Spiritual Progress

Written in answer to a question on a mailing list

You asked about progress spiritually. This is very difficult for me to see in you over the internet . The simple practices outlined under meditation and chakra cleansing caste the Divine light over our inner being and makes clear to us our faults. If we can see them and acknowledge their presence, then the will to change for the better will come to us.
What helps in this is self discipline , not over indulging in the various activities of sleeping, sex and food and working to keep to a minumum time wasters that distract us from doing gainful work .
If we begin to notice particular areas of weaknesses for eg we notice we are selfish or quick to anger or we notice a tendency to boast etc, then these are the areas we need to work on in ourselves.
We also need to notice our compassion towards others and our sense of beauty , are these well developed or under developed , these are indiicators of our stage in developement spiritually.

Being able to feel our energy centers and being clairvoyant or having clairuadience or even being able to see illnesses in people , understanding where these are coming from, none of these actually means we are spiritually mature or advanced. But it does mean that when we have these abilities we should work harder to discipline ourselves and our indulgences because we are more able to destroy ourselves when we lack the discipline. For example , rising Kundalini energy without an ability to channel it to be creative results in uncontrolled and uncontrollable sexual urges. What this means is that the spiritual development instead of bringing one closer to God and enlightenment can become instead a means to self destruct.This is particularly true when we feel proud of being able to feel energy and experience mystic visions when we meditate. Please note this does not mean anything in terms of our level of spiritual development. The acid test is our level of peacefullness and our degree of service to humanity and the universe.

Very few people actually have an ability to guide their own selves, more often than not we need a teacher to see where our weakenesses are and to give us practices that can help us overcome the weaknesses. Having said that, a person who is willing to examine their lives and and learn from it , then that is the best teacher there is.
I have often felt that I am at school in the school of life and that each lesson is tailor made for me to help me to progress to learn my lessons and move on.

Do not be surprised when lessons seem to get repeated or our stages seem to come a full circle and we find ourselves back where we started. It happens in circles yes, but view it instead as ascending spirals , getting wider and higher although the possibility of being static is always there, we have a choice really.

Having said all this, do not despair of your spiritual developement , knowing that there are so many things that get in the way and may hinder and hamper you because true sincerity and a true longing to understand that which is Real will get you there somehow for the most important ingredient in our journey is not our efforts but God's grace and the most important quality you need to get this is hope, expectation and prayer.