What is spiritual evolution?

It is spirit-conception thrown off from the Mind of God working upward―as the seed planted in the soil works out its possibilities toward reproducing the prototype of the plant from whence it came.

The ever-radiating possibilities from the All-pervading Mind―constantly acting upon the forces―fixed and fastened by immutable laws―must yet―like all things else in the universe― be subject to the law.

Having foreseen and ordained laws sufficient to control All That Is, the Omnipotent Mind must confine Itself to the conditions of the self-imposed law―else God becomes the destroyer of his own creation.

All means having been ordained, and all life brought forth, as a revelation of His own power and glory, it is impossible to conceive that His will can ever come in conflict with His own plan, since His wisdom is omnipotent.

The forces of creation are so balanced and harmonised that they always tend from seeming chaos and confusion to great glory and magnificent exhibition of power and wisdom.

No human mind loses anything by the radiations that it throws off—the thoughts that it evolves out of itself only increase its own power to think.

Yet every good or great thought that is dropped where it can take root in another mind may be helped on by that new mind to a larger and better conception of itself—be again thrown off into another receptive mind and again increased in power and beauty, and so on indefinitely.

It is only a simple thought―thrown off from a working mind―yet it becomes vast, and perhaps of power, to move and sway many souls after enough successive stages of progression through mental activities.

 

The workings of the spirit upward.

You may trace the workings of the spirit upward―its development and accumulations of force within itself, through its career in earth-life―mark its evolutions into the next sphere or condition of existence―witness its increasing energies and abilities through new and generally better and more favourable conditions for development―mark again, after it has exhausted for itself the second condition of existence, its new evolutions into angel―again, after time, which loses its limit to mental consciousness now, into higher angel―higher and higher—dependent only upon the height to which you have yourself attained―whether the ladder reaches in its successive rounds on upward to Infinity itself―or whether the God-mind to which you owe your existence and conditions of existence is also ever-progressing―

As you judge a man by his actions, and what you can perceive of the moral and mental conditions through which his actions work, so can you judge the Omnipotent only by what you can perceive of His laws, and of the tendencies of the higher types of his creation.

The most desirable things for you to find out are the things most conducive to your most symmetrical and perfect unfolding in the stage of existence in which you are.

If you can only take up from the soil in which you are growing the attributes most necessary to your individual and peculiar development―when you make your evolutions, there will be no looking backwards―no withering blight of regret to outgrow―no mildew of prejudice to wipe out―no pains of conscience to endure―when you look into the clearer mirror of a new existence.

The one who thus gains the most increasing energy―with the least to retard his upward tendencies―leaves far in the wake those who take with them mental burthens from one stage of existence to the next.

Truly the kingdom of heaven is within you―never hope or expect to gain it without the circle of your own individual spirit.

He who is miserable and complaining will be miserable and complaining in his next stage of existence until he has developed a self-poise that is self-sustaining. 

And he can never progress beyond that next stage, nor into all of its best conditions, preparatory for the new evolutions of spirit-life, until he has developed such a self-poise.

The successive developments being now purely spiritual, the evolutions depend upon his mental (or soul) health, as on earth it is determined by the condition of his body.

Labour then for that mental poise of peaceful equanimity and loving charity and helpfulness toward others that may give you even on earth that state of heavenly kingdom that will afterwards elevate you to a more rapid evolution onward through the spheres.