Your Innate Ability to Bring Good to the World | Rev. John Riley

Well, welcome. And here we are in the middle of December. It’s the time when we start to think about all of the things that we’ve done throughout the year, all of the things that we want to accomplish. Are you feeling like, are you questioning whether you are doing something of importance? Some yes, some no. I see some heads. I hear some no’s.

Are You Making a Difference in the World?

Are you questioning, do you have this question in your mind about whether what you’re doing is making a difference in the world? Well, we have been on this journey called The Art of Abundance. That is living the experience of this principle, this law, the law of abundance in our daily lives. We have gone through this journey identifying and calling forth the ten rules of the law of abundance as put forth by the author Dennis Merritt Jones in his book The Art of Abundance, ten rules for living a life worth living.

So, as we move through this process, we are getting to the end of our journey here and it’s really become an art. It really is an art to get ourselves to be connected with and in that idea and in that spirit, that energy of abundance. When we do, when we are living in that consciousness and being of service, being a catalyst for good in the world is a natural occurrence. It is just what happens when we are actually living that principle. We began by, of course, identifying that idea that there is only one presence and one power in the universe, that idea that the universe, that we are one with God.

We are one with Spirit, whatever you want to call it whether it is isness, the universe. But that universe is an infinite supply of good if we are willing to connect with it. Because we are one with the universe, we are one with each other. We have a connection, a spiritual connection with each other and with all humanity.

When we set our intention and put our attention on living that principle and bringing it forward into our life and all areas of our life, we begin to understand this idea, this principle of abundance. When we are courageous and of service to the world and when we understand that we are blessed then we begin to live into that principle of abundance and express it as prosperity in our life, prosperity in all aspects of our life, in our relationships, in our career, in our creativity, in our cleanliness — as I discovered this last week as we were cleaning up the yard and getting ready for the decorations — expressing that in our finances, in our challenges, in our conditions, in this thing called being human. Anybody here experience being human? Okay, I’ve got three quarters of you that are awake. Good. Just checking. When we step into this idea, the natural occurrence is that we are a beneficial presence in the world.

An Understanding of Oneness

So, let’s break this down a little bit. The last thing that I said was you are blessed. Would you affirm I am blessed? Would you affirm that with me? Together:

I am blessed.

How did that feel? Good? Bad? Ugly? Yeah, it’s a little bit of both because sometimes we don’t feel blessed. Sometimes there are conditions in our life or things that are happening where we look at ourselves and we say, “You know, gosh, this is pretty hard”. And yet, the way we’re looking at this is more from a spiritual perspective. As Unity, in Unity, we don’t say that we are born with original sin. That condition doesn’t exist. Sin is something we develop over time. It’s our error thinking. It’s our thinking we are separate from God. It’s that dualistic consciousness of victim/victor. Even the vessel consciousness is still dualistic because there is me and then there is God working through me. But when we get down to it and get to the point where we can express it and understand it as God working as me, “I’m the hands and the feet and the voice and the ears of this divine essence seeking to express itself”, then we have a deeper understanding of oneness.

When we have an understanding of oneness and we are working and we know that everything that I do and think, my consciousness affects the whole of the world, affects the whole of the consciousness. When we start to live that blessing then we are lifting up the rest of the world, the rest of the consciousness of the collective, the allness of life.

So, when you live into that you’re already lifting up the world. You are already being a beneficial presence in the world. You’re already doing it. You’re creating, you’re being a catalyst for good simply by how you show up in life, simply by that energy that you’re expressing with each other or expressing to one another. You’re a catalyst for good.

An Inescapable Network of Mutuality

I’d like to read a quote that the author includes in his book. It’s a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “It really boils down to this; that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” What an amazing, enlightened statement, this idea, this idea of oneness that whatever we do as individuals affects the whole.

So, it does bring up a little bit of — do you feel the weight of that? There’s a little bit of weight there because now it’s like, “Oh I’m in charge of, you know if my thoughts and ideas and words and actions are affecting other people than gosh, I better take responsibility for it, right?” It’s not law but that’s one of the laws. Be accountable for your consciousness, not everyone else’s consciousness, but your consciousness. Be accountable for the things that you are thinking and experiencing.

When you find yourselves off track, don’t blame, shame and guilt yourself. No BSG here. Just go back into, go back to being a blessing. Go back to your practice, your spiritual practices, getting back into alignment, getting back into that idea that you are blessed and that you are a blessing. Just a simple shift. Getting back to our intention to express that and putting our attention on our thoughts, words and actions.

