This video features the Sunday “talk” only. Watch the full service on our Facebook page.
OVERVIEW
It’s not enough to talk about or change our thinking about prosperity. We have to live it. This Sunday, through the power of ritual, we will embody everything we’ve learned this month and fully birth our prosperous hearts into being fully present within ourselves and active in our lives.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
MATERIALIZING THE PROSPEROUS HEART – John Adams, Minister in Training with Practitioners
John Adams (00:01):
I guess that means it’s my turn. Thank you so much. That was so beautiful. I love that lyric, the idea of, I pray that I’m heard. I pray that this works. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday. I was in class over the weekend and I was talking to a friend of mine, a classmate, the wonderful, wonderful Shelly Walker. She’s out at New Thought Center for spiritual living in the Portland area. And if you ever get a chance to hear or see her, I would recommend it. And she’s brilliant. And we were talking about this idea of hope, this idea of hoping for and hoping this works and hoping that we’re heard and that in new thought centers, a lot of times hope is not encouraged. We, because in new thought, we know, right? We’re in the knowing. And then she was sharing a story of the center where she was, where they forbid the word hope.
(01:08):
You couldn’t use the word hope, but what we also talked about, and I thought this was really insightful, is that sometimes you need to take steps to get all the way up to the knowing. There are steps that we take along the way and hope can be where you’re at right now. So I just really want to presence that and invite that in, that there’s nothing wrong with being on the journey to that knowing that I am one, knowing that I stand in the ultimate and absolute abundance of the universe, that I stand in this truth and that it is available and present for me. And that as I say yes to it, it expresses out and through me and with me. And there’s nothing wrong with taking steps to get yourself there. And if you’re like me at all, and most of you aren’t because you’re better, you’re more advanced than I am, but I will take three steps back and then I’ll have to work my way back up again.
(02:06):
And that’s okay too. So part of the message today is to just be where you’re at. And there’s a phrase that I came across in my studies that I like. It’s unconditional acceptance that we unconditionally accept ourselves, just say yes to. Look, I’ve had the history that I’ve had, all the choices that I’ve made have brought me to where I am today. It has made my money what my money is, and it’s made my health, what my health is. It has made into all of the different things that are happening in my life. Some really wonderful and some need a little bit of work, but it’s all okay, I am here. And the important part about that, by letting go of any judgment or recrimination or shame-based thinking, we can just do unconditional acceptance is I can take it all in as data. I can take it all in and go, well, okay, this worked, this didn’t work.
(03:05):
I can make this change. I am not ready for that change and I can use that to really move myself towards that knowingness. So it’s just a way of being in that there’s something, I think it’s in Charles Fillmore’s teaching of law of non-resistance. We just don’t resist or we have to be in the efforting, the human efforting of it. And when we just breathe into it and we accept what is, and we move forward from there, there can be a real freedom and a real buoyancy and actually a real acceleration to what is unfolding. I’m only going to talk about a couple of things because we’re actually going to do a ritual today. The reason I want to do a ritual is that throughout the month we’ve been doing a lot of talking and we’ve been doing a lot of thinking around this topic and we’ve been doing some spiritual work around it.
(04:01):
And today what I really want to do is get it in our bodies. I want to get it in the fascia into the physical experience. We carry our experiences in our body, we carry the memories, we carry all the joy and the good and the love, but we also carry the wounds and the scars and the hurts. And so as Reverend Linda talked about last week, and to clear some of that stuff out to make room for the new, to make room for the good that wants to come in. So I’ve got our practitioner friends who are going to help me. Connie’s going to help me today with our ritual and I know that we’ll go through the ritual and then we’re going to pray ourselves out. We always do. And today we have our practitioners in training offering up the prayer to close out the service.
(04:47):
So you’ll get to see them and meet them and get to know them a little bit. And I am so grateful for you saying yes to helping me in doing that. So thank you so much. So you can tell it’s a collaboration today. It’s not like just me. I’m going to say just a couple things and then we’ll get into our ritual, which is going to be so much fun. I do want to talk about, so I talked about unconditional acceptance. I also want to talk a little bit about spiritual bypass. So spiritual bypass is when we’re way, sometimes spiritual bypass can show up is something like if it’s about money, I don’t want to look at my money, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. I’m just going, I know everything’s going to be fine, I’m just not going to look at it.
