Spiritual Awakening — Common Signs

The last blog focused on providing an in-depth discussion on spirituality and spiritual awakening. spirituality and spiritual awakening.

As you have already noted from the blog, the process of spiritual awakening is multi-layered and complex. Its initiation and progression vary from one individual to another. With that said there are certainly some common signs. The signs listed below are uniform however, depending on where we are into our spiritual awakening journey we may experience some or all of these signs. Additionally, the levels of intensity of these experiences also vary. So overall it’s a progressive path.

Adding on another layer of complexity, these listed spiritual awakening signs can be temporary for those who may go back to old ways of living. Typically, permanently awakened people experience all of these characteristics at a higher level of intensity and on a consistent basis. My heartfelt wish for you is that you do as well. Let’s dive in.

1. Heightened Perception

Spiritually awakened people carry a vibrant, detached and elevated level of perception. They are not married to the idea that their perception is the only right one out there. They look at the world with a new lens of possibilities, excitement, and beauty.

Beyond this, raised consciousness enables them to perceive beyond the physical realms of the world and connect with the infinite presence of spiritual energy around us.

 2. New Belief System

All the choices and decisions we make are driven by our belief systems, which is a product of our environment and experiences as we go through life. Since most people sleepwalk through life cruising on autopilot their current belief system is the same as it was a decade or two or more ago.

One of the telling signs of spiritual awakening is displacing our old belief system with a new one. It’s an experience of breakthrough, where we break the mental shackles and start to ask deeper and meaningful questions. We start to challenge the so-called “normal” and seek freedom. This new belief system is what initiates true independent and authentic living.

 3. Experiencing “Oneness”

How often we have either said or heard statements such as I am “this” and I am “that.” I suspect your answer is quite often. Infected by the egoistic selves, we often characterize ourselves as a unique and special entity.

Under the light of spiritual awakening, the clouds of egoism dissolve. Being in higher state and perception, spiritually awakened people know that everything in the universe originates from the same eternal source. They connect with the infinite blissful presence of abundant spiritual energy that pervades everything in the universe. This includes biologically non-living objects and phenomena as well.

To spiritually awakened, there are no such things as lifeless objects. To them, natural objects such as oceans, clouds, sky, stars, air, mountains, etc., have their radiant liveliness and are all connected. Deep down our spirit truly knows it is connected to the entire universe through the collective ocean of consciousness.

4. Inner-Being Transformation

Many people who go through spiritual awakening experience describe it, as taking on a new identity. They characterize it as being reborn in a metaphysical world. This experience is one of the most apparent and protruding signs of spiritual awakening as the transformation happens within us.

A new elevated conscious system replaces our old autopilot living method. In this state, a sublime form of tranquility, inner-peace, and contentment start to emerge within us, which significantly reduces our wandering thoughts and the constant inner-chatter. Of note, many people are deprived of living a truly happy and fulfilling life because of their wandering thoughts and constant inner-chatter, which constantly reinforces our egoistic self.

5.  Eternal Living

Many of us live in a state of autopilot, where we are either replaying and reliving our past or getting anxious about our future. For spiritually awakened people, the only moment that exists is at this very moment — the now, which considerably reduces the autopilot living. Known as mindful living, these folks’ entire focus is on their present state of being and experience.

You might be wondering how this results in eternal living? Spiritually awaken people often feel as the time has either meaningfully slowed down or has completely disappeared. What causes this experience is being fully mindful. If we think about it, at any given time the only place where our soul truly resides in the present. Both past and future are simply a creation of our wandering thoughts and imagination. With the past and future dissolving in the present, that moment is eternal as it has no beginning or end.

6. Experiencing Synchronicity

Have you ever thought of someone who you have not seen for a while and out of nowhere they randomly call you or perhaps you bump into them? Or perhaps you are confused or going through some tough patch of life and you get some random intuition, which you follow and somehow it gets you out of the shaky circumstances? While some may argue it could just be coincidence however, when these events happen multiple times it becomes statistically significant and at that point, it can’t be termed as coincidence.

Such repeated simultaneous occurrence of two or more seemingly unrelated events is called synchronicity. It can manifest in many ways such as repeated numbers, words, images, symbols and encounters. Experiencing synchronicity is considered to be the guidance we receive from our higher-self and/or from the universe to either confirm that we are on the right path or to hint us to make a change. It’s critically important that we pay attention to these signs.

Spiritually awakened people with an elevated level of consciousness seem to experience synchronicity regularly. Not only that, they pay close attention to these signs and often can connect the dots leading to constructive life transformation.

7. Change in Sleep Patterns

It’s common for people who are experiencing a spiritual awakening to have trouble falling asleep. The reason being, major shifts are happening within as part of the spiritual awakening and change in the depth of consciousness.

It is also common for people to wake up early between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM. In the ancient Vedas time between 3:30 AM and 4:00 AM has a particular significance and is called “Braham Muhurta — The time to create ourselves.” During this time a tiny gland (size of a rice grain) in our body called pineal gland (aka the third eye) secretion is at maximum. The more active this gland is the higher it will be our consciousness and connection with the supreme universe. Just know this is perfectly normal as spiritual awakening does indeed involve increased activity in the pineal gland, which transcends our consciousness to a higher level.

8. Dissolving of Social Labels

As we live, we acquire many social labels such as gender, religion, race, ethnicity, education credentials, political affiliations, professional title to name a few. These acquired social labels become our identity and often give us a sense of belonging to a certain group. Beyond that, they boost our ego because we can distinguish ourselves from the rest.

During spiritual awakening under the realm of higher consciousness, these social labels dissolve. We come to realize these social labels are not who we truly are. In reality, we are not superior or inferior compared to others because we all come from the same source. We are a spiritual being connected with the infinite power of the universe, whose true existence resides above our ego.

