us, to affirming the energy and activity of Spirit moving through us to affirming that divine intelligence is available to us.

Whatever we think we are lacking or needing, it’s all there. It’s just waiting for us to release our hold on the problem. It’s waiting for us to stop resisting what’s happening and move into the flow of God. Now this idea of, you know, have an open heart is what I do in the middle of the challenge. And what do I do every other time, every other day? Well, I try to practice it because iit’s not always easy in some situations to remember that, but when we practice it on the little things in life, it becomes easier and easier when we practice it by just going into meditation and prayer with the intention to be, have a peaceful heart. Then we start to cultivate that experience by affirming that within us, that joy that’s within us and resting in that peace within us. Let’s move to our affirmation. I’m going to read this once so you can get a sense of it and, and embody it, and then we’ll affirm it together.