Chapter 14
Spiritual Understanding
1. IF YOU would grow in understanding of spiritual things, become as a little child and let the universal spirit of good teach you. Do not strain your intellect in trying to understand the mighty questions of life; wait until you have developed faculties which can comprehend them. There is a running to and fro among men that will never cease so long as they try to explain spiritual things with the intellect. Listen to the stillness within your own soul—and you will find it resonant with a new tongue.
2. The world lacks spiritual understanding. All about us are those who preach and teach the so-called religion and doctrine of Jesus Christ, yet how few there are who have the understanding of reality which He promised will come to those who believe. It is quite evident that they do not have the understanding of His teaching that leads to the “signs” mentioned in the last chapter of Mark as bearing witness of those who believe.
3. It is found, in the study of Truth, that these signs do follow those who get the spiritual understanding which comes with a full acceptance of spiritual science. A partial understanding is accompanied by a manifestation of a part of the signs. Even a slight spiritual perception leads to the unfoldment in many people of the power to heal the sick. This is being demonstrated all over the land. It is becoming so common that on every hand “infants” in spiritual understanding are now doing mighty works in bringing health to invalids.
4. This understanding, however, is not the full-orbed sun which it is promised shall be found in those who have put on the white raiment of purity; it is simply a few straggling rays that have found their way through the shifting rifts of mortal beliefs. Healing these perishing bodies of the world of shadows is not the ultimate of Truth; nor is it even a factor in the future glories of the permanent unfoldment which will surely be the portion of those who come into full understanding. These sick and diseased bodies are results of flagrant errors that men have made in their attempts to solve the problem of life without divine help.
5. These errors can be corrected. There are many now on the road to an understanding that will eradicate the belief in death so completely that their bodies will never pass through the state of physical corruption. Eventually their understanding of spiritual things will so refine the physical body that it will fade from the view of those in whom the real has not been likewise perceived. This process will in time become so common that all will look forward to it as the ultimate, and dying in the old way will be thought disgraceful.
6. Those who fade out of sight will not necessarily go anywhere as we understand distance, but will simply come into a fuller understanding of the new heaven and the new earth which are now right here about us. Had we the understanding of spiritual things which is ours by divine right, we would see that we now touch elbows with the inhabitants of a realm beautiful beyond comparison. This planet is in reality a thought of Divine Mind and it is alive with the same vivifying intelligence that animates man. Its real self is spiritual and corresponds to the Christ principle, which is the life of man. It is the habitation of the perfected souls that have come into a consciousness of their unity with the one Mind, and as we go within ourselves in the silence we come into a certain degree of harmony with it. It is what Jesus spoke of as the heaven that is within you.
7. Thus, the new heaven and the new earth which are promised will not involve another creation but simply a rolling up, as a scroll, of the erroneous concepts of men as to the reality of things all about them. Those whose spiritual understanding is restored to them can now and here enjoy this new Jerusalem. It is simply knowing the real from the unreal. When man knows this he is already in heaven, no matter what his external condition may indicate.
8. The full understanding that is now dawning will do away with all the inverted images—sin, sickness, sorrow, and death—which have been invested by men with apparent permanency. These are not in any sense real, but are wrong combinations in which the senses have arranged their little store of knowledge.
9. A harmonious relation of mental concepts would change the earth and all its relations in the twinkling of an eye. No change in reality would take place—simply an adjustment of the thoughts now held by men. For instance, it took people a long time to comprehend that the sun did not go around the earth. Our senses evidence conclusively that the sun does go around the earth. But we now see with the mind’s eye just how the earth and the planets travel around the sun, and an entirely new relation of things presents itself. We see that right here within sight of our eyes, upon which we depend for information, exists a condition of affairs of which our eyes tell us nothing—which, in fact, they flatly contradict.
10. When you think of this earth and all that is upon it as being made of the very substance of God, and always under His divine law, you will no longer be disturbed by things going on about you. You will rest every night, and your days will be pleasant.
11. Don’t bother about what others may think or say about you. God loves you, and approves of what you do when you are doing your best to follow the Jesus Christ way. The opinions of others cannot get you down or lift you up. You have the power of God within you to raise yourself up to where you know you are His child, with ability along all lines and with freedom to do whatever you really wish to do.
12. God is helping you now to know that this is the Truth. God is showing you that your best dreams are coming true; that you are to forget the past and its disappointments; that you are to do everything as though you were doing it for God. God is a great, loving Father, Who is interested in you, and Who can and will help you. He will supply your needs, and will show you how to keep happy and healthy.
13. You cannot hope for peace and joy and health and plenty and opportunity for greater development as long as your subconscious mind is weighted down with old burdens. When you desire with all your heart to live the life God has planned for His children, the life that is revealed in the indwelling Christ mind, you will find old beliefs and habits crumbling, and you will face the necessity for building a new faith. Just as Jesus met the old race beliefs in sorrow and suffering and death, and rose triumphant out of them, so you have the light and power to meet the race beliefs in sorrow and lack and failure and death, and to rise out of them in the true Christ consciousness of life.
14. Your own willingness to come into spiritual consciousness and to develop and use the Christ power will determine your growth. But you are to keep to the Holy Spirit as your light and to let the study of the writings of others, or their lives, be but witnesses to you of what God ideas can do. Others may be instrumental in calling forth into activity the power within you. The Holy Spirit is the activity of God-Mind in the consciousness of man.
15. The long way, the most difficult way, back to the Father’s house is the way of experience. The shortcut is in being receptive and obedient to the leading of the Holy Spirit in thought, word, and deed, putting God first in your life.
16. When you come into a spiritual realization, as you do in the silence, expect it to go down into the depths of your body consciousness and do its powerful and perfect work. None of us has learned to abide in the Christ consciousness continuously, but the times we do rise into it keep us growing and overcoming and establishing more and more of its truth in our lives.
17. We are not to feel discouraged if, after such a glorious experience, we seem to lose the Christ consciousness and go back into the old habits. We cannot really lose anything that Spirit has expressed in us. We simply let it sink into our human consciousness to do its good work, just as we plant seeds in the ground and apparently lose them in order that they may grow and bring forth many, many other seeds, and the beauty and fragrance of the budding and blossoming which come before the ripe fruit. The Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ has sown in us the seeds of light and health and prosperity, seeds of the Father’s creating. These seeds are working in us to transform us completely. That which has quickened our souls and given us the joyous sense of freedom will work in every cell of our bodies to give them that same wonderful sense of wholeness and freedom.
18. At times the soul will reveal to us conditions that are wholly at variance with the reports of the senses and intellect, yet more real and substantial than any of these. Hence, if you would know the perfect relation of all things in the universe, cultivate the soul. It is intelligence itself and will reveal to you, in the silence of meditation, glories and beauties of which you have not dreamed. It will show you that your supposed condition of sickness is simply a false adjustment of thought, and if you listen to its promptings it will bring to you health and harmony in all your relations. All things move from center to periphery, and man is no exception. Find the law of your center and the periphery will be regulated in exact proportion to the degree with which you allow that center to express itself.
