You Have the Power to Change the World | Rev. John Riley

And so, today, I really want to focus on this idea of blessing and healing the world because it’s about, as we know in metaphysics, as we know in Unity, it’s about changing consciousness.  It’s about changing how we approach the world through our thoughts and our words and our actions.  

The Power of Thoughts and Words

Lisa gave a great demonstration of that this morning when she was trying to remember the law of mind action. And the reason she was having trouble with that was because right before she got up on stage, I asked her, “Hey, is everything okay?”  She’s like, “Oh, I’m fine.  I guess I’m a little nervous.  Sometimes I get nervous.”  She’s gets up and speaks in front of hundreds of people every day and so I planted that seed in her and then that was just like what happened.  So, you can thank me for that.  Yeah.  

I love that, right before I get on for a service someone comes up and just lays something on me.  It’s like, “Can you wait until after the service, at least?”  Thanks.  I appreciate it.  Thanks for giving me that slack.  But you see, that’s where it begins.  That simple example is how we express our thoughts, our words and our actions, that simple idea.  It shows us how powerful our words and thoughts are.  

When I was in college, I was finishing up one of my last management courses for my bachelor’s degree and they were all case studies and I had to do paper after paper after paper each week on the case study.  Then I had to present my own case study and get critiqued by the class.  My practice was, wait — I don’t have my watch on — wait until the last minute, preferably midnight the night before and then write your paper.  Anybody have that practice?  Yeah, I don’t recommend it.  I got A’s on every paper.  The one class, I got A’s.  I blew away my professor on my case study.  I just blew it out of the park.  One of the students, because we are critiqued, asked me a question, “Can’t you find any challenges here?”  He was just really trying to dig in.  Of course, I fired back, “Did you read the case study?”  Then the professor is like, “Did you read the case study?”  So, I got off on that one.  Phew.  I didn’t have to answer that question.  

Looking at the World

That’s where we are.  That’s where we are in terms of our world.  It’s 12:00 at midnight the night before it’s due.  Now, I know that we’ve all had an experience of thinking about this and talking about this.  This isn’t new.  We’ve known this since the 80’s or before.  We’ve known that what we are doing to our planet is destructive.  The atmospheric pollution around us is really choking us out and the world is changing.  Some people say the science shows we go through this every few hundred years and we can tell that by the ice core.  

The ice core shows that every few hundred years, yes there is an ice age but then there is a rise in CO2 which melts everything and then we get back together again.  But now that rise in CO2 is well beyond anything that we have ever experienced before in the last 800,000 years according to those ice cores.  So, it’s different.  We are not in the same place as we were before, that there’s something that needs to happen.  We’re at that pivotal moment in time when we have to take action.  

Now, you can also look at the world and all the violence that is happening in the world, all of the struggles that are happening, of course, in the Ukraine, and you can look at that and say and think what a horrible thing that’s happening.  But that consciousness of violence and the atrocities that are happening there, that consciousness does not lie solely in that particular person.  That consciousness is all around the world and we see it whenever people are fleeing and running from somebody.  We see it in the indigenous peoples around our country who have been treated atrociously throughout the years.  We see it in the minorities of people that have been minimalized simply because they exist, and they seek freedom and equality.  We are at a pivotal point right now as you see all of this start to bubble up in the world.

Making a Difference in the World

It means that it’s time for us to really raise our consciousness and get to a point where we can do things that make a difference in the world.  I know the idea of global warming, everyone has their “what you should do’s”.  We all have our should’s, the blame, shame and guilt’s.  “You know what you should do?  Let’s use this bag.  Maybe we will get a hundred re-uses at the grocery store instead of this bag which will get thirty re-uses.”  That’s great but we are not going to recycle our way out of this challenge because this is a challenge of consciousness.  

The human consciousness has created this, created the violence, created the pollution, created the situation.  And so, we have to heal and bless these consciousnesses.  We have to raise our consciousness in order for us to do meaningful change.  When you have that aha moment, you make a change in your life spiritually.  When you have that spiritual aha moment, all of a sudden, it’s “here’s what I need to do differently in my world”.  

