I've often questioned the value of writing a post about Spiritual Awakening when there are so many versions of awakening, probably as many as there are people to have them, and there's no way to give a complete answer.

Yet when I blogged about this on a previous site, I had dozens of comments, follow up questions, and over 13,000 shares. I also originally considered this topic because when I had my own awakening experience, a spontaneous Kundalini activation, I was so lost and confused and without resources that what I did eventually find during my search became a vital lifeline.

I write this post here to simply share what I discovered, and to address the burning questions I had had at the time...

Why the Question of Spiritual Awakening Matters

What if you've had an unexplainable or mystifying experience you can't understand or quite put into words... and you're trying to understand what is happening to you?

Or perhaps you deeply seek to experience God and the divinity within you, and with so much information out there ~ and every resource saying different things ~ you're not sure where to begin or how to proceed.

We live in a culture still uncomfortable with such mysterious and unexplainable experiences. It can be taboo to talk about, friends and family don't understand, and it can feel as though people think you're crazy. When spiritual awakening gets really intense, you WILL often actually feel like you're going crazy.

Yet awakening to our true Source is natural and the higher purpose of our journey through duality toward Unity.

In fact, did you know that for all Yoga, Tantra, meditation techniques, esoteric Mystery Schools, and alchemical teachings, the primary purpose is to activate a Spiritual Awakening Event {often referred to in those texts as awakening kundalini}?

With such techniques and paths now widespread and mainstream, millions are practicing these potent tools for awakening ~ yet most practitioners {and even teachers!} do not realize the power they hold for triggering a life altering spiritual awakening experience.

via GIPHY

Coupled with the vibrant energies of the Aquarian Age, this is leading to many spontaneous activations and awakenings... sometimes in people who don't know what's happening to them or what to do about it.

If any of what I'm saying speaks to you and what you're going through right now, please know that I intimately know what that feels like ~ both to desire awakening and to wake up realizing, "Wow I should have been careful what I wished for!"

So I hope this article will help give you the basics you need to know, either to prepare for a spiritual awakening you desire, or to cope with one you've already experienced.

But first...

A Word of Caution...

Please beware of anyone explaining spiritual awakening attached to some product or service they are selling that promises to trigger it. This doesn't invalidate their usefulness, but in my experience many of the resources I found when originally searching the random corners of the internet were out and out lies and very damaging promises of instant enlightenment and magical powers: "all for the price of a $700 remote virtual shaktipat!" {Transference of Shakti intended to awaken the Shakti of the receiver}

Spiritual awakening is a process that takes decades and often lifetimes. And that time frame usually begins AFTER the initial activation or awakening event!

No one can do it for you and it should never be forced. To think that we can even control or force the very energy of consciousness that created us! Such is a recipe for a very difficult and humbling experience...

Also recognize that this process is about activating, cultivating and transforming your own power and the power of Divinity within you... remember that no one else can give that power to you and you never want to give your power away to someone in the hopes of a short cut.

How to Read the Signs of a Spiritual Awakening

Every person has a different experience, and so I want to preface the following with a few key points:

1.
I am not at all suggesting that I am a seasoned expert on all aspects and expressions of Spiritual Awakening. My personal experience is with Kundalini Awakening and Shamanic Initiation. That said, I have found that the signs of the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Saints, along with many other types of spiritual awakening do seem to be very similar.

2.
It is rare to have all signs or symptoms at the same time, however each sign on its own or with a few others can also occur outside of a spiritual awakening. Trusting your own experience is the best way to know if you've had an awakening experience. In addition to researching on the internet, be sure to look at modern books and ancient texts. Treat anything you read on the internet ~ this article included ~ with awareness and caution. Trust your gut.

3.
Some signs may manifest during or directly following the activation experience... then be followed by different ongoing (and often altering) symptoms/phenomena for the length of the awakening process {which seems to last anywhere from decades to lifetimes}.

4.
Some people have a very obvious and tangible awakening event. Others however will have a series of more subtle experiences that can make their activation harder to discern or identify. These subtle beginnings do not mean that the individual has activated to a lesser degree or that their awakening will be slower or incomplete.

