THE WAY TO SEE IF YOU'VE REACHED PERFECTION

These past few days, I've been practically mesmerized by the following sentence from the "Mai HaNachal" commentary on Torah 15 in "Likutei Moharan": "מי שהוא שקט ושאנן ושלוו - דעתו ומוחו בשלמות" ("If a person is tranquil, serene, and peaceful - their awareness of Hashem and their brain are in a state of perfection.")

For one thing, I'm fascinated by the description itself: oh, how I'd love to reach that state! But even more so, I think it's absolutely great that the main way to see if someone has reached a lofty spiritual state is by looking at their everyday behavior. One's spiritual attainments have to be visible on the outside, at least to some extent, otherwise they don't really count. And I think this is what Yiddishkeit in general and Chassidus in particular are all about.