Raising Consciousness

But you don’t do it differently until you really embody it.  First there’s that intellectual knowing.  Okay, we know we need to change spiritually, health-wise, relationship-wise.  We know there’s some place in us where we can change and grow.  But until we embody that and then start living it, no change ever happens.  Instead of looking at each one of you and saying you better buy my grocery bag.  It’s not about blame, shame or guilt.  It’s just looking at where we can shift our consciousness.  That’s the hallmark of Unity.  That’s the hallmark of new thought and metaphysics.  It’s about shifting consciousness, raising consciousness to the awareness of that pure essence that’s within you, to the awareness.  

We might call it Christ consciousness or that point within you that is pure, that spark of divinity, your higher self.  Just like Lisa said in the beginning, around the word God, sometimes we hear these terms and we throw it out.  “Okay, that’s not what I call it.  Prayer, I don’t do prayer.  I do meditation.”  In Unity, they are the same.  They are incorporated.  It’s about raising consciousness so that we can make a difference in our lives, we can make a difference for each other.  

The time is now because we only live in the present moment.  All of those future ideas, this isn’t about creating a world that everyone is happy and sparkly and lovely.  It’s about creating a world that we can live together in harmony, even with differences.  That we can come together and make conscious change so that people of minorities are lifted up, so that people, so that our ecology is changed, so that our relationships are changed.  There is no difference.  You see, it’s all the same.  It’s all the same in our consciousness, this idea that we have.  So really, all you have to do is look at what your thoughts are throughout the day to understand where you are at with it.

I love Catherine Ponder, one of my favorite Unity ministers, Unity authors.  She has written many books and one of them, Prospering Power of Love. And the idea here is that all of that unforgiveness, all of that resentment, all of that stuff that you have, that shadow side of us, we all have it, but we are allowing it to run us.  That shadow side says to us, “This isn’t my problem.  I bought my electric car.  Now it’s someone else’s problem.”  It’s a matter of raising the whole consciousness.  That’s one thing that I have done but what else can we do?  What can we do as a spiritual community to become net neutral or net positive in terms of the impact that we have on the environment?  What can we do as a spiritual community to become, I will say net neutral and net positive in terms of the consciousness that we are sending out to the world, that we are creating in the world?  

Because it’s those thoughts that we carry around everyday that is our consciousness.  So, I’ve got my prayer time.  I’ve got meditation time.  Then I get on the road and I start swearing at people — not me.  That’s just the “hypothetical”.  Reverend John would never do that.  My shadow twin Skippy might.  We all have that little insecurities or those little gotcha’s.  But the more you recognize it, the more you recognize and see, “Oh there’s my shadow” without blame, shame or guilt, just saying, “Okay, how can I look at this a little bit differently?” and without making it sarcastic.  “Oh, I bless you. I trip you and bless you on your way.”  That’s what we used to do.  It’s still the underlying component of that is violence, the blame, shame and the guilting that we do in our society is prevalent.  

Even from a phrase like, “It’s what Jesus would do.  You should do it too because it’s what Jesus would do or what Buddha would do.”  Well, it doesn’t make any difference.  It’s my interpretation of what one of those master teachers would do.  I’m shaming you and turning Jesus into a weapon.  I’m weaponizing Jesus by shaming you into believing this is what you should do.  That’s the religion of the medieval times that we have been living in.  In Unity, we are moving beyond that, beyond that pastor/flock mentality because the last time I looked you’re not sheep.  You’re not here to be corralled into a little pen and be sheared every once in a while.  I got one sheep in the back there.  

You are a Powerful Spiritual Being

You are powerful spiritual beings.  That’s what Unity is here for, is to teach people how to be more powerful spiritual beings through consciousness, how to raise and change the reality of the world through consciousness.  This isn’t, again, it’s not pie-in-the-sky and we’re going to go pray and all of a sudden everything is going to be happy.  The practice is to simply move into that state of being of your awareness of oneness with Spirit.  That’s it.  The more we can do that, the more that higher consciousness will guide us in the things that we do, the more that higher consciousness will say, “maybe I should put down the cheesecake and eat something more healthy”.  Then it’s up to me to do it.  

