Good morning, everybody. First off, I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being present today. Practical metaphysics. I am training to be a licensed Unity teacher, which has definitely given me a new perspective. Something that we say every Sunday is "Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you're welcome here." Why this resonated so much with me was because, and what I love about unity too, is that we don't criticize you. We don't say, "Well, you should know all of these things. You need to be acting exactly like this all the time or your 'insert result.'"
Embrace the fact that we are exactly where we need to be, that we are exactly how we have to be in this moment. That pushed me in my thinking as well, that we preach that we are the creators of our world. We manifest what we want to create. You saw what happened on Wednesday with the riots at the Capitol Building.
How did I do that? What did I do to create that?
We start to question "How did I manifest this? How did I bring about these events?" Not so perfect things brought me to this.
We're still perfect. Don't think that because something bad or something not great happened, that it's absolutely totally our fault. How dare you do that. That's not what this is about. It's about taking into our thinking, our consciousness, and saying, this is what it is right now. I have every single tool in my tool belt to do better. One thing that we talk about a lot here is, "How dare you have an ego, how dare you possibly think about anything that's not Christ-like."
A beautiful tool that I gained from studying metaphysics was from The Revealing Word, which is essentially a version of Charles Fillmore's definitions. And what he said regarding ego is, "Man and woman and by reason of our divinity, make and remake ego at will. In this lies our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. The ego itself is possessed by nothing. It is a mere ignorant child of innocence floating in the mind of being, but through the door of its consciousness must pass all treasures of God."
Ego can be our greatest strength. We look at it and we think, "How can this possibly be our greatest strength?" What I learned from this is that ego is the mirror. Ego isn't here to drag you down unless you let it. By taking that moment and recognizing when you get that twinge, when you hear that monkey mind talking about all your faults, you can stop and say, "Hold on. What was that? What created this idea in my mind?" That's where the greatest strength comes in. It is the most powerful tool that we can use to say "I can do better." That's not what I want to create. That's not who I want to be. I want to be this beautiful creature of spirit, of love, of understanding. So I'm going to take that recognition. Thank you, spirit for showing me, and I'm going to do better.
You may be asking yourself. How do I do better? Unity is always saying we should take it to prayer, meditation, do this, do that, write your affirmations. Meditating can hard at times. Life is so loud. Life's so busy. How can I just sit down for five minutes and meditate when I could be doing a million other things? There is no wrong way to pray or to meditate. You must totally, absolutely clear your mind. Be an unfiltered vessel.
That takes practice and we need to not judge ourselves because we can't get there every day. We are still actively connecting with spirit. Give yourself some slack. What is your way of connecting with spirit? The hiking group, that's a great way to connect to nature. You're in the spirit. You're physically moving. You're getting that energy going. That's a great way to connect to spirit, to ask those questions to say, what is it you need me to know right now? What is it you want me to learn and to internalize right now? And it could be petting your cat, petting your dog. I like to knit and crochet. Is it painting? Is it yoga? Is it playing the guitar? Whatever you feel like that connects you to spirit works.
According to Myrtle Fillmore in her healing letters: "Students should not try so hard to go into the Silence. When your growth brings you to a place where your consciousness may be so completely merged with spirit of Christ's ideas in God's mind that you lose all sense of things about you, it is time to seek and go into the silence. One should not try to hurry the experience."
So again, we could let our ego from before say, "You're not doing it right. Be better. Why are you not a perfect child of God right now?" You can give yourself a break. Every time that we are connecting with spirit, whether it be through consciously recognizing our thoughts, whether it be through our personal practice of prayer and/or meditation, we are connecting to spirit. We are going deeper into the spirit when we avoid those moments. We're missing out on those beautiful gifts.
As a Unity kid, we say the affirmation three times increasing enthusiasm, which is our zeal. I want you to really take this in. I'm going to move the mic away from my mouth so I don't scream in your ear. I promise. "I am doing the best I can every day." So if you would repeat with me please, three times,
I am doing the best I can every day.
I am doing the best I can every day.
I am doing the best I can every day
You doing the best you can is exactly where you need to be. It is exactly what spirit is asking from you. You don't have to do anything crazy. You don't have to get on your knees and plead multiple times a day. Doing the best you can is spirit in action. That's all you could ever ask for yourself. This is where our gifts come in.
"And now my children listen to me happy are those who keep my ways, hear instruction, be wise, and do not neglect it. Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors for whoever finds me, finds life and obtains favor from spirit." - Proverbs, 8:32-35.
Do your best every day. See those gifts from spirit and love yourself and others fully and completely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here with me today. I love you. I bless you. And I truly appreciate you.
