What is a spiritual awakening, and what does it mean to be spiritually awakened?
Spiritual awakening means expanding consciousness-awareness beyond the mind and limited thinking.
It happens when consciousness rises above and beyond the mind and the thinking process.
You can experience a spiritual awakening in an Ashram, in a secluded place, and also while living a busy life with work and family.
It is not easy to describe this state in words for someone who has not experienced it.
Words use comparisons and are a tool that the mind uses. Spiritual awakening dwells beyond the mind, and therefore, words can only give a glimpse of this state.
This inner state is not dependent on external conditions and circumstances.
What to Expect from Spiritual Awakening
People expect great things to happen. Some hope to see lights, colors, or spiritual entities, and others expect to gain various great powers.
People often let their imagination run riot and build theories and expectations. However, spiritual awakening is something else. To experience awakening, you need to rise above your mind and silence it.
Spiritual Awareness is beyond the mind and beyond thinking.
Spiritual awakening is an inner process, not an external process.
A quiet and calm mind is one of the most important keys to experiencing this state. In this state, the mind must be silent.
At first, you will have short glimpses of this state.
If you persevere with training your mind to stay silent, the experience will gradually increase in duration.
What You Will Experience in Spiritual Awakening?
Things you will experience with the spiritual awakening process:
- Your external life will most probably continue the same as before.
- This experience would enable you to remain calm in stressful situations.
- You will look at the world around you from a wider perspective.
- You will stop limiting your mind to certain ideas, thoughts, or traditions and will see things from a broader perspective
- Detaching your mind and emotions from anything that disturbs your tranquility would become easy.
- Calmness and quietness would grow within you, no matter what is happening around you.
- You will display more common sense, and your ability to control your mind and attention will increase.
- You would become a more tolerant and considerate person.
Do You Need to Prepare Yourself for Spiritual Awakening?
Yes, you do. We sometimes hear about people who, in certain situations, experienced a temporary change of awareness, as if their consciousness has expanded beyond its limit. However, these experiences are usually temporary and do not last long.
Spontaneous occurrences sometimes happen, but since the person who experiences them is not prepared, they might temporarily overwhelm them.
Spontaneous occurrences are not permanent and can cause the person experiencing them to arrive at erroneous notions.
Some might think something is wrong with them, some might invent all kinds of theories around this experience, and others might believe that they are chosen people above others and might start a following, a sect, or a new religion.
- A Real and stable state of spiritual awakening requires training.
- You need to prepare your mind for it.
- Often, it is a gradual process.
- A gradual process prepares your body, mind, and emotions for this experience.
How to Prepare Yourself for Spiritual Awakening
Spiritual awakening requires various preparations and training so that your mind can adapt to the “new” consciousness – awareness.
You need to pave the way to spiritual awakening, not just wait for it to happen spontaneously.
I believe in a gradual awakening. It is the safe and practical way to go. This way, you avoid problems and pave the way to a clear and direct path.
- Taking care of your body would be a good idea. With a healthy body, you are better positioned to focus your mind and meditate.
- This process requires inner strength and dedication.
- Don’t overthink about this process. Take the steps that lead to it, but don’t think about them. If you think too much about this process, you might build unreal theories about it, which can stand in your way.
- Too much thinking about spiritual awakening does not contribute to this state. It just makes the mind restless and more anxious.
Mental Training for Spiritual Awakening
Though the mind does not participate in spiritual awakening, it plays a significant role in the preparations. It has to learn to be quiet.
You need to learn to silence your mind at will. This might seem to you infeasible, but it is possible with training.
The mind tends to think constantly, distract your attention, and direct your awareness to thoughts, memories, and the external world.
To attain spiritual awakening, you need to stop the constant chatter of your mind. This is the most important step.
Mental training facilitates the process of spiritual awakening. Learning to focus your mind enables you to control your mind and direct it to one single thought instead of jumping from one thought to another.