(05:30):
That’s a form of spiritual bypass. One of the things that I wanted to share with you is that sometimes when we’re going through these life experiences, we find a way to cope. And sometimes that coping is by, I’m kind of setting it off to the side and moving forward for a little while. I do that sometimes when something is really challenging, I’ll dive headfirst into work and I keep myself really, really so I can just move through it. I’m not ready to feel all those feelings. And there’s nothing wrong with that either. But what I would say is we want to pick that up again at some point. We want to feel our feelings and process through them. And that is also a really great place to connect with one of our practitioners. Given that it’s practice Sunday, I want to call that out, that you can do prayer and you can do counseling sessions with our practitioners. And one of the things that I would invite you to think about is it may not resolve itself instantly. It can, but it might not. And so think about like, okay, I’m going to work on this and I’m going to do prayer after service every Sunday for the next month or six weeks, and we’re just going to keep working this prayer and working this prayer and working this prayer. And you’ll be amazed at how things come in and how things change.
(06:53):
What else did I want to share with you? I think that what I want to do is get into the ritual a little bit because in this ritual, we’re really going to, as I said, bring it into our bodies and we’re really going to ignite that teaching in a different way. So in order to do the ritual, what I’m going to invite you to do is to participate with me. And the first part of this ritual is going to be getting, is going to be, so we’re calling in the four elements of this earth physical plane, right? Because we want to ground it in this physical experience. We’re going to take the spiritual and bring it into the physical. So ritual always points to the sacred ritual. The purpose of ritual is to point to the sacred. And so it is that meeting place of the spirit and the human experience coming together and expressing in this world of form.
(07:44):
And so that’s what we’re going to do today. It going to be great. So one of the ways that we’re going to do is by calling in the four elements of the physical experience. So the four elements are air, fire, earth and water, air, fire, earth, and water. We have different ways we’re going to do that. And the first one is air. And so we’re going to use our breath and we’re actually going to bring our voice into the room. So I actually just ask you to stand up now, my friends at home, whichever camera I’m looking at, I want to invite you into, I need your energy coming through the camera into the room and feeding us. You are a part of this and you are an important part of this. So as much as you can, if it feels good to stand up, stand up, whatever feels good for you, I invite you into it.
(08:32):
So right now, I just want you to move your body a little bit, just kind of shake it out gently. Don’t hurt yourself or anything, just kind of letting go of any tension. I want you to invite you to just let go of any inhibitions. We’re going to really use our voices. And so I don’t want you to worry about like, oh, I’m going to look silly probably, but I look silly all the time. So just look at me and that’d be fine. Don’t worry. No one’s looking at you. Just look at me. So I want to really call in some words of affirmation around prosperity. And I thought, well, the word prosperity, it’s got a lot of consonance and a lot of syllables and I didn’t really want to work. And we’ve been using that and it can kind of become after repeating it over and over again, like Gertrude Stein, it starts to lose its meaning.
(09:22):
So I want to use a different word. So I’m going to substitute the word hallelujah for prosperity. So I’m going to ask you to say the word hallelujah with me. But here’s what I want you to do. I want you to use your imagination and think about that prayer that you’ve been praying, that transformation that you’ve been calling in that moment of that thing like, I’ve been carrying this and carrying this and carrying this. And finally it’s done. Finally, it’s resolved. Finally, that prayer is answered. Finally, it’s here and it’s hallelujah. That’s the hallelujah I want. Alright, people at home, you got it? I’m going to count to three and we’re going to say, hallelujah. I’m going to go 1, 2, 3, and we’re going to say hallelujah. Really get into the energy of it. We’re bringing this energy into the room, bringing the energy into our bodies, using our breath.
(10:14):
Ready? I’m going to count to three and we’re going to say, hallelujah. 1, 2, 3. Hallelujah. Oh my God, that was beautiful. That was so good. You’re so good. Oh my God. We’re going to do it again This time. We’re going to do it three times. We’re going to do hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. And this is really like look at, not only is it happening for me, but it’s happening here at Cityside. It’s happening for every single person. It’s like, wait a minute, what? It’s happening everywhere. It’s happening for everyone. This is a true hallelujah. So I’m going to count to three people at home. I need your energy. Bring it to me. We’re going to count to three. We’re going to say, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Ready? 1, 2, 3. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. That’s it. Yes. And we’re going to do it again. And this time I’m going to change the word.
(11:09):
This time I’m going to use the word I was thinking about life. I wanted to bring life into it. But I think instead of using the word life, I’m going to use the word breath. Breath. Because breath is life. Our breath is what connects us in this earth and connects us to spirit, both. And so I really want to call in this breath of life, this breath that is just surging through you, that is bringing you this light, this life, this love. So I’m going to count it through. I’m going to say breath, breath, breath. Okay, people at home, I need you to do this with me. I need your energy coming through the camera at me with this beautiful affirmation. So here we go. We’re going to go. 1, 2, 3. Breath, breath, breath. Yeah, breath. Yeah, I can keep breathing in. What happens? I keep taking in more air.
