Your Life Is Now – Rev. John Adams
This recording features the Sunday Talk portion of the service. For the full service watch here.
DESCRIPTION
There is only the Presence, here and now. In this moment, we are the activity of Spirit bringing forth abundance in every area of life—love, harmony, health, and supply. Join us Sunday as we dig into the spiritual Truths that remind us: abundance is not something to get, but something to realize.
SUMMARY
The key points from the talk are:
– Rev. John Adams invites listeners to be present in the moment and look beneath the surface of events for deeper understanding.
– He discusses how his own experience of pursuing ministerial licensing while working a job he loved showed him that all aspects of his life were in service of their greater purpose, and that finding joy in the present moment is a spiritual practice.
– Rev. John emphasizes that we should not let the search for meaning distract us from fully inhabiting the present moment, using the example of a joyful hug as something that needs no deeper meaning.
– He encourages letting go of “backseat drivers” – internal voices telling us how our lives should go – and instead focusing on discovering our true nature and potential.
– Rev. John discusses the importance of embodying a consciousness of abundance and generosity, rather than scarcity, and how this leads to experiencing “divine splendor”.
– He suggests that our natural state is to love, share, and help others, as evidenced by the outpouring of support during Hurricane Katrina, and that this spirit of giving activates spiritual abundance in our own lives.
– In closing, Rev. John leads the audience through a meditation on the idea that we have no true needs, as our spiritual essence is eternal and our needs are already met.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. John Adams:
Thank you so much. Good morning everybody. So much fun to be here with you today. Thank you for having me. So there’s a story, many of you probably heard this before and or some version of it. So there was a farmer whose horse ran away and all the neighbors came along and said, oh, you poor guy. And he said, well, maybe. And then the horse came back the next day and brought with it four wild horses that it had befriended. And the neighbors were like, oh my goodness, what a blessing. And he said, well, maybe. And then the son, the farmer’s son was trying to tame one of the horses was riding it and was thrown and broke his leg. And the neighbors were like, oh, you poor guy. And he said, well, maybe. And then there were these people that were conscripting young people into the army and they came and they didn’t take the sun because he had his broken leg.
And the neighbors were like, oh my goodness, that’s so great. And so it goes, and you can tell from the story that in each moment there was a great and a blessing and maybe something that wasn’t so much a blessing. And the lesson to me, and you can interpret this a lot of different ways, but the lesson to me is to be in the present moment with what is, to sit in what is and to the invitation is always to look beneath the surface of things, beneath the veneer of what’s happening to a deeper understanding. In my life, I’ve had a similar experience in that I did this ministerial school thing. I went and got licensed as a minister and I had a job that I was working and I loved my job, but it had become kind of, I was ready for something different.
And so I started this process and I thought, God, I’m in school. I’ve got work, I’ve got cityside. And when I just took a breath and got underneath it, I realized that all of it was in service to my dream. All of it was a way of funding my dream. Lisa Nichols in her book talks about this, right? She talks about this idea of she had this job that wasn’t really her dream or her dream job at all. It was like a job. I think we’ve all had those jobs. But she started to understand that the job was really there in service to something even greater that she’s calling in her life. And so although she was future pulling as I was with the minister’s licensing, she’s future pulling, she was also present in what was happening right now that she could be in the joy of creating this and being in the process of what was unfolding.
And what I take away from that, my takeaway is that joy is a choice. We can look at something as sort of a difficult, or we can look at something as being hum drum or something we have to do, or we can look at it as something in service to our greater good. And so we can step into that decision, that choice to view it as something that is joy, joy filled sometimes exactly where you are right here, right now, you can find your greatest joy and being present to that joy is always a good spiritual practice.
One of the things that I think I want to share with you of an idea to kind of be aware of is that when we are reflecting on that, when we’re reflecting on where am I at and what’s going on and how am I seeing what is happening, the temptation can be to dive into it and look for meaning in everything. And I think that’s beautiful. There’s something beautiful about finding meaning and all that is, but it can also kind of take you out of the moment. It can start to make the search for meaning a job in and of itself and take some of the joy out of it. So for example, if Jonathan hugged me today and I hug Jonathan back, and if I’m in that hug, that is an act of joy and connection. It isn’t work, it does not need meaning, it has no needs. It is in and of itself wholeness perfect, complete and in a present moment.