Once the mind can focus on one thought at a time, it becomes quieter.
A quiet mind enables you to meditate more deeply and be less distracted.
Meditation and Spiritual Awakening
Meditation is a very helpful tool for awakening consciousness. All spiritual traditions speak about it. Meditation helps you improve your focus. When the focus is strong, it becomes easier to silence the mind.
Meditation is the main process that leads to spiritual awakening. Many forms of meditation can eventually lead to the sublime state we are discussing here.
Any kind of meditation that calms and silences the mind is suitable. Some might lead to faster results, but they may not be ideal for everyone.
Meditations Techniques
Here are several meditation techniques you can try:
Watching your thoughts meditation
These meditations are more direct in their approach. You don’t have to practice them all. Just choose one of them.
Expectations from the Experience of Spiritual Awakening
- Don’t expect bells, whistles, and fireworks.
- Don’t expect trances or going into other dimensions.
- The process might start as a split second of inner silence and a sense of happiness and bliss. It is a short glimpse.
Be aware if what is happening without analyzing the process. Don’t be anxious and expectant of experiencing some preconceived ideas. Awakening is often different from one expects.
Duration of the Spiritual Awareness and Awakening
You might ask how long does spiritual awakening last. Probably short at first.
The duration of these blissful glimpses will become longer over time. At first, you will probably experience these glimpses in your daily life while working, eating, reading, or walking, not necessarily during your meditation session.
You will feel like you are in a calm and peaceful place without thinking. This will not disturb what you might be doing when this glimpse occurs.
You will be conscious of the world around you yet feel as if you are outside of it. It is a pleasant experience.
Don’t try to think about or analyze what is happening because if you do, you will get snapped out of it. In this state, the mind is silent. The moment you start thinking about this state, you leave this silence.
As your focus gets stronger and you progress with your meditation, the length of this experience will increase. At some point, you might begin to have control of this process, and you will be able to awaken it any time you wish.
At a certain point, this can become a permanent process. Your outer life will not necessarily change, but your attitude and reactions will.
- You will be calm and relaxed in every situation.
- You will learn to rise above the mind and above the ego.
- As said earlier, you will see life from a broader perspective.
- There will be less attachment.
- In a state of spiritual awakening, you don’t allow worries and fears to occupy your mind.
- Life would be seen as it is, without mental or emotional filters.
- You become aware of your true essence.
The spiritual awakening process will create positive inner changes within you. These changes often occur gradually.
Is the Spirit Awakening?
Is it the Spirit awakening? As you become more conscious and aware of your inner being, you are awakening as you stop being limited to your ego.
Does this mean that the Spirit has been asleep? Well, the Spirit is you. It is always here. However, thoughts, desires, habits, and mental programming have been hiding it.
The Spirit is always awake and alive, but it seems asleep because of the layers and covers of thoughts and feelings covering it.
Your thoughts, desires, habits, and mental programming are like the clouds that hide the sun. The sun is there, and all you need is something to disperse the clouds. Then, the sun will shine in all its glory.
The same is true of the Spirit. It’s there, but it might look like it’s sleeping. To see it, you need to remove the restless thoughts of the mind and make your mind still.
Awakening makes you aware of the Spirit, which is you—your real essence, not the ego, personality, or thoughts.
The awakening spiritual consciousness is the real you.
What Happens Next, after Awakening
Some people might become teachers, teaching what they have experienced.
Some would write about their experiences.
Others will continue with their external life unchanged but with their inner life changed.
Consciousness awakening is the same on the inner level, but it can be expressed in different ways externally.
Tips and Activities that Can Help
The following tips and activities might seem unrelated to the topic of this article, but they are very helpful.
- Exercise your body regularly. This can be walking, aerobics, yoga, or anything that strengthens you and improves your health.
- Do meditation and relaxation sessions.
- Take care to eat healthy and nourishing foods.
- Reading about people who have attained spiritual awakening can help you.
- Read quotes about spirituality.
