How to know that I am in the right spiritual path?

Ans. Your inner conscience aided by logical analysis of scriptures given by the Sadguru gives you the correct green signal of the right spiritual path. The Sadguru is the helper only but the inner conscience alone is the final judge to give the conclusion through its full satisfaction. Mere conscience cannot be the judge without the help of Sadguru because the conscience of Ravana (a demon) always gave its judgment that whatever Ravana did was correct. Krishna told Arjuna (a devotee) to act according to his conscience after analyzing His preaching (Vimrushyaitadasheshena… Gita). Both are equally important. Unless your conscience is satisfied, you should not yield to anyone including the Sadguru. At the same time, you should not be over confident about the capability of yourself alone.

In the highest reality, there is no good or bad--these being labels we attach to things.  

There is no "wrong" spiritual path--God is a rather large target and hard to miss--but some paths ARE  less arduous than others.

Very insightful GreyFox

       God acts as Father as well as the teacher (Guru) in the case of any soul.  Since God created the soul, He is the Father.  But at the same time He is the teacher who trains every soul to come up in the spiritual path.  Generally in the world the father is different since teacher is separate.  But here in the case of any soul the real Father and the real teacher is only one and that is God.  Therefore, God is always kind as Father and is strict and harsh as teacher.  But the harshness of the teacher is apparent only and in reality the harshness is kindness only.  Hence, basically God is always kind.  God appears harsh as the teacher and appears kind as Father.

Since, the teacher is basically kind even in his harsh attitude also, God is always kind in reality or in the basic sense.  The souls have done continuous sins and continuous good deeds and if the results are to be given based on the same sequence and span of time, there will be continuous punishments for long time and continuous happiness for another span of long time.  Then it will be summer for one year and winter for one year. But the kindest God has re-arranged our results in such manner so that our human life is made with alternative good and bad results so that there will be summer for two months and winter for two months so that the two years are made with alternative couple of months of summer and winter. Neither summer nor winter bores with continuity and both summer and winter with the span of one year each gets exhausted.

The punishments are used to remove the ignorance and happiness is given as an interval between punishments.  The punishments are also selected in such a way so that their intensity is suitable to the frequency of requirement for the transformation in the life again and again.  This means that a particular soul requires a particular punishment of a specified intensity suitable to the degree of ignorance of the soul and based on the same, the duration of the punishment also varies from one soul to the other.  According to the requirement, a suitable portion from the result of the sin is cut like a piece from a large cake.  The size of the piece depends on the requirement of the nature of the soul.  The sizes of the pieces of the salt (bad result) and sweet (Good result) cakes depend upon the duration of treatment and interval required by the nature of the soul.

The salt cake is a medicine for the ignorance and the sweet cake is the food during the treatment for the patient-soul. The left over cakes are used for the external hell and heaven in the upper world.  Whatever may be the place (hell or heaven or earth), the punishments are given for the treatment of ignorance only. In the earth the punishments are used as medicines but in the hell the punishments are used as the final surgery for removing the ignorance.  In any case only the kindness of God is always reflected.  Thus, God can be seen as Father or Teacher or Doctor giving medicines or surgeon doing operation and in all angles only the kindness is reflected always.  He is always working constantly to uplift every soul. God works as Teacher, Doctor and Surgeon and at the same time the God with an attitude of the Father also observes the possible limit up to which the soul can withstand the treatment.  

Once the limit is reached, God will regain the attitude of Father withdrawing Himself from the attitude of Teacher or Doctor or Surgeon and as a Father He starts giving the food of happiness for some time.  Remember that He is using the bad and good results of the deeds of the soul only in every action to uplift the soul.

The deeds are done by the soul in a free atmosphere and God has no trace of interference and the same time all this treatment and food arranged alternatively makes the life cycle quite interesting to the soul without boring since continuity of anything is absent.  Otherwise the soul would have got bored and the Samskara (strong feeling) of boring should have followed the soul and the soul must have developed repulsion to this world as soon as it is born in this world.

Gita says that a realized soul who uses the analysis by intelligence leaves the concepts of both happiness obtained by doing good deeds and misery obtained by doing bad deeds (Buddhi Yukto Jahatiha Ubhe Sukruta Dushkrute). This means that you are trying for the temporary happiness of heaven and trying to avoid the temporary misery of hell here as well as in the upper world. This means that if you are analyzing the scriptures with sharp logic to realize the ultimate goal of the human life, you will not be interested in neither happiness nor in misery during the life as well as after death.

The ultimate goal of life is not anything related to your self, because it is aimed at pleasing the creator since the original aim of this creation is only the pleasure of the Lord through entertainment. Therefore, the original aim of yourself, other selves and the entire universe is only to serve the Lord and please Him.

Then, you will be blessed by the Lord with His eternal divine grace and your life is fulfilled. Therefore, the human life is neither for doing good deeds nor for doing bad deeds and it is also not for enjoying the good fruits or bad fruits. You are wasting the human life in doing good works and some times doing bad works due to the force of your ignorance. By this very little time is left over here to serve the Lord. If this little time is also used for enjoying good and bad fruits, no time is left for you to do the service to God and get His blessings. Hence, to save at least this little time for realization of spiritual knowledge and subsequent involvement in the divine service, at least the enjoyment of good and bad deeds is postponed to a latter time and at a latter place. The latter time is after death and latter places are hell and heaven. This is the reason for creation of hell and heaven separately to enjoy the results after death.