In judging our progress as individuals, we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one’s social position, influence, and popularity, wealth and standard of education. ... But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one’s development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others—qualities which are within easy reach of every soul—are the foundations of one’s spiritual life.