Spiritual awakening and Spirituality
The meaning of spirituality has changed over time and has far more than one meaning. It can be a very personal feeling and experience which can be but also cannot be connected to a religion or philosophy. It brings forward thought and drive to find the meanings and connections of life, personal growth and a quest for sacred meaning or an encounter with one’s own inner dimensions. A spiritual awakening is the process in which you find the answers to the questions you have been asking for and connect with yourself with contentment and peace. This feeling can also be known as enlightenment, a full comprehension of a situation after you have experienced a spiritual awakening.
Jim Tolles and Spirituality
Jim Tolles is a spiritual teacher and shares his journey with others to teach them what he has gained from his spirituality.
A spiritual awakening is the dissolving of the illusion that you are separate from oneness.
In this profound revelation, a person's energy moves and starts to transform you. It heals old wounds, dissolves false beliefs and illusions, and shifts you towards our truest way of expressing yourself and living your life.
A spiritual awakening is realized throughout your body, heart, mind, and soul, but no sooner has that erupted than you are forced to see how limited you have been in so many regards. That bright light shining in the inner most depths of us asks us a potent question: "Now that we know the truth, will we clean up our home or will we try to ignore our illusions, pain, and misconceptions?"
Many Initial Spiritual Awakening Experiences
There's no one way that people experience an awakening. The awakened state embraces all experiences and states of awareness. However, there are some common trends in awakening. For some, spiritual awakening is a sudden, penetrating moment where something is seen and realized. Sometimes there's a lot of energy/heat/sensation in and around the spine, which is a hallmark to what many people call a kundalini spiritual awakening. Sometimes, a spiritual awakening is a profound moment of clarity about something or some aspect of one's self. Sometimes, a spiritual awakening is a kind of collapse where someone finally lets go of something, and the truth is revealed.
People experience spiritual awakenings in many, many ways. However, the arising of the truth within you definitively stays. Your life is the altered by the awakened energy. This energy takes over, and for a time, a person feels rather out of control and even lost. But the person has been found, and the question now is: do you embrace the awakening or do you resist?
Truly a spiritual awakening is an amazing moment, and as I've mentioned, it comes in all shades and shapes for everyone. I had one friend who says that she went around for a couple of weeks just saying, "I get it." Another friend quit smoking, and whammo, got hit with an awakening. Yet another friend had a powerful experience where he simply asked, "Who am I?" In that sincere moment, the glass shattered, and the truth that he did not know who he was was seen. From that awakened moment, the truth erupted and began to re-shape his life.
However, this sense of "getting it" is only the beginning. A spiritual awakening is more like someone's first glass of water after living, dehydrated in the desert. It seems like the best thing ever! That "taste of divine water" may get experienced as:
Deep peacefulness
Bliss
A profound sense of oneness and lost of separation that feels amazing
Tremendous inner quiet, and other experiences
I am very cautious to label things as signs of awakening. In truth, a spiritual awakening is just the beginning. It is the light coming on in the house so that you can see everything for what it is. Now comes the need to clean-up, heal, and expand your space. All of this comes in a rush of intelligent energy. Sometimes, it can feel so strong that the unconscious ego that may be clinging on will feel like this is all "happening to you." If you don't feel that you have chosen this radical spiritual transformation, then now is an especially important to time to consciously choose what is already unfolding in your life.
In general, some real spiritual awakening signs are these:
Unconditional love
Being able to clearly see what is real
Loss of desire or need for anything external to complete you / wholeness as you already are
A profound sense of calm, peace, or serenity
An abiding energy that moves you intelligently and continually
This last part is key. Many people have profound spiritual openings and glimpses of awakening, which is wonderful. But in an opening or glimpse, the window opens, and then it shuts. When it shuts, a person can go back to the way they were acting before. This happens all the time after people have gone to spiritual retreats or spent time with spiritual teachers. But in awakening, the divine energy is now in motion. Your perspective, emotions, and physical sensations all move and align seemingly on their own. The lights in the house are all on. Sure you can close your eyes, but you know the truth. There can be a feeling that there is no going back.
All other spiritual awakening signs that you hear about can arise from awakening if the above ones are present. They're secondary spiritual awakening signs or symptoms, although I don't prefer the term spiritual awakening symptom. The word "symptoms" has connotations of experiencing a disease. In fact, you are being cured of the illnesses in which you have been living.
Without the above spiritual awakening signs, there's all kinds of reasons people can feel fatigue, energy shifts, depression, disconnected and what not. Many people are trying to self-diagnose a lot of issues, and so we must be very mindful about what we "blame" on awakening. When it comes to the body pains and discomfort, when in doubt, check in with a doctor to ensure that your body is healthy.
My experience with spirituality and awakening
At the beginning of this project I was dealing with some things mentally which lead to me looking within for happiness, contentment and meaning to my existence. I spent most of the last summer outside, travelling around in my van, surfing, hiking and shooting photographs. I was living my best life and enjoyed the connection that I was having every day with the land around me. I was spending time at the Land Matters Community (an off grid community in the heart of Devon) and I was unconsciously connecting with the meanings of life and building a picture of my philosophy and spiritually. Then the edges of winter got closer and closer. My personal life changed with a breakup and I felt lost in the world. University had started and I wasn’t happy with the place that I was in. I felt locked up in the concrete walls of Plymouth and missed being able to touch the fresh air around me. Something needed to change in my life and I needed to reconnect with the feelings that I was gathering during the summer.
I began to meditate and take long walks and trips away in my van. This time I was by myself. Being in solitude was the answer, connecting with the natural world was the answer, riding waves and hiking up hills was the answer. And taking photographs has been my way of documenting my journey to finding happiness, contentment and inner silence. It has been a journey of self-reflection and deep thought about how I want to place myself in the world. It has been hard at times, but also one of the most liberating and exciting journeys I have been on. It has not just been a physical journey but a spiritual one that has put me in a place where I am happy and very much content with life. I do not feel as if I need anything else to complete it as I am riding a wave that has taught me where to collect truths and answers from. I have not been happy with the way in which society is run for a long time, it has angered me and made me unhappy in the past. However a turn to realise that the way in which people have chosen to destroy the world is out of my control. But what is controlled by me is how I decide to participate in this world and what I decide is true in it. My connection with the natural world is true and the power that it has is true. As well as the happiness that I gather from the natural world is true.
My project is a visual reflection from this journey that I have been on and still on. To find that inner silence in the land and space that is around us and I feel like that is something that I want to share with as many people as possible.