When we do the inner work, it’s always good to evaluate how we are doing. This can be done daily, weekly, monthly, and also annually. It can be really interesting to look back over the year, seeing how things went, because we then see ourselves in the spiritual work in a larger time-frame than one day or a month. When we look at things from this perspective, we are aware that we don’t have that much time in a lifetime inside which we could realize our spiritual work, understanding that each year is a precious opportunity to do something worthwhile with our spiritual work, something that, if we work properly and intensely, could be seen and measured. The reason for this is because the Work is not something abstract that manifests some good changes in us from time to time, but a concrete thing that transforms our consciousness.

That’s why it is good to look back over the year to see how we “performed” in the context of the Work; if we’ve done what we aimed to do. If so, in what quality and quantity; how much have we increased our consciousness and reduced our defects; how have we improved in our practices of meditation; have we been able to overcome things that have been stopping us from going to the next level of our work, etc. All these things can be reflected on in this yearly evaluation, regardless if we have done good or bad – it is always of great importance to be sincere with ourselves and see things as they are, because only from this point can we move forward in a renewed way, supported by our Being and other higher beings.

The Work is a path to perfection, so that one day we too could be transformed into something of a higher nature. Within every year that is given to us, we can work in order to one day create a masterpiece of our life, something that we will carry on beyond this life. But this takes time, sacrifices, and constant re-evaluation. If when reflecting on how the year went we see that we have had successes and generally ascended in a proper way towards our Being, this is then important to acknowledge, but also see how we could improve upon it the coming year. If we are content with our speed of ascension, then we should at least see that we don’t drop it, but also understand that the next milestone may hold for us an enormous source of energy that we could drew from, that could give us strength and power unlike anything we knew so far, and therefore faster movement forward.

It is important to know where we are on the path, and what is ahead of us. If we know that, then there will be a kind of a magnetic pull towards that goal, because we know that it is light that we are working towards, and we feel pull towards that light. We can look at each of the stage of the inner work, each initiation, as a sort of light, because in reality it is light. It is the light that lifts us up from wondering for many lifetimes in land of the lost.

And so we can work towards that within each year that we have; aiming to evaluate and improve upon our previous year work; aiming to reach higher than we did last year. Because as already mentioned, the Work is very concrete and can be measured, which makes the goal setting a lot easier. If we know where we are on the path and how much consciousness we have acquired/liberated (and this can indeed be discovered), then we can set a goal in accordance with that and have it as a base from which we aim and work towards our next milestone. That’s why it is so important to know where we are on the path.

The more we will be able to rise up in the following year, the better equipped we will be to help those around us; to be a guiding light to those that are coming behind, but also that we ourselves have clearer vision in order to see the helping hand that those in front of us are giving, and to not allow our defects to make us ignore such a help.

I hope that everyone reading this and everyone who is aspiring to inner change, achieves a higher level of progress in the coming year, so to hopefully one day you reach that light that your Being is pushing you towards. And to those who already have it, to continue to acquire even greater light.

Let us enter the new decade with more determination to do what we ought to.

HDP, December 2019.