And so we just let it be and we live in that. There is for me and maybe for you, I was watching this video and they were talking about how we can create these backseat drivers in our lives. These voices that are always like backseat driving are like, well, you better do this. This is going to be good for you. Or where they’re deciding for you that this is the way your life should go because this is the way you will find your joy. But they don’t know. The backseat drivers are following a pattern or an idea or an image that they’ve had their whole lives. And so the invitation is to really let go of that backseat driver and we step into, wait a minute, what do I believe is really possible for me? What is in that possibility? Ernest Holmes says in how to change your life, your dreams can come true. Do you want a life of harmony, of rewarding work of opulence? If you feel yourself constricting or judging any of these options, there may be work for you to do. Life will not provide you opulence if you hold thoughts that it is wrong or bad or sinful to hold such a desire.
So we have to clear that way. We have to clear that consciousness to step into this idea of I can have an opulent life. Now I understand that we can get caught up in it. And we’ve seen this, I’m sure many of you can look out in the world and find many examples of this where, oh, I have this windfall, I have this money. Let’s work with money for a minute. I have this money come into my life. And all of a sudden my whole focus becomes how do I keep this money, how I have to keep counting it. I have to keep taking care of it. And that’s my whole focus. In fact, that becomes my morality. My whole morality becomes all about the money. It doesn’t matter what happens to anybody else. It doesn’t matter how else I get it. I just need to get the money and that becomes my moral center.
But what I want to say about that is that is a life of scarcity. Have all the money in the world, but you’re living a life of scarcity. You’re living in the fear of it. What I know for you and what I know for me is that what is ours is ours. What is ours is by divine right of consciousness and it can never be taken. So whatever the winds of change are in the world, as the stock market goes up or down or things come and go, what is mine will always return to me because it is mine by divine right of consciousness. And so I step into that consciousness and I live from that place of all is well. I live from that place of knowing my source. My source is my source. My source is God. My source is higher power, my source is my spirit. Whatever your word or phrase is, that is my source. Not this little pile of shekels that are sitting in front of me. That is the out picturing, that is the demonstration of my good, not the good itself. That is just reflecting back to me that I’m holding this consciousness of expansion, that I’m holding this consciousness of good. And when I step into that consciousness, I am open and available to all that is around me.
And you can embody this consciousness. And in fact, the spiritual counsel that I get from Lisa and from Earnest Holmes is this idea of embodying this consciousness. We have the divine right to that experience, to that expression. And so we’re matching our opulence to our, and we’re matching our consciousness to be open and available to opulence. So God is our source. Our source is our joy within, and when we free it, we experience divine splendor. There’s this expression that Ernest Holmes used, I want to say it was, I don’t remember where it was, but he talked about, he used this phrase, imprisoned splendor. And imprisoned splendor happens when we are so focused on the materialism that we forget that there is all the world around us.
There is a call to this. Our natural state of being is a call to be in that world of connection and interpersonal connection. What is available to us is transformed by our consciousness and is running even deeper than anything we can imagine, right? There’s the analogy of the iceberg. What we see above the water is just one part of it, but the larger piece is beneath the surface of it. And that is who and what we are. Ernest Holmes talked about this again in Sermon by the Sea. There’s a quote by Ernest Holmes. These are the quotes I have for you today. They’re just Ernest Holmes quotes. I was really into Ernie this week. Ernest Holmes said in Sermon by the Sea, there’s a power transcendent beyond our needs. You can just take that phrase for a minute. There is a power transcendent beyond our needs, our little wants.
Demonstrating a dime is good if you need it, or healing oneself of pain is certainly good if one has it. But beyond that, at the real feast of the tabernacle of the Almighty is the temple of the living God. In the banquet hall of heaven, there is something beyond anything that you and I have touched. There is something beyond anything that you and I have touched, meaning that all the good that we imagine, all the joy that we imagine, all the opulence that we claim and know for ourselves is but a drop in the ocean for what is really available to us. And when he says in the temple of the living God, that’s you are the temple of the living God. And through you is not only the realization of this depth of what’s available but also comes through you, the expression of it in the world.