But when the ego consciousness, when the human consciousness, the shadow consciousness, when the pain body consciousness, as Eckert Tolle would say, is leading the way then we are creating a world of anger and fear and resentment.  That is the energy that we put out there.  So as powerful spiritual beings, in the law of mind action says, that is what we are creating in our life.  That is how I experience my life.  That is what I am putting out there in my life.  So that is what I’m creating in the world around me.  All you have to do is look at your life and see that it’s true, to see, “Okay, here I am.  Look what I just created.”  

I was so stressed out this morning because we are revamping the sound for the service and there was, you know, everything all of a sudden wasn’t working.  Ronnie couldn’t hear Deborah.  Deborah couldn’t hear Russell.  I couldn’t hear any of them because I was in the office.  All of a sudden, we pushed a button and everything started working again.  But that stress — you know when someone is stressed and they come into the room, right?  You know when someone is stressed and someone’s angry.  Kids know it very well.  It’s like, “Mom and dad are in this mode.  I’m going to go into whatever mode keeps me alive.”  That’s what they do.  

A Conscious Effort

So, our opportunity is to really come into this idea of making a conscious effort to bless and heal our world.  Just simply having that idea of blessing and healing our world, having that consciousness of a healthy and whole world and living from that consciousness is enough to make a difference.  It will empower you and it will inform you as you move forward in the things that ought to be done by you, whatever you think those are, whatever those should’s are for you.  The challenge is, don’t go blaming everyone else for not following your should.  

I had a colleague across the Bay who asked, who was talking about this idea of equality and racial justice and she said, “How do you do it because some people get really angry at their colleagues for not saying the same words or believing or acting the same way, or doing something exactly alike”.  Because we can’t change the rest of society, so what do we do?  We pick on the things that we can change or that we can pick on.  What they were doing was, one of her people was getting frustrated and angry and lashing out, and “you have to be different”.  Does that ever change anything?  I look at my kids.  If you are out there and trying to beat them with an iron rod and tell them this is what you’re going to do.  You have to be different.  How are they going to react, versus can you have a conversation with them and explain, “Hey, here’s what I am thinking?  What are you thinking?”  

I was taking something to Ethan before a baseball game and he said I need my shirt by 2:00.  Great.  Sometimes he comes home for lunch.  So, I got his shirt ready and I got his sandwich and put it on the table.  Sometimes I take it to him.  He didn’t specify and I wasn’t thinking.  So, it’s like, “Hey, where are you?” at 2:10.  Luckily the bus was late, so I brought his shirt and his sandwich and his water bottle and he just said, “I’m not trying to be” — I forget what the word was – “angry.  But I just want to know, where was the communication gap?  What did I say that you didn’t get?”  Wow.  My sixteen-year-old.  

Now, granted, there is another half of him that is not that.  But kids, you know, prefrontal cortex not fully formed.  But he caught me.  I’m just like, “Yeah, sorry.  I didn’t know whether you were coming home.  Sometimes you come home.  I was thinking about this and I just wasn’t thinking about it.”  “Okay, cool. Thanks.  I’ll be more specific next time.”  “Thanks.”  Clear communication.  That’s wacko.  

Healing the World

You see, that is what we are here to do.  That is what we are here to do on a global basis, and we do that by raising our consciousness and putting focused attention on healing our world.  We’re putting focused attention on what we can do and how we can be, and raising consciousness around the violence.  So instead of focusing on the violence and being angry and upset and hurt — we are going to be angry, upset and hurt.  That’s okay – but then you have to get beyond that to be productive.  You have to get to a point where we are looking at it from a perspective of, how can we raise consciousness?  How can we bless the situation?  How can we heal the situation?  

Myrtle Fillmore — wow I’ve gone long — Myrtle Fillmore has talked about three forms of healing.  Its spirit, soul and body.  Healing begins first with our connection with Spirit.  Healing begins first by getting into that presence and power of the divine essence of life, love and wisdom.  The soul is the sum total of your consciousness.  It’s aligning your soul, your consciousness with that and that gets expressed in the body, in the world, in the manifest world.  

So, we’re going to be practicing this.  I’m going to start, and Lisa is going to tell you a little about it, but on Thursday at 2 o’clock I am going to have a world blessing and healing prayer circle.  Now prayer in Unity is different.  It’s not, “Oh God, please make him stop”.  That’s not Unity prayer.  That kind of beseeching prayer isn’t what we do.  What we do is, we begin with meditation.  We begin by centering ourselves, by quieting that shadow mind, that ego mind, that pain body mind, by becoming still so that we can be in the presence of that wholly, in the presence of that energy that’s already within, that Spirit that’s within you wholly, without thought.

