Acharya Prashant explains that the determination of right and wrong is based on one thing: whether you are feeling light internally or not. He uses the analogy of a glass of water, stating that if one has a habit of constantly adding to oneself and clinging, then with each passing day, one will feel heavier. Therefore, a good measure of whether you are progressing internally is the feeling of internal lightness. He further elaborates on this by asking whether old things still haunt you, whether you fear the future, and whether you have to think in a hundred different ways while doing one task. These are all indicators. He states that there can be no other litmus test; this is it. While there are other symptoms, from experience, this symptom of internal lightness seems the most clear and revealing. There are many small things that will give you a hint. You should see how many signs of liberation are visible in the path you are moving towards. How much is fear contributing to what you are about to do? Do you even understand what is happening? What is the other person influencing within you, which button are they pressing? With a little practice, one immediately knows when something is wrong inside. The practice of peace is needed. When there is a disturbance inside, it becomes known that what is being done is causing an internal commotion, that something wrong is being done. The intention should be to be calm. The thing that creates turmoil within you or lowers your consciousness cannot be good for you. This requires practice. Then, one starts to realize, even in small tasks, which action should not have been done but was. After that, if you can reverse it, do so; if not, learn from it for the future. To know the fake as fake, you must understand what is real and what is fake. Real means that which gives you happiness or at least promises it. Fake means that which promises but will later renege or break the promise. That is called fake. The scriptures call this eternity (nityata). Real is that which is as it is today and will be the same tomorrow; it cannot change. Fake is that which is something else today and will become something else tomorrow. This is the only identification of real and fake.
