What is Spiritual Awakening?

Spiritual Awakening is self-knowledge that is beyond the limitations of thinking and book-learning, yet it is not unknowable.

There is another way of knowing whereby Spiritual Awakening or Enlightenment is grokked. The Bible speaks of this other way of knowing as ‘Be still and know.’

In other words, this other way of knowing is unveiled when the mind is silent. This is the realm of wisdom, wherein insight is the process that lets you see familiar things with new eyes such that your everyday life is seen in a new light. Once the new way of knowing has been accessed the mind can then speak about spiritual awakening signs and symptoms via first-hand experience.

It turns out the journey of spiritual enlightenment tends to follow certain patterns or stages that you can easily identify to help make sense of what’s happening to you.

There are Seven Stages of the Spiritual Journey as follows:

1. Ignorance of the true nature of being;

2. The error that arises due to such ignorance;

3. Suffering due to that error;

4. Indirect, or second hand knowledge as learning via a book;

5. Direct Knowledge as Insight and Understanding via Direct Experience - Knowing via Being;

6. The ending of the error that arose due to ignorance;

7. The ending of suffering and attainment of lasting Peace and Happiness.

The first three of these stages are intertwined as it is the ignorance of the true nature of your being that leads to the error of super-imposing the idea of who or what you think over-top of who you truly are and that in turn leads to suffering.

The fourth stage unfolds as you seek to end suffering and find lasting peace and happiness. This is where you try to resolve your situation via thinking, book-learning and second-hand information. This can be helpful as there are some true teachings available, yet it is not enough to end suffering or to correct the error of super-imposition.

The fifth stage is the key. This is when you stop seeking via the mind such that it falls silent, and you see that there is no discontinuity to being when the mind is silent. This is the insight and the other way of knowing spoken of earlier.

In this way it is insight that fosters the last two stage of the spiritual journey where you correct the error that arose due to ignorance and you attain lasting peace and happiness.

At this point you do not appear any different to an outside observer, yet internally you are calm and able to function with ease – even your mind can be active without breaking the inner silence and serenity that you enjoy.

In addition, you see that your spiritual awakening is helpful to others as although you do not appear to be any different, people will eventually notice that it feels good just to be around you.

James Traverse