Spiritual Awakening
Signs of spiritual awakening can begin to emerge during traumatic life events. It will begin to feel like you have some mystical force aiding you in your journey. Psychic abilities may develop. Similarly, you could feel the presence of a benevolent being.
Although some people experience trauma without awakening, spiritual enlightenment can save us from suffering.
Pathways to experience spiritual awakening are described below. If you would like personal guidance, please use the link below.
Heal a Broken Heart
Getting through a breakup is like surviving a natural disaster, but hearts can break from more than just breakups. Neglectful, traumatic, or oppressive childhoods are the first potential culprit.
Awaken Intuition
Psychic abilities may awaken by accident, but can be strengthened on purpose.
More Coming Soon
Definition
“Spiritual awakening involves shifts in consciousness, from identifying with the physical body to recognizing a deeper connection with your soul, the divine or the universe.” – Timothy Burgin
What is Awakening?
A spiritual awakening is an ethereal, profound experience that empowers you to fully understand and integrate this truth: our physical life and existence is not everything. Your identity and your existence are determined by the spiritual world.
We are all a part of something powerfully blissful: God, Source, Truth, Nature, and Science. You can begin to feel and experience this when you enter the state of samadhi in yoga.
Is a spiritual awakening the same thing as enlightenment?
A spiritual awakening is not the same thing as enlightenment. Enlightenment refers to absolute or total understanding. You could say that with each thing you learn, you are becoming more and more enlightened, but a state of total enlightenment would make you an all-knowing being. Only Prophets are enlightened, but the average person can still move towards enlightenment.
While a spiritual awakening may be one of the first steps to enlightenment, it is not the same thing. A spiritual awakening is part of the path to enlightenment, if you believe that the average person can become enlightened at all.
Enlightenment
“…Used only in figurative sense, of spiritual enlightenment…”
– from the Online Etymology Dictionary
Yoga
“The word ‘Yoga’ is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘Yuj’, meaning ‘to join’ or ‘to yoke’ or ‘to unite’”
– Dr. Ishwar V. Basavaraddi
Yoga for Enlightenment
Yoga is perhaps the one and only path to enlightenment, but this does not mean you need to put on tight pants and head to the gym.
Yoga has eight limbs: Yama, Niyama, Āsana, Prānāyāma, Pratyāhāra, Dhāranā, Dhyāna, and Samādhi
What this means is observances, ethics, physical postures, energy, removal of distractions, concentration, meditation, and achieving complete oneness are all a part of yoga.
In addition to this, there are many different kinds of yoga. Devotional or Bhakti yoga refers to prayer and worship. Karma yoga encompasses charity and other selfless acts.
Yoga teachings can help one understand and overcome all of the different obstacles in the path of spiritual awakening, enlightenment, and Nirvana or Samādhi. Emotional obstacles, like being broken hearted, are certainly encompassed in these obstacles and hinderances (also referred to as kleshas).
One observance of yoga is self-study. This is not just about knowing your astrological chart, but it is also about reading spiritual texts (preferably every day).
All that has a form is illusive and unreal.
When you see that all forms are illusive and unreal,
then you will begin to perceive your
true Buddha nature.”
– Buddha
‘The Diamond Sutra’
translated by Alex Johnson
Citations
Harper, D. (n.d.). Etymology of enlightenment. Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.etymonline.com/word/enlightenment
Yoga: Its origin, history and development. (n.d.). https://www.mea.gov.in/search-result.htm?25096/Yoga:_su_origen,_historia_y_desarrollo
Sejal Shah ERTY500 C-IAYT. The 8 limbs of yoga and why they matter to your practice. Sri Sri School of Yoga. https://srisrischoolofyoga.org/na/blog/8-limbs-of-yoga-ashtanga-yoga/
Burgin, T. (2023, September 8). Spiritual awakening: Definition, signs and symptoms • yoga basics. Yoga Basics. https://www.yogabasics.com/connect/yoga-blog/spiritual-awakening/
Johnson, A. (n.d.). The Diamond Sutra. https://www.lifelonglearningcollaborative.org/silkroads/articles/diamond-sutra-translation.pdf