One of the challenges that we have in all of this first is knowing that we’re blessed, knowing that we have an impact and an effect on other people. Now, I think even from a human level we understand that, right? It’s certainly the other people out there, you know, all those other people, they have an impact on us, don’t they? Have you ever walked into that room or somebody walks into the room and all of a sudden, the whole atmosphere goes dark or the other way around? Someone walks into a room and all of a sudden, the atmosphere lightens up. Everyone’s excited. That person’s energy, that person’s thought is having an effect on other people.

The Challenges

Now, here is the challenge. As metaphysicians, as spiritual students, you have to recognize that when that energy comes in, you allow it to affect you the way it affects you. You allow it to affect you. So, you can decide whether that seemingly dark energy is going to affect you or not. You get to choose. You can decide when that jovial person comes into the room how it’s going to affect you. That’s your choice. You have the ability to hold your own boundaries, your own emotional, spiritual boundaries and you own everything that’s on the inside of that boundary which is your feelings, your emotions, your excitement, your enthusiasm, your thoughts, your beliefs.

So, when we live into that spiritual practice and that idea, then it doesn’t matter what’s happening on the outside. If somebody comes in here with a dark attitude, well, maybe mine is to be of service and be a listening ear, be compassionate. “Is everything okay?” We always have that choice to show up and to know that we are blessed, know that we are here to express and experience that which we’re here to express.

Another challenge that we have is when we’re going through this, when we have this idea of prosperity, there is the idea of not enough-ness. “That person is more prosperous than I am. That person has that swanky house down in Laguna Hills. I’ve got a postage stamp house in Palo Alto” which, by the way, is incredibly prosperous where someone might be living in a trailer park which, by the way, can be incredibly prosperous, depending on your consciousness around it. Some people, that’s their choice. They want to do that because they’re using their funds to do something different. But it’s all about how we look at things.

So, that sense of not enough-ness is one of the challenges that we have when we’re looking at how we can do good in the world. We are measuring ourselves and how much I’m doing versus someone else. “I’m doing a lot of good out there but all of you people out there, you need to step it up”. So now what are we doing? We’re creating, instead of a sense of community and connection and oneness, we are singling each other out. It’s now back to our dualistic victim victor consciousness.

Another challenge might be, “I’m so prosperous, I’m so prosperous, I’m so prosperous and I am hoarding it. It’s mine. Woohoo”. The reality is, you can’t really hoard it because it is an idea of flowing. The more money, if you want to look at money as that idea, the more money that you build and develop over time — which is not a bad thing, just what are you going to use it as? It’s that potential energy that’s waiting for you to use it, maybe as a retirement or maybe to help a kid go to college, or maybe to give a gift to a cause that you really believe in. Maybe it’s to eat, keep the lights on. But that sense of hoarding that we do it’s like this principle, is that it’s always flowing and yet we want to build a dam. And then we build a dam and the water bubbles up and it washes out all over land and then it spills over and it continues flowing. You can’t contain it. The principle is always active and always flowing. You can just decide how much of it you want to receive. You can decide how much of that you want to give to the village next door to you. You can decide how to use it. That’s your choice.

So, one of the challenges is getting beyond that human egoness. That’s a new term – “human egoness”. No hyphens; it’s all one term. That human egoness that says, “It’s not enough. I’m not enough. There’s not enough. I need to store it for me”. When we can move beyond that human egoness and allow it to flow then we are able to do more good, to be a bigger catalyst for good. When we put our intention on doing something that is good for the world, on being a beneficial presence, and then put our attention on it and we start to move in that direction, you can’t help but be in the flow of that abundance, when you say this is what I’m going to stand for. The wonderful thing I’ve – this, really, where the advent of love and the art of abundance intersect, this idea of love.

The Pure Essence of Being

I like to share with you what Charles Fillmore said of it in The Revealing Word, the definition of love metaphysically from Charles Fillmore’s perspective. “Love is the pure essence of being” — the pure essence of being – “that binds together the whole human family. Of all the attributes of God, love is undoubtedly the most beautiful. In divine mind love is the power that joins and binds in divine harmony, the universe and everything in it. It is the great harmonizing principle known to humankind”.

So, when you combine that idea, this harmonizing energy that is innate within you, as one of that aspects that is within you, an aspect of God or an aspect of that Christ consciousness, an aspect of that divine nature, of your higher consciousness, of your higher thoughts, whatever you want to term it, and you combine that idea, that harmonizing principle with the things that you’re doing and growing and being in the world, then by definition you are a catalyst for good. Because it’s not just for you, but it’s for all of humanity. Combining that idea, and I think that’s what’s so powerful about that quote earlier from Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. That’s why I think he was so powerful because he combined that idea of love, that harmonizing power, with an effort to create more harmony in the world, with an effort to create more justice and equality, so that we can know our oneness with one another.

