“When we have a spiritual awakening, we have an awareness — oftentimes seemingly sudden — that there is more to being here than the life we were living.” Agro says that this occurrence can often come with an internal call to action to change your life or to course-correct.
The first is an increasing sense of lightheartedness. With consistent spiritual practice, happiness and joy become your ground state.
A spiritual gift is something God has chosen specifically for you so that you can help with the advancement of the church on earth by serving and using your special ability. This excerpt from the New Believer's Bible explains it all: What are spiritual gifts? God has chosen people to do his work.
The length of awakening depends on the individual. It can last a few days up to a few years. Although there are some essential commonalities, each person is different. The length of the stages of the spiritual awakening can also differ and largely depends on the person and their personal experience.
The phrase, “dark night of the soul” is often used informally to describe an extremely difficult and painful period in one's life, for example, after the death of a loved one; the break-up of a marriage; or the diagnosis of a life-threatening illness.
“The ability to hold opposites, emotional opposites, at the same time is really what we're after.” Enlightenment is profoundly satisfying and transformative, but the mind remains in many respects unchanged. “You're still neurotic, and you still hate your mother, or you want to get laid, or whatever the thing is.
Spiritual awakening is a term given to describe a subjective experience in which an individual's ego transcends their ordinary, finite sense of self to encompass a wider, infinite sense of truth or reality.
It's been posited that God speaks to us through circumstances: blocked pathways, dreams, feelings, inspirations, music, nature, symbols, tender mercies, thoughts and visions. Some say he communicates through the community of believers, prayer, scriptures, sermons, wise counsel and His very creation.
One of the signs God may be calling you is that you are beginning, however gradually, to understand the Scriptures with a depth and dimension you never experienced before. It's further noted that our understanding must be “enlightened” or “illuminated” (Ephesians 1:18.
God sends us the warning signs but we trivialize them; we convince ourselves that we can handle whatever is coming, that if we survived the last time, we can do it again. Through His Word, God reminds us to take caution and be alert. How gracious is He to speak to us through His Word.
God's warnings come in various forms: a challenging word from a friend; a story from a pastor's sermon; a still, small voice inside letting you know it's not right; and the unavoidable truth of God's Word.
Dr. Martin found that most enlightened people have a full emotional range. While self-transcendence does bring about positive emotions such as joy and peace, that's not the full story. Many enlightened people still feel strong negative emotions, such as anger when they're cut up in traffic.
An enlightened person is conscious even while asleep. He cannot become unconscious. Even if you give him an aesthetic, chloroform or something like that - only his periphery goes to sleep. He remains conscious; his consciousness cannot be disturbed.
The causes of the Enlightenment include the focus on humanism during the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. These three ideas and events led to new ways of thinking and gave the Enlightenment the momentum needed to influence individuals worldwide.
The presence of an Enlightened Being (Gnani) is unmistakable: it can be felt and experienced by all that encounter him. A Gnani's uniqueness, purity and humility stands apart from all others. Everyone, from children to adults, are magnetically drawn towards Him.
The five steps are: Purity, Love, Service, Perception, Enlightenment. Aspa goes through each stage with explanations, personal experience, and portraits of famous people expounding his ideas. Then he gives you exercises that will help you reach each of the five stages well on your way to a more conscious life.
The Eightfold Path consists of eight practices: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi ('meditative absorption or union'; alternatively, equanimous meditative awareness).