Cycles of Spiritual Metabolism

Spiritual Understanding - Demonstrating the Unreality of Evil.

This level begins a radical departure from conventional Western religion, although it appeared in an organized religion about a hundred years ago. It exalts a perfect spiritual creator and creation, and holds that appearances to the contrary are illegitimate, a false sense of creation existing only as illusion in a mortal mind. The antidote to difficulties at this level is to align thought and action with the divine Mind and put off the old mind. This phase begins the "scientific" and metaphysical religions. It stakes out a whole new attitude about the role of thinking in our spiritual pursuits. While level two recognizes the importance of beliefs, this level three focuses on improved spiritual thinking. Rather than considering our thinking as a way to interpret our senses, level three says we can reflect the divine Principle in our thinking and reform our senses. The chapter "Levels of Spiritual Action" talks about the difference between belief and understanding as it applies to this level. The chapter "What About Evil?" provides more of the rationale for this level three of spiritual progress. When the substance of our present consciousness is seen as reflected spiritual goodness and we have no conception of falsity within, we are ready for the next phase.

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