How Do you measure Spiritual Progress

One of the biggest challenges that I notice on the spiritual journey is how to measure spiritual progress. I have been trained like so many other people to always have neat and easy ways to measure your progress yet involving the most important things in life this can be very challenging and the most significant part is being love and open to this very moment. Yet at sometimes these seem like cliches or things that other people can achieve but we seem to be struggling with not flipping out on some cop or security guard that is making our life more difficult then it need be in a world that already seems to have more obstacles for us to over come everyday. I believe it is important to let go of any incessant need especially the need to try and measure spiritual progress. More then anything it is just a inner knowing which is a difficult thing to convince your rational mind that you have made progress based on some sort of inner knowing. If you can finally let go of this incessant need to measure growth you also have to avoid allowing yourself to be complacent and always keep striving to be the most authentic and honest that you can be. I have continued to be on my spiritual journey in a conscious way for over 7 years. In that time I have felt really close and I felt really far away and I have reached quite a few false summits. Yet each one of those false summits needed to be reached in order that the highest summit can be reached. I must be compassionated yet I must also use wisdom and good discretion and know when to disregard both of these things for the heart. It is a very fine line and that is one of the reasons why there are few saints. Yet I am always reminded by more aware beings who came before me that a saint is merely a sinner that never gave up. As long as we keep striving to be the most authentic we can be the more we can feel ourselves in tune with all the little nuances that lead to a success much greater then they are showing on in the movies or on television. At what point do you have enough of the material and what point are your willing to take your fools leap.

Now is the time and this is the place but can you just sit with that and let that penetrate you deeply and stop reaching for the past or future and harness all of that incredible positive energy that wants to flow freely from your being into this world that has forgotten. May we all awaken may we all remember and may we do this when we decide that we are ready to stop suffering needlessly.