It’s very exciting when you think about it and how do we activate it? So okay, this is great. I have this beautiful consciousness. I have this life of opulence. It runs really deep. I understand that there’s even more than I could have ever imagined available to me. How do I tap into it? How do I activate it? And I have an idea about that I’m going to suggest to you, and so does Lisa actually, she helped me with this. My idea is that we tap into our nature who we really are. And it sounds really simple and it is simple. That’s the whole point. We don’t have to go out and do some complicated ritual or get some years and years of training. We are already there. And what I mean by that is our nature is to love. Our nature is to share. I was thinking about this in terms of a case study of this in the world that was far enough in the past that we weren’t all going to be activated by it.
And so what I thought about was Hurricane Katrina when Hurricane Katrina happened and there was a pew study that was shared after it was over that said over 63% of population in America contributed to help those people. And I would say in a pew study, they do a great job, but there’s still a lot of people that are going to say, I’m not going to tell them that I gave because then they’re going to want me to give more. So I think the number is actually much higher. Why? Because when someone’s in trouble, when someone needs help, what’s our first instinct? It’s who we are naturally. It’s what we do. That’s how we’re built. We’re built to just share it. We’re built to help. We’re built to connect that love that is already within us is wanting to express through us.
There’s a, okay, I’m just going to use a Bible quote, okay, just for one second. Just for one second, I promise. And you probably know it somewhere in your life, you’ve probably encountered this. For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, and we can get rid of the gender. The gender was really used as an old fashioned term for everyone, and we can let that go. So God so loved the world. It gave its only begotten child. And of course, master Eckhart taught us that the only begotten is us. You are the only begotten. You are the only begotten. You are the only begotten, the only you that will ever be. If you think about that, that’s kind of amazing. How many millions, billions of people have ever existed, how many life forms exist throughout the universe and you are the only you that is and will ever be. You are the only begotten. And we can take that phrase and trim it back even more because what we really want to get to is the core of that wisdom, which is God so loved the world. It gave, it gave, it gave, it gave life, it gave everything. And we are the avatars of this. We are the channels of this. We are the expression of it in the here and now. So our nature is God’s nature, which is to give. That’s who and what we are.
I took a class called transformational ministry. I’m always taking a class. I always want to, I’m in spiritual economics with Reverend Amy because I want to learn more. I want to grow more. I want to deepen all of this. And in that class, it was a class full of ministers and we got into the topic of giving and we got on the topic of tithing, which is where you give 10% of everything that you earned bring into your household. You give 10% back and every single one of them in that class, it was so interesting to just sit back and listen because every single one of them had a story of transformation that happened once they committed to their giving that that act of giving was activating this spirit within this God, within this truth. Within that, they were coming from a place of, and I’ve talked about this before, that we become a center of abundance in the world for others, and in doing so, like attracts and so we attract to us centers of abundance into our lives that were maybe expected and a lot of times unexpected.
Another way to say this is, Lisa talks about this in her book. She talks about this moment in time when she went public with her company and it was a wonderful moment, but there was so much I didn’t know. I had to learn so much about working capital and growth capital and what was all this stuff mean? And I thought, oh, there’s an interesting spiritual lesson for us, working capital for us in this conversation is that which we use to pay our rent and get some food and put some clothes on our back, that stuff that we need in life to live growth capital is everything else. And where are we putting those funds? Where are we putting those resources when we think about putting them where into things that are fostering our growth, are nurturing our growth? Well, for me, the first thing that I think of is where I’m spiritually fed.
That I want to put my growth funds into places where and spaces and things that are fostering my growth, that are fostering my spiritual enlightenment. So I put that where I am spiritually fed and I find that that returns to me in ways expected and unexpected. Not always in dollars, but in a way, maybe in a circuitous way. It comes back to million dollars too, that where we put our growth supports our growth. And so in order to do that, we step into intentional giving. We think about giving intentionally, thinking about being decisive and strategic and thoughtful about where am I putting my energy, which is just literally what our money is. It’s just another way of putting our energy into something. What am I putting my energy into?
How am I doing for time? Oh, I’ve got plenty of time. I have a bold statement for you. I’m always a little shy about that. I do want to say this and then we’ll just take it in and see what happens. Okay? I’m just going to throw it out there. It’s sort of like a test balloon. And my bold statement is, you have no needs. You have no needs. If this is true, if I am an expression of source, if I’m an expression of God sitting here and now in this human form having this human experience, but nevertheless, I am a multidimensional eternal being, and this is just one stop along the way, then I have always existed. Ken Wilbur talks about this in his new book, which is really wonderful, by the way, if you want to pick it up. It’s a really great book.