(12:00):
And you know what happens? There’s still more air. You can sit down. You guys can sit down. Thank you. You can sit down. I keep taking it in. I get more breath. And you know what happens? As I take in more breath, no matter how much I take in, there’s still more. There’s still more. It’s everywhere and it’s still coming at me. And no matter how much I take in, there’s still more for each and every single one of you. I am not taking any breath away from any of you. This is abundance. This is the consciousness of prosperity. This is the prosperous heart. It is everywhere. Everyone always flowing, always coming in and always available like the breath. And now you can use your breath whenever you want to remind yourself that this is the truth of your being. And I know we are all human beings, so we’re all thinking, okay, okay, okay.
(12:47):
I know there are times when it gets clogged up, when it gets jammed up, when it doesn’t happen. And we are going to speak to that today because we’re going to take our ritual into a new direction. So to pull in, I want to get US centered, and I’m going to invite Judy to hand out these stones which represent the earth. And I want this to be grounding for you. So we’re going to invite in a grounding. So take one. They’re all very different and they’re all very pretty. So I hope you find one and you can take it home with you and you can put it on your altar. And again, it is something that you can use and hold and remind yourself of this grounding of this teaching. And for people at home, I can’t give you pass out to you the stone.
(13:32):
But if you would like one, I would invite you. If you email me your address, I will mail you one. I’ll absolutely do that for you. I’ll send you a little gift box with your stone and you can email me@johnatcityside.me. That’s JOHN at ct ys ID e.me. And I’d be happy to send you one and give you that gift so you can be a part of this. So as we collect our stone and get anchored into this now moment, I’m going to ask you to join me in getting centered and in the centering. What I really want to invite for you is to think about holding yourself gently, really holding yourself in love, the way you might hold a small child or your pet dog or pet cat, that unconditional love, that loving, nurturing, safe, sweet presence for yourself. We do it so easily for others and so often we don’t do it as easily for ourselves. So grounding in that earth stone, knowing that we are here in this physical experience, and yet knowing that we are spiritual beings. We just hold each other with wherever we are. This unconditional acceptance right here, right now, I just hold myself in gentle, loving energy.
(15:22):
And this love is connected to the breath. As we breathe, this love comes in and through. It’s like you can imagine the energy coming down through the top of your head, down through the bottom of your feet and moving out, just kind of clearing the way and then coming back up through the bottom of your feet, up to the top of your head, coming out through the body, out through the shock. This love that just moves through you and sustains you and enlivens you, prospers you. We’re going to move into just bringing this more into the body. I’m going to invite Connie to come join me as we move into activating the energy centers in our body. And this is for some of you will know this as the chakra system, the chakras, you don’t need to know what chakras are. If you don’t know them, that’s fine. Where it’s just different forms of energy that land in the body. And we’re going to both clear and activate those energy centers to really pull this teaching into our physical being. So I’m just going to invite Connie to begin with the first chakra.
Connie Houdek (16:32):
He’s got it. There we go. Alright, everyone in line and offline, online,
John Adams (16:39):
And we’re going to be lighting the candles to bring the fire.
Connie Houdek (16:42):
So find a comfortable position for your body. Balance it as best you can, sitting balanced on both sides. Breathing deep, dropping your shoulders, uncross your legs, and just balance your body. Okay, the first chakra is the base chakra. It’s at the bottom of your spine. So slide your mind down to the bottom of your spine. It’s corresponding color is red, it is connected to the earth. It is associated with physical stability, security, responsibility for self. And the energy flows clockwise. So envision that, activate that energy center. If this energy is depleted, your connection with the world has been weakened, we’re likely to feel spacey and ungrounded. So breathe in to that space and ground yourself to the here and now.
(18:12):
There you go. The second chakra is the sacral chakra. It’s in your lower abdomen. Corresponding color is the vibration of orange and is associated with sexuality, sensuality, mentoring and nourishing ourselves. The energy moves counterclockwise, breathe into that space. Deep breath. If this energy is depleted, we have deprived ourselves of pleasure. We’ve stifled our creativity and passion. So breathe in and open that center. Breathe in the pleasure of the world, the pleasure of life, the pleasure of being. The third chakra is the solar plex chakra. It’s low located and our solar plexus, our ribs. The lower ribs corresponding color. Vibration is yellow.
