Many people imagine spiritual progress as an escape plan.
A final graduation.
A cosmic resignation letter.
“I’ve seen through the illusion,” they say.
“I’m done with this world.”
And then the phone rings.
A deal collapses.
Money disappears.
A reputation trembles.
Someone threatens what we thought was secure.
Suddenly the illusion feels very real again.
The same person who spoke of transcendence an hour earlier now says,
“Leave me alone with spirituality. I don’t have time for that right now.”
This is not failure.
This is feedback.
It’s easy to feel enlightened when nothing is pressing on you.
When life is calm, silence feels natural.
When no one challenges you, peace comes cheaply.
The real measure appears when life tightens its grip.
How do you respond when the world does not cooperate with your ideals?
When something you love is threatened?
When control slips through your fingers?
That response tells the truth.
Not the visions you’ve had.
Not the words you’ve learned.
Not the identities you wear.
Just the reaction.
We say, “I lost it,” when anger flares or fear takes over.
It’s a strangely accurate phrase.
What was lost wasn’t morality or composure.
It was awareness.
And here’s the quiet miracle:
the moment you notice you’ve lost it, you’ve already begun to find it again.
If you know you’re unconscious, you’re not fully unconscious.
If you can see the storm, you are not the storm.
As awareness grows, the grip of reactivity loosens.
What once hijacked you begins to pass through you.
What once consumed you becomes information.
The world becomes your teacher, whether you ask it to be or not.
Do people still make you angry?
Good. That shows you where attention is needed.
Do situations that once shook you now pass more lightly?
That’s not detachment.
That’s integration.
Spiritual maturity is not measured by how high you can float in meditation,
but by how grounded you remain when life pushes back.
You may see angels.
You may converse with cosmic beings.
That’s fine.
But how do you stand in line?
How do you drive when the light turns red?
How do you walk from one room to another?
This is where consciousness proves itself.
An old sage once gave a deceptively simple answer to the question,
“How do I know I’m progressing?”
He said:
By the degree to which thought falls silent.
Not permanently.
Not dramatically.
But in small openings.
Gaps between thoughts.
Moments of pure presence.
Walking without narrating.
Listening without preparing a response.
Being with what is, without commentary.
Stillness doesn’t make you passive.
It makes your thinking cleaner when you need it.
Thought, when rooted in silence, becomes precise instead of compulsive.
Creative instead of defensive.
Responsive instead of reactive.
Then something subtle happens.
Life begins to move through you instead of against you.
Words arise from clarity.
Actions emerge without strain.
Not because you escaped the world,
but because you stopped fighting it.
And that’s how you know.
Not by how spiritual you sound.
But by how present you remain when the world rings the phone.