Years ago, back when I still thought such places held value, I asked the Catholic and Christian subreddits if there was any way to "measure” spiritual progress. You know, to ensure that I was going in the right direction.

To my surprise, the response was mostly that I was laughed at. “Of course not.” “What, like a holy-meter?” “Sure, just let me pop my ‘sanctity-stick’ out and see how you compare!”

I think most religious people feel this way. That the realm of objective, measurable results is purely in the domain of the physical and that the spiritual is fundamentally unknowable.

This isn’t true, obviously. And, in the years past, I’ve discovered that good metrics to measure your spiritual growth, state, are some of the following:

1)How often do you find yourself expressing (especially quietly and in private) contempt for others or yourself?

2)How much resentment comes up when you are asked to give or to share?

3)How easily are you made jealous? How many times a day does seeing someone with a “nicer” (in your present opinion) car, house, partner, job, etc make you feel bad about yourself or envious of them or spiteful towards the world?

4)How easily and often do you pray?

5)How anxious are you about the future? How fearful?

You can objectively log and measure these things. Journal them. Take stock of the state of your soul and try to see what areas need to be cleaned out.