(19:48):
It is associated with inner peace, personal power, and trusting your gut feelings. The energy moves clockwise. So move it. Take a deep breath and move that energy. And if this energy is depleted, you may be overly sensitive to others’ reactions or feel indifferent and critical of ourselves. So clear that release that breathe in to your solar plexus. Deep breath. The fourth chakra, the heart chakra. It’s located in the middle of our chest, corresponding color is green. Green emanating with love, generosity, compassion, and forgiveness. The energy moves anti-clockwise, counterclockwise. So breathe into your heart space, breathe in that love, that acceptance, the compassion for yourself.
(21:19):
Breathe deep. If this energy is depleted, one is continually giving even when their needs are not met. And design denies empathy or is unable to show compassion. So breathe in and open up to all that love. The fifth chakra is the throat chakra. It’s located in your throat area. Blue is the color. It is associated with communication, willpower, truthfulness, and expression. The energy moves clockwise. Breathe that in. If it is depleted, we are sometimes overly talkative, unable to express our needs or to speak the truth without being hurtful to others. So release that. Release and breathe in.
(22:35):
Breathe in that love. The sixth chakra, the third eye chakra is located between your eyebrows, the corresponding colors, indigo. It’s associated with wisdom, inspiration, knowledge, and trusting a higher source. The energy moves anticlockwise counterclockwise. Open that eye up to receive, receive wisdom, knowledge, receive love, trusting the higher source. If this energy is depleted, we sometimes find ourselves narrow-minded, or fixed on our ideas. We can be uncomfortable with challenges in the ways others think or feel about something that is different than our own. Release that release the tunnel vision. Open. Open to all the wisdom and knowledge. Take a deep breath. The seventh chakra, the crown chakra, it’s located at the top of our head.
John Adams (24:19):
I can’t light it.
Connie Houdek (24:21):
Very top of your head. Corresponding color is violet. It’s associated with grace, beauty, serenity, oneness with all and selfless realization. Energy moves clockwise. So open at the top, open it up and receive. Release all and understanding and allow the higher vibration to connect all of your chakras. Bring it down into your body, enliven, feeling the life pulsing through your whole being, feeling that energy filling you up. The unconditional love of all. Breathe. Deep, big, deep breath all the way to your toes. There you go. You are one. Thank you.
John Adams (25:45):
So one of the things that I know that we haven’t talked about yet is that in the world of form, in our physical experience or things going on in the world that you may be heavy on, your mind may be heavy on your heart. So just calling those in now and knowing and pouring love into those situations, those circumstances, those places where love is most needed, where a higher consciousness is most needed. And knowing that we are a channel for that love, that light, that joy in this world. So we call that in. And however that moves you as you move out through your week, your day, your year to be in action. I bless that. And we just hold the consciousness here for just a moment.
(26:47):
I just say a word of grace, a word of ease, a word of peace for each and every single soul that has said yes to their prosperity and their abundance, I say a word of peace on the world and the planet does. Knowing that as we do these rituals, as we come together as a community, we are a light unto the world. We are lighting a path. We are lighting the consciousness and that our consciousness is affecting the communities around us, the world around us. And we are uplifting that consciousness. And I know that this is true as the spiritual truth plays in and through me. It plays in and through each and every single member of cityside. And cityside is a beacon of this consciousness, this love, and this light. And knowing this, I just invite our prac students to come up and close us out with a beautiful prayer of abundance and prosperity.
Jason LaRiviere (27:59):
I take this opportunity to acknowledge the truth that God is all there is. God
Is in everything. God is in everyone. Therefore, God is peace, abundance, and prosperity.
Mena Swanson Eastwood (28:15):
And as I know that this divine source, that God and this peace, abundance, and prosperity, I know too
That we are all one with this. We’re all one with peace and as abundance and prosperity,
Paul McHugh (28:34):
And coming from this place of oneness with the peace and prosperity of God, I know this is the truth of my being. I know this is the truth of my being for everyone here I know this is the truth of being for everyone online. I know that this is the truth of everyone in our community and all people that abundance is our birthright. Abundance is ours now. Abundance is who we are. And we look when the world of form gets in the way, we look past our bank account, we look past our IRA, we look past that which we have substituted as the source and we look towards the real source. The real source is the ultimate expression, the ultimate reality of God. That is the true source of our prosperity. Always will be, always was, never ending. And I call forth an experience of this in our lives right now, that our heart is open. We feel joy for that prosperity that is ours now.
Jason LaRiviere (29:42):
And I am grateful for the fulfillment of this prayer of peace, abundance, and prosperity. And I speak this word into the action of the law that always says yes.
Jason, Mena, and Paul (29:51):
And so it is.