IW Morsel – Human Being
A human being is living in a purely material sense of the world, but he is not living in a material world because there is none.
From – Living Between Two Worlds
By Joel Goldsmith
P. 31

From – Living by Grace
By Joel Goldsmith
P. 75-76

Evaluating One’s Spiritual Progress

There is a way of evaluating what degree of progress we are making on the spiritual path. It is not by noticing how much more spiritual we feel or how better we are behaving or how much more virtuous we are. These are not the signs. We can evaluate our spiritual progress by our reactions to what is presented to us in the pictures of the world. For example, the more we realize that temporal power is not power, the less we fear war or the threat of war. That is one sign of spiritual progress. Another is reacting with less horror or fear to the sins and diseases of the world. You also show your own spiritual progress as you realize that supply is spiritual and react with less horror or pity to the seeming lack of food and necessities in the impoverished countries of the world. You not only show your progress, you also help to remove lack and limitation.
The last enemy to overcome is death, which may be only a fear of the unknown. At some time or other, we must overcome the fear of death by realizing that it is not actually death. It is a transition into a different state of experience. Regardless of what the appearance may be, we do not die. We simply make a transition into another phase of life, much like a larva becomes transformed into a butterfly.
One cannot remain a child forever, and thus we all have to face the fact of becoming a youth. As wonderful as that phase may be, we then must face the realities and responsibilities of adulthood. Adulthood coming to an end may be the most difficult period for some. The children marry and have families of their own, and we parents become onlookers in their lives. Some parents never make the transition into this phase of life and continue to meddle in the lives of their children and grandchildren, making everyone miserable. If we are to be really mature, we must acknowledge that the time has come when our children’s lives are their own and we must make a separate life for ourselves.
Then we must face the fact that we have to leave that phase of life and enter another. That phase is the one we know the least about. But if you face death and lose your fear of it, you are wholly on the spiritual path, because you will have realized that you have no selfhood, that God is your Selfhood, that the life you are living is God’s, that it is God living your life, and that you are perfectly willing for God to take it around the world or even into the next world. Once you have lost your fear of death, you are wholly on the spiritual path.