9. Independent and Authentic Living

Many of us live on autopilot. Living in this state, we simply go with the social tide and accepted norms. Not being clear of our values within, we accept traditional society’s value. Our identity is merely a group of labels picked by society on our behalf and worse without taking into consideration our being. Simply put, in this state we are externally directed, where we regularly comprise ourselves to merely please and fit in the society. On a side note, this is one of the biggest reasons why people live unhappy and unfulfilled lives.

As we experience a spiritual awakening, the appetite to blindly comply with socially accepted values and conventions start to diminish. Conforming to our inner values and intuition takes the front seat. The anxiety and fear of being judged and ridiculed fade away and we become more and more confident and comfortable in making choices based on our senses, thoughts, inner calling and being. We start to run our race and live authentically and independently.

10. Non-Materialistic Living

When we feel a void within, many of us run towards materialistic possessions in a desperate attempt to fill this gap. Far too often, despite getting the things, the titles, the relationships, etc., we can’t fill the void.

Spiritually awakened people know that everything they need to fill complete lies within them. They are more interested in knowledge and experiences instead of filling their life with more stuff. Often at the start of spiritual awakening people clean out the excess (beyond basic needs) by donating or in some cases selling them. They declutter their environment, which in many ways creates an energetic release of purging the old. They understand less is more. They go from being accumulators to the contributor.

11. Increased Appreciation and Gratitude

By no means, spiritually awakened beings live in a state of constant happiness and bliss. With that said, they are more content with the unfolding of life events. Instead of asking the generic habitual victim mentality question of “why this is happening to me,” they ask questions such as “what is this teaching me” or “what’s good in this?”

Although non-understandable at the time, they are conscious of the fact that there are a bigger purpose and reason behind the unraveling of the present.  They live in a true state of appreciation and gratitude, which is an important sign of spiritual awakening

 12. Personal Development

With the new belief system comes the endless possibilities of being an improved version of our selves. As we become spiritually awake instead of habitually avoiding our darkness and limitations, we start seeing them as signposts of the motivation of personal development.

As the light of spiritual awakening shines on darker parts of our existence, positivity and inspiration start to emerge. Learning, growing and gaining new perspectives become a real priority, which leads to noticeable change (positive) in our daily habits and how we spend our time.

Some examples of such changes include practicing meditation, yoga, reading personal development books, spending time in silence and solitude, spending time in nature, journaling, listening to motivational contents, regular physical exercising and exploring new places.

13. Intimacy with Nature

There are several scientific researches (e.g., Biophillia hypothesis) that have conclusively proven human’s innate propensity to connect with nature. However, in today’s materialistic and technology driven world many of us fail to disconnect from our busy lives to connect with nature.

Everything in nature including ourselves has one origin and is made of five basic elements: earth (everything solid), water (everything liquid), fire (transforms one state of matter to other), air (everything gas), and space (the basis of higher spiritual experiences). As we get spiritually awakened, we start to become conscious of these core commonalities and begin to understand our inherent deep connection with nature and its infinite intelligence as well as sophistication.

14. Craving of Silence and Solitude

In a world where most of the population craves social interaction (whether it is digitally or in-person) as a drug, spiritually awakened people crave silence and solitude.

On purpose, they reduce their social interaction within the practicality of living and enjoy spending more and more time in introspection. Contrary to their previous experience of being in silence and solitude as boring and fearful, they seek them.

15. Treasure Stillness

We live in a world, which promotes always in the know and on the go culture. In the world, where we crave notifications bombardment, being involved in activities all the time and beyond that depend on social approval to feel significant.

Many of us believe doing nothing is boring and be still in solitude is an indication of not being cared of. In reality, what’s driving such belief is people’s inability to face their thoughts, emotions and overall being. Most of us keep ourselves occupied externally, so our attention doesn’t go within towards our being.

Spiritually awakened beings savour stillness, solitude and have this urge to be under the umbrella of inner-peace and harmony. They on purpose make time for doing nothing and simply enjoy their being. Instead of the constant rush of external distractions, they seek stillness and harmony within.

16. Experiencing Deep Emotions

Contrary to the popular belief that spiritual awakening is a joyful and peaceful process, in reality, it’s not. It’s not all sunshine and roses on the path of spiritual awakening. There are some tough moments as we look within and face our darkness and fear.

People going through a spiritual awakening process often mention they feel a deep sense of sadness and fear they may never cope with their darkness. This is perfectly normal and during these challenging moments of the journey, we need to honor one spiritual truth that we can’t fight the darkness. All we can do is to focus and make our light shine brighter, which will dissipate darkness.

 17. Small Talk Avoidance

As the spiritual awakening process unfolds and flourishes, we come to realize how shallow our conversation is most of the time. We start to become conscious of the fact, how most conversations lack emotions, passion, and true meaning.  Small talks start to become irritating and draining.

At this stage, as we seek deeper and meaningful conversations, we start to dissociate ourselves from meaningless chatter. Unfortunately, very few people are capable of holding a meaningful and passionate conversation. As a result, we start to lose some people from our life.

 18. Healthy Eating

B.K.S. Iyengar, the founder of the renowned Iyengar yoga style quoted “The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in.”

With meaningful shifts within, many people who are on the path of spiritual awakening become acutely aware of what they eat. The reason being, they are very aware of how eating unhealthy food can affect their body organs, which can then interfere with their emotions, thoughts, mood, motivation, etc. Spiritually awakened people often eat highly nutrient-rich raw and uncooked food.

To conclude, which of these above listed spiritual awakening signs are you experiencing? Share your thoughts and experience below.

Namaste.