"How can I tell if I'm making spiritual progress?

A question that I'm most often asked, "How can I tell if I'm making spiritual progress? Is there a sign? How can I know if I'm making spiritual progress on this path?" The answer is very simple. When you look at the world what do you see? Do you see the same world you saw five years ago? If your habits haven't changed. Your judgmentalism hasn't changed, your ego hasn't changed, your anger hasn't changed, this really means you're not doing anything. Not practicing anything and you will see the things that you are, outside of yourself. But, if you're feeling more peace, more harmony, when there is strife going on, so-to-speak, you look right through it and you see harmony. You no longer are judgmental towards anybody or anything. Right and wrong, good and bad, up and down, forward and backward are all illusory to you, then you know you're making progress, things are happening. Only you can save yourself. Remember you do not know how much time you have left in this world, in your body, so-to-speak. You never know when you're going to give up your body. What are you doing with your time? Do you waste it by worrying over nonsense or trying to change person, place or thing, or trying to get your own way, manipulation? You're only fooling yourself. You must try your best to let go of this world, if you want to make spiritual progress. By letting go of this world I don't mean you have to go live in a cave and ignore everybody, I mean mentally. This all begins mentally. You have to mentally make the correction within yourself. As an example: You go to a school room and you look through the window in a school and you see a teacher adding on the blackboard, two times two is five. That's the wrong answer. You have no right to go into the school and beat up the teacher. I guess that's what they do now. You can go to the teacher and become angry at the teacher and scream at her and say, "Look what you're writing down, two times two is five, this is wrong!" Of course in her words, she is just trying to show the class. You really don't know what's going on, you're seeing a partial picture and you're judging by the partial picture. But your duty is to make the correction mentally. You see the difference? Mentally you're saying to yourself, "Two times two is four, not five!" And once you're made the correction you're finished with it. That is how you should live in this world. When you see disharmony, man's inhumanity to man, wars, all the nonsensical things going on in this world, you mentally change it, by knowing the truth about these things. The truth is there is only Brahman, there is only the absolute reality and you are that absolute reality. There is only the one and you are that one. As you begin to do this day after day, make mental corrections, the day comes when you no longer have to do this, for you now live in a higher consciousness, where there is no disharmony, no confusion, no chaos. You have lifted yourself up to a higher plateau. Even when I say there is no confusion, no chaos, no disharmony, I'm not saying it will stop being like that in this world. This world will never change, this world is the world that we see. This world goes through certain universal karma and it has absolutely nothing to do with you. This is why you learn to leave the world alone. You learn to leave people alone. You learn to leave yourself alone. It all starts within yourself. If you're not satisfied with yourself, if you do not love yourself, how can you possibly love other people? Or be satisfied with other people? You will always find fault. That fault comes from a deep dissatisfaction, probably since you were a kid. How do you remedy this? By staying the mind on God, on Brahman, on consciousness. Robert Adams - 2/28/93