In the book Jones says, “We each have something innately good to bring to the table, to the relationship we have with all humankind. This is when our generosity of spirit …” — our generosity of spirit, which he defines as “the sharing of the unique essence of who we are as spiritual beings”. So, your generosity of spirit is your willingness to share of who you truly are, who you’ve come here to be. “When that combines with the spirit of generosity, the sharing of what we have as earth beings, as human beings”, when we merge that idea of who we’ve come here to be.

That idea in the Christmas season, in the Advent season, we call that Christ consciousness. That is innately within every person, even if you call it something different. When we combine that innate goodness that you are with the expression of who you are, with the expression of the things that you have and the things that you do, you are a catalyst for good in the world.

A Catalyst for Good

The practice here is really looking at it from a standpoint of awareness. You have to bring your awareness to it. So, how often — you’ve heard the phrase “what’s in it for me”, right? Everyone heard that phrase? Sometimes we may have thought of it. Someone comes along and says, “John, I want you to do this”. “Well, what’s in it for me?” Whenever we go on a job interview, we’re looking at that. Here’s what you want and here’s what I want. So, “What’s in it for me and here’s what’s in it for you and hopefully we agree.” The practice here is to shift that a little bit, that consciousness, is to move from “What’s in it for me?” to “What’s in it from me? What am I bringing to this situation? What am I bringing to this relationship, to this condition, to this idea? What am I bringing to the world? How am I being a catalyst for good in this situation?”

When we consciously put our mind on being a catalyst for good, then we start to create good. When we start to create good, we’re opening the floodgates for that good to flow through us, as us. That’s when we really are connecting with that idea of oneness. “Being a catalyst for good in the world connects you directly to the secret of creating an abundant life, your oneness with the universe. When you are guided intuitively to do the right thing, the world benefits greatly from your being alive. In turn you benefit greatly from being alive.” Anyone want to benefit greatly from being alive? I’m down for that.

Here are some practices, here are some questions that you can ask yourself. And this is something to bring into contemplation, to really, really dig into. And your answers may change over time, but what is your intention this week? What is your intention this week to be a catalyst for good? In the midst of all of the traffic, in the midst of finals, in the midst of projects and then the midst of procedures, what is your intention? How are you going to show up? What hidden agenda or self-righteousness are you willing to give up?

One of the biggest challenges we have is that, “We’re all here to do good as long as you do good the way I think you should be doing good. You got to do good the way I think you should do good”. Let go of that. Because you are responsible for one thing. What is it? Me. My own consciousness, not yours. I’m not responsible for that but I can show up in a way that illuminates you, that gives you some inspiration, that shines some light that you might be able to see reflected in the light in you. We can show up that way.

Did I read this already, “Being a catalyst for good in the world connects you directly with the spirit of creating an abundant life”? “When you are guided intuitively to do the right thing the world benefits greatly from you being alive.” How will you be a beneficial presence in your world, today, this week? How will you be a beneficial presence? There are a lot of things that we’re going to do. I guarantee it between now and next week. There are a lot of things and stuff that’s going to happen. We did some stuff yesterday. We were driving. Ethan wanted to go buy a book, buy a gift for his girlfriend. It was her 16th birthday so we dropped him off at Kepler’s and then we went to get some food in Menlo Park. There was traffic everywhere. The parking lots were packed. What are you guys thinking, it’s the holidays or something? It’s like, things are, life keeps going. Life keeps going.

A Beneficial Presence in the World

So, what are you going to do to be a beneficial presence in your world as you go and do the stuff? How can your consciousness be lifted when you’re doing the stuff, whatever that stuff may be? And then what is it from you this week? What are you going to contribute to the world, to raising that collective consciousness? What are you going to contribute to the world to be a beneficial presence, without the human egoness of saying, “I did so many things this week. Y’all need to catch up”, without the human egoness saying, “Well they did X, you know, and I have to do Y to show them that I’m doing more”. Whatever is here for you to do, know that you have within you that divine essence, that goodness that you’re here to share with the world.

So, what will that look like for you this week? How will you allow it to be that guiding presence? Because the reality is you are blessed. You are blessed with every breath you take. With every breath that is breathed into you by this divine essence of life, love and wisdom, you can do good in the world.

Prayer for Protection

And now let us say our Prayer for Protection.

The Light of God surrounds us;
The Love of God enfolds us;
The Power of God protects us;
The Presence of God watches over us;
Wherever we are, God is!
And, all is well.

Love and blessings everyone. Have a wonderful week. Namaste.