You can measure spiritual progress the same way you measure progress in anything else: look at whether your life is actually changing. Are you kinder than you were two years ago? Do you react less? Is your life better because of your actions? If not, the practice is not working, and it is reasonable to adjust it.
Nobody would keep a diet and exercise routine that left them less healthy after two years. In everyday life people are very reasonable. But when it comes to spirituality, reason often goes out the window. People become committed to not being committed — devoted to having no path, no structure, no framework.
In this conversation I make the case for the opposite. Reason should not end where spirituality begins. If a teacher cannot give you something reasonable and quantifiable, that is a warning sign — the absence of reason is exactly what allows spiritual teachers to become dodgy and turn a path into a cult. One good litmus test of any teacher or path is simply this: is it reasonable?
“The greatest progress you can make in spirituality is having structure and framework. The more structure and more framework you have, the faster you unfold spiritually.”
You would not build a business by taking a little bit of everything from a buffet and hoping it works. You define what you want, then commit to a focused approach. The best tennis players commit to tennis. Your spiritual life deserves the same commitment.
In this teaching
- Why honest measurement — is my life actually changing? — belongs at the center of spiritual practice.
- Why reason is your protection on the spiritual path, and unreasonable teachers are a signal to move on.
- Why committing to one path with structure and framework unfolds you faster than sampling from the spiritual buffet.
Watch the conversation above. Then ask yourself the hard question: what has my practice measurably changed in the last two years?