A List of Possible Spiritual Awakening Symptoms & Signs (such as a Kundalini Awakening):

• Intense flashes of hot and cold, either throughout the body or localized to a specific area {sometimes followed by another flash later on in another area, and so forth}
• Altered states of consciousness, including out of body experiences, visiting archetypal realms or other dimensions, heavenly visions or visitations, communication with guides, angels or spirits.
• Electricity or "Power" Surges through the body. These can feel like lightning striking through and within you, or like an all-encompassing energetic vibration.
• Muscle twitches, cramps or spasms that often come out of nowhere and leave or move to different body parts.
• Itching, vibrating, prickling, tingling, stinging or crawling sensations.
• Involuntary bodily movements {occur more often during meditation, rest or sleep}: jerking, tremors, shaking; feeling an inner force guiding one into postures or moving one's body in unusual ways. {May be misdiagnosed as epilepsy, restless legs syndrome (RLS), or PLMD.}
• Intensified or diminished sexual desires, or a ping-pong effect back and forth {understand that sexual energy is sublimated spiritual energy and that there is no need to feel guilt or shame attached to any such sensations or desires in the body}
• Physical pains or illnesses that seem to have no identifiable cause, and that often dissipate of their own accord or move around the body: such as headaches or "brain pain," pressure in the skull, severe aching in the upper back, pain in the adrenal or kidney area, digestive problems, racing heartbeat or alteration in heart beat, etc.

  NOTE: When experiencing such symptoms it is important to visit the doctor to rule out any medical cause - spiritual awakening can also awaken latent disease and illness in the body for release, and resistance to the process can also lead to illness. Just because these physical ailments have an energetic, spiritual or ultimately positive cause, they can still require medical intervention or threaten your wellbeing if untreated. As always, trust what you know.

• Sudden and unconscious alterations in breathing
• Episodes of extreme hyperactivity or, conversely, overwhelming fatigue
• Intensified understanding and sensitivity: insight into one's own essence; deeper understanding of spiritual truths; exquisite awareness of one's environment {including "vibes" from others}
• Hearing an inner sound or sounds, classically described as a flute, drum, waterfall, birds singing, bees buzzing but which may also sound like roaring, whooshing, or thunderous noises or like ringing in the ears.
• Emotional outbursts; rapid mood shifts; seemingly unprovoked or excessive episodes of grief, fear, rage, depression for no identifiable reason
• Spontaneous vocalizations {including laughing and weeping}
• Spontaneous and involuntary movements {called Kriyas} either physically and/or emotionally. Physically, these will often be yoga positions or mudras the person is unfamiliar with. They feel like some force is guiding your body, sometimes powerfully and sometimes gently.

  Emotionally, you may experience intense upwellings of joy, anger, grief, and other emotions for no known reason or cause. You'll be crying uncontrollably, deep from your soul, and inside your mind you're thinking, "I don't even know why I'm crying. There's nothing attached to it."

What Does a Spiritual Awakening DO?

By its nature, a spiritual awakening leads you through a complete dismantling of who you think you are at the level of ego and into a re-membering of who you really are as an individuation of the One Divine Consciousness. Much of the illusion and ego-consciousness you've identified with is lovingly dismantled and cleared, stage by stage, layer by layer, to reveal greater degrees of your true Self.

This has been shown to occur on a neurological and biological level as well as energetic or psychological levels.

A lot of the physical symptoms and phenomena of a spiritual awakening are indicative of the rewiring of your nervous system so that it can hold more high-frequency energy. Many research sources also suggest that spiritual awakening can activate dormant parts of your brain, re-program neural patterns, and activate additional DNA strands.

Here's the fascinating crux of it all though:

You know how Einstein says that "you can't solve a problem from within the same level of consciousness that created it?"

Well you can't clear your ego consciousness from within your own ego. In other words, to ignite the type of transformation that can release you from the wheel of karma or samsara {the cycle of death and rebirth}, you must release ego consciousness. Not to destroy it, but to strengthen it in service to God, Source, and your Divine Soul Being. From within ego, such transformation is impossible and that's why so many seek spiritual awakening.

Yet when you awaken the drop of Divinity within you, and it rises into full bloom, it ~ that higher consciousness beyond all ego ~ will go about transforming you, for you.

And hence, the you that you believe yourself to be is not the driver behind this. Rather you feel co-inhabited by something beyond yourself {that which created your Self}, and it carries you along through the process.

Many seek this experience and I agree that it should be sought. However I also worry that so few mainstream resources prepare seekers for the shadow side of awakening and the destruction that must occur in service to creation.

This is worth considering in our modern world when we must contend with jobs, materialism, a culture that largely rejects spiritual mysteries, and a daily existence that requires functioning enough to earn money, take care of family, and fulfill other duties.

If there's one thing I've learned in my years since my own initial awakening experience in 2009, it's that awakening can be like a bullet train you never get to jump off of. Once you book that ticket and board that train, there's no getting off. Ever.

Yet the tough part of awakening is really just the releasing of our negative conditioning, emotional and physical toxins, and other low vibrational influences that are anathema to the higher vibrations of divine consciousness.

And so even through all the difficulty, always we are rising higher. Always we are evolving towards God and Source. Not to leave this world, but to divinize it. And what a world that will be...

For books and further resources on awakening, particularly Kundalini Awakening:

>> Read this article: Kundalini Awakening: Books & Resources