How to know whether one is spiritually evolved? || Acharya Prashant (2018)

Acharya Prashant

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How to know whether one is spiritually evolved? || Acharya Prashant (2018)

Question: How to know whether one is spiritually evolved or not?

Acharya Prashant Ji: Sharmila,

All spirituality is about you. Nobody else will set the criteria. Your suffering begins it, and it ends with your suffering. The origin of Spirituality is – your own, personal suffering. Nobody else sets the criteria.

You are suffering, so you set the criteria. Nobody else sets the criteria.

Have you arrived? Has your suffering ceased? That is the criteria. You do not need outside of your self to set any criteria, or to determine any benchmarks or standards.

“Am I spiritually evolved?” You answer. “Sir, am I spiritually evolved?” You answer. If you still feel lonely, and confused, and divided, and dejected, then you answer whether you are evolved. Nobody else can bother to tell you your state, and nobody else can actually tell you your state. Your experiences are the best judge.

How are you experiencing within, all the time?

And you live in the world of experiences, don’t you? Your mind is never free of experiences. It is never tranquil mind. It is a mind, that is always beset with experiences. Your mind is never free of experiences. It is never tranquil mind, it is a mind always beset with experiences.

Something happened here, something happened there. You are the experiencer, and something is happening to you. You are experiencing it. Now what is the quality of this experiencing?

That is the criteria.

All spirituality is with respect to ‘you’. It is not an examination in which somebody else sets the syllabus. You are the syllabus, and you will determine whether you succeeded or failed. If you are still disgruntled, and hurt, and offended, probably you need to re-appear.

Try.

When have you cleared the examination? When you are a rascal enough, to bunk the exam.

(laughter)

You cannot clear this examination by seriously appearing in it. Once you have shown your admit card to the invigilator, you are flunked. Be a fool enough to simply bunk all exams. And then, this is when you come out of, as they say, “With flying colors.”

“And the topper is – Sharmila (the questioner) . Please come over to the podium.”

When she didn’t even bother to write the exams, would she bother to collect the certificate? She is not here.

Who is the winner? The one who has gone. Not here. Disappeared. Bunked.

“Not here, how will I pass or fail?”

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This article has been created by volunteers of the PrashantAdvait Foundation from transcriptions of sessions by Acharya Prashant
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