Eckhart Tolle explains how to assess progress on the spiritual path by using practical, behavioral criteria rather than visionary experiences. The central measure is the "degree of absence of thought": the more frequent gaps in thinking and sustained presence during ordinary activities (walking, driving, sitting in nature), the more consciousness has grown and unconsciousness diminished. He illustrates this with an anecdote about a writer who lost savings in the Madoff Ponzi scheme to show how worldly challenges reveal remaining unconsciousness, and cites Ramana Maharshi to reinforce the absence-of-thought criterion. Practical signs include noticing reduced upset reactions, recognizing when you "lose it," and catching yourself mid-reactive episode as evidence of increasing awareness.
Chapters
How do I know whether I'm making progress on the spiritual path? The degree of absence of thought tells you how far you're advanced on the spiritual path. Sometimes people say, I've had enough of this. I don't want to come back when I definitely, I've had definitely had enough. I'm not coming back. And because this world I have overcome, this world I can see it's all illusion and I'm not coming back. I don't need to. Okay? And an hour later, the telephone rings. It says, the voice at the other end says, The deal has fallen through. Your investments are lost and they are suing you. What? How? What? How dare they? Suddenly the world is very real again. An hour ago you said you had transcended it all, And then somebody didn't. You say you were a spiritual being, and then you are no longer the same person you were an hour ago because you were perhaps, perhaps an hour ago you were connected to something deeper. But you can't stay there. What about the spiritual? Or leave me alone with that spiritual. I don't have time for that now. A friend of mine or acquaintance of mine had. She's a writer. She had invested on the advice or the recommendation of a friend, she had invested 90% of her money in New York in an investment company run by somebody called Madoff. And one day, and she's quite spiritual, and one day the phone call came and told her about Mr. Madoff. It was a Ponzi scheme, as the expression goes. So the whole thing evaporated. Everybody's savings evaporated. So the phone call came and the shock. She immediately called a friend. Well, you know what happened? It's all gone. All over my life's work, all the fruit of my life's work is gone. And the friend says, well, think about your spiritual teachings and what you. And she said, she told me that story herself. She said, this is not the time to be spiritual. And many people are like that. They are okay when they are not being challenged by the world, then they have transcended the world. But when they're being challenged by the world, suddenly they're in the middle of it again. So an excellent criterion to judge your how far, let's say how conscious you are, how far you have advanced on the spiritual path, is how you react to various situations in your life. How do you deal and react with challenges and challenging situation. And that could be quite revealing to observe yourself. And that has a lot shows you quite how conscious you are and whether consciousness can be. You don't have to beat yourself up if you lose it. That's an expression in the English language. I lost it. You can ask, what did you lose? Normally, people don't know what that they say just I lost it means I got very upset, I got very angry, and so I lost it. But it's a good expression. What did they. Of course, they lost consciousness. So the world. What power does the world and the things of the world have over you still? And that gives you feedback. People do people make you upset and angry? That gives you feedback. And if you find you're encountering situations in your life that before used to bring about some upset reaction and that doesn't happen anymore, that's a great sign. That's a great sign. So it's not so much whether you are able to visualize angels, which is lovely. If you can go into meditation and some angels come and speak to you, it's great. But how do you operate in this world? That's even more important. Or you might have conversations with. In your meditations, you might have conversations with Ashtar, commander of the Galactic Fleet, which is all very good, but how do you operate in the. When you're being challenged by the things of this world, and then that's where the real work is, where the real test is, and it's good. So if you recognize unconsciousness in you, usually, if it still happens occasionally to some of you, there's a remote possibility that some of you still occasionally lose it. And if it happens, you may find that after you lost it, to use that expression, the consciousness comes back and you suddenly realize, oh, in that situation, I lost it. And then after a little while, you may find that in the midst of losing it, so to speak, I'm using that expression in the midst of losing it, you realize that you are losing it, and that means you're not losing it. If you know you're unconscious, you're not totally unconscious. If you know you're insane, you're not totally insane. The really insane people don't know they're insane, of course. But if you know, you're saying there is a knowing there that's not part of the insanity. So that's always good. If you know you're insane, you're not. That is not that bad. And the knowing can grow. And as the knowing grows, the insanity shrinks. And as consciousness grows, the unconsciousness dissipates. So it's good that the world gives you always feedback. Now, when the Indian sage Ramana Maharshi had profound teachings, when he was asked how. Somebody asked him, how do I know whether I'm making progress on the spiritual path? And he said, that's an even more simple answer. The degree of absence of thought tells you how far you advanced on the spiritual path. The degree of absence, how much thinking are you still burdened with? In other words, or let's put it in other words, are you able to be free of thought? Not continuously, obviously, you know it is free of thought continuously. But are you able to experience these gaps in the stream? That's the beginning of it. You experience these gaps in the stream of thinking that otherwise has no gaps in very unconscious people. It goes on and on. Are there gaps? And that's great. Could just be a gap in between two thoughts. Or gap while you do something, perform an action, and you're just present with it. You're not thinking. You're able to sit quietly in a room for a minute or two. You're able to go out into nature and contemplate the trees and so on without interpretation. You're just present. You're able to walk from A to B, a short walk, and be present with every step. And you're in your car, driving, being present with each traffic light that turns red. And with each red traffic light, you're just there. There's a stillness in the background. So become familiar with this, with not thinking. And that will empower your thinking when you do need it. Because your thinking can become more creative and more empowered. If you are connected to the deeper realm of being, then being can act, speak through you. The consciousness, the unconditioned consciousness, can act, speak through you.