He talks about this, that if we really sit and get centered, we get in touch with this idea that I have no awareness of not being. My entire awareness is I’ve always been, and in fact, we always have been. He goes on to say, one of the things he suggests to do, and I think this is kind of funny, you can take this into your spiritual practice if you want, which is if you sit and get quiet and get in touch with that eternal space within you, and you remember, oh yeah, I’ve always been here. I’ve always existed. I’ve always existed. That if you go back far enough, you can find your original name, not the name your parents gave you. Not the name in this lifetime, but the name that you got at the birth of your consciousness, which is a fascinating idea. Anyway, that’s Ken.
So you have no needs, and what I want to do is take us into that space of spiritual awareness where we can get in touch with that eternal part of ourselves and presence right here, right now, this idea of no needs. So I just invite you to close your eyes and come with me on this journey or soften your gaze or whatever it is. And there’s no half dos or shoulds or musts. You can do whatever. You can do the crossword puzzle if that’s what you want to do. But I invite you into this experience and just kind of centering into this moment of remembering and centering in on that love, that light, that joy that’s always present within you, that that is always present within you and in this space you’ve always been. And so you always will be. And so there is no health or hunger or air to breathe or water to drink. You don’t need any of it. You have no needs because in that synergy of spiritual truth, your needs are already met. They’re met immediately, and so they dissolve. And so we live in this space of no needs and just breathing that in for a second or two, letting the mind quiet because the mind’s going to come up with all kinds of reasons why maybe this isn’t so true. We let that go and just let it go. It’s fine. Yeah, yeah, whatever.
What I want to do is invite you to think of something in your human life that you might identify as a need, whatever that might be. Maybe it’s money, maybe it’s health, maybe it’s a relationship issue, maybe it’s a job thing. Whatever it is, large or small, doesn’t matter. I just invite you to bring that into this now moment, into this meditation that we’re in, and imagine it within a bubble as it floats into this space of no needs, of this space of eternal joy, this eternal peace, this eternal life that you are. And as it moves into the space, I want you to imagine that that bubble starts to dissolve and that need is immediately met.
You can’t even tell me how it was met, but it’s met, it’s done. It’s complete. It is. So I want you to allow that to just simply be, what if I think a great part of our spiritual practice is practicing. What if this were so what is what transpires in this now moment that that need through the spiritual consciousness, the spiritual awakening, the spiritual now moment is absolutely met. I want you to just hang out here for a moment. I’m going to close this out with a prayer. I’m going to say a prayer and a blessing upon this and just stay in this space with me.
And so I just recognize that love and life is abundant. Everywhere is tenacious. It is ever expressing. Everywhere I look, I see life unfolding. Life expressing the natural world is a world of wonder where everything is continually renewing and rejuvenating itself. And this is a sign of the spiritual truth underneath it. All that I am a part of for I’m a part of life. I’m not separate and different from life. I am a part of life. So I’m a part of life, and yet I’m an individual expression of life. So I recognize that for myself. I know that for each and every single person here. So I once know my oneness with all that is, and I know my individual experience and expression of it, and I celebrate all of it. And so from this place, I just say a word of blessing upon this idea that our needs are met through this spiritual truth. Stepping into it, stepping out into the world, taking action into it, acting as if, behaving as taking this energy and expressing it through this body, through this vocation, through my life in various ways. I just know that it is so. It is always met with this spiritual truth. It’s always met with this spiritual expression. It’s always met with this spiritual demonstration of this good giving way to greater good.
I step into this consciousness of giving. This idea that I am my natural state is to give, to share, is to commune and be with my fellow people in the world and my fellow and all of nature and all of creation. It is to give. And so I give freely and abundantly and trust in faith and allow that that giving comes back to me in ways expected and unexpected. And so I just breathe into that. It’s allowing it to be with so much gratitude, so grateful for the way this unfolds. So grateful for the ease that unfolds. So grateful for this deep level of consciousness and awareness. So grateful for the manifestation and the demonstration of all these needs being met here now, right now here today in this community. So grateful for all this great, great, good. I allow it to be knowing. It is so and together and collectively we say. And so it’s.