Sometimes I get in there and say, “Oh I’m there.  Okay, I’m not anymore.”  Let me get back into it.  Once we’re in that, we affirm and we live in that experience of the divine and from that energy comes affirmative prayer.  What you affirm in that energy is your prayer in the most powerful expression that your mind can have.  

So, we focus that attention and our intention on healing, healing the planet which means focusing it on allowing this consciousness that we are all a part of.  There’s no part in the universal consciousness that we are not.  The human consciousness that gets layered on top of that, we’re all a part of that.  So, when we raise our ideas and thoughts to that level then that raises the whole.  

So, every Thursday we are going to be doing that.  We are going to be focusing very intentionally on healing the planet, healing our world, healing the atrocities.  Now it’s none of our business how it out-pictures.  The problem that people have with prayer is like, “Well I prayed for my … whatever.  I was going to use it, but I didn’t want to seem so, you know, egotistical here.  My burnt orange McLaren.  Thank you, Nancy.  It was an example in one of my classes and I have had several manifestations of burnt orange McLarens.  One that is about two inches long, one that is about six inches long.  I’ve got a little hat that people have given me.  What was I saying?  

You prayed and it didn’t work.  Yeah, so I didn’t get my burnt orange McLaren, my $300,000 car.  Didn’t show up, or whatever I was praying for, for my friends or family.  It didn’t show up the way I expected it to show up.  It’s not our business to know how it’s going to show up.  It’s just to simply hold the consciousness for someone.  When you are holding somebody in prayer for a health issue, you simply hold them in the consciousness of spiritual wholeness, health, abundance, mobility, ease, comfort, grace.  You hold them in that consciousness and the rest is not your business.  

But when something doesn’t show up the way we want it to show up, we throw the baby out with the bath water.  It’s like somebody said, “God.  Oh, I’m not listening to him.  He doesn’t know what he is talking about.  He used the g word.  Someone said Jesus.  Someone said meditation or metaphysics” or whatever the word is.  We are talking the same language.  We are talking the same intention.  So, put on your universal translators and just translate it into something that works for you so that you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.  

So, every Thursday we are going to put this into practice, and I invite you to join me.  I’ll be here in the sanctuary.  I’ll be on Zoom and whenever you can come in at 2 o’clock we will have about a half hour of meditation and affirmative prayer, something tangible that we can do to help raise the consciousness because you are powerful, spiritual beings and that is what Unity is about.  It’s not about gathering the sheep and putting them in a pen.  It’s about raising your level of consciousness so that you can go out into the world and be a beneficial presence.  And as you’re doing it, give thanks.  Give thanks for the air that you breathe.  Give thanks for the ideas that are coming to you to help you.  

I love this quote from Eckert Tolle in A New Earth.  This is at the end of the book when he’s talking about a new Earth.  “Is the notion of a new Earth just another utopian vision?”  No, not at all.  That is not what we are talking about.  “All utopian visions have this in common — the mental projection of a future time when all will be well.  We will all be saved.  There will be peace and harmony and the end of all of our problems.  There have been many such utopian visions.  Some ended in disappointment, others in disaster.  At the core of all utopian visions lies the main structural dysfunction of the old consciousness, looking to the future for salvation.  The only existence the future actually has is as a thought form in your mind.  So, when you look to the future for salvation you are unconsciously looking to your own mind for salvation.  You are trapped in form that is all ego.”  

It’s a now thing.  It’s midnight, the paper is due tomorrow.  It’s time to get to work.  It’s time to get to work to raise consciousness, to raise each other up and to — what was the daily word?  Can you read that to me again real quick?  To gather.  It was perfect.  We gather and magnify the presence of God.  We gather and magnify the presence of God.  That’s what we do.  And we do it in our own beautiful way.  But we do it together and when we do it together, when we come together that energy is multiplied, is exponential.  There’s hope.  It’s based on faith, your power to create in the world, your power to shape substance.  

So, let’s have hope.  And let’s get to work.