Stages of Spiritual Awakening
Earlier stages of spiritual awakening tend to coincide with what I call the “stance of opposition”, i.e., the desire to define oneself in opposition to prevailing norms and beliefs. At this stage, individuals undergoing a spiritual awakening tend to more actively eschew and reject beliefs or practices that are perceived as being opposite to their newly expanded vista of awareness.
Later stages of spiritual awakening can be somewhat different. The more one progresses into an expanded awareness, the less one is inclined to define oneself in opposition to prevailing norms, beliefs and practices. The spiritually awakened individual will no doubt make choices which are in truth radically different from these prevailing norms; however, what tends to happen is that these selections are made less from a place of judgement, and less from a place of needing to actively define the self in opposition to prevailing culture.
Ironically, in these later stages, those undergoing a spiritual awakening may observe a few tendencies: i) they are actually able to spend more time around people who have fundamentally different beliefs without this being problematic, ii) their behaviour and attitudes toward others are characterized by more patience and maturity (thankfully, these are the positive corollaries of spiritual expansion!) and iii) they are far less inclined to try to persuade others to believe what they believe or to judge others for the beliefs that they hold. At these later stages, the dominant energetic stance of the individual tends to be one in which they are positively directed by their own inner compass, rather than allowing their self-identity to be something posited in reaction to what other people are doing. The individual becomes more self-directed and less reactive.
Finding Spiritual Alignment – Example 1: Food
Food is a particularly sensitive issue (and is overlaid with lots of judgement about what people should and should not eat!). Many people undergoing the spiritual awakening process will find that their attitudes toward food change, and that their bodies become more sensitive to what they ingest. (Expanding states of consciousness are registered by the body in very real physical ways).
Let us say that as a consequence of your spiritual awakening your food choices have changed, and that you live with family members whose food choices are fundamentally different from yours. The difference in your food choices sometimes becomes a point of contention. Naturally you want to harmoniously coincide with these family members, and of course, you are concerned about their health and well-being. What can you do?
To resolve this energetically, you can: focus more on the pleasure that you get from preparing your food, and on the positive feelings of vitality that you derive from your food choices, rather than on making the family members around you wrong or wishing that they made different food choices.
The very interesting thing about this is that as you withdraw your energetic focus and attention from wishing your family members made different food choices, you may very well find that they become more open to exploring your own food practices. (Not that this should be your fundamental intention!).
You see, a lot of what the spiritual awakening process is asking us to address is the ways in which we are personally invested in an energetic of judgement. Your spiritual awakening process will throw into sharp perspective where you holding judgement – and, what is very interesting is that your process of spiritual awakening will even ask you to release those judgements that you have developed in the name of your spiritual expansion. Judging people who you think are narrow minded because you now have more expansive perceptions? Guess what? You’ll be asked to release that judgement too.
So your food choices are not really about the food. In contexts such as this, these choices become another playground in which you are asked to find your spiritual alignment. They become a playground in which you are asked to resolve an underlying energetic of judgement.
When we begin to think in a much more alignment-focused way, and within energetic terms, our conceptions begin to change. It is far more important for us to keep our spiritual alignment rather than step out of alignment because we think other people should do things differently, or because we are asking them to make improvements in the name of their well-being. You cannot keep your inner spiritual alignment while focusing on how people around you can, or should be, different. It is energetically incongruous.
This is not about you giving up the choices you have made which are directed by your own inner compass and by your discernment about what is right for you. It is about giving up the need for other people to be different in order for you to be alright.
Finding Spiritual Alignment – Example 2: Religious or Political Beliefs
Let us say that as a consequence of your spiritual awakening you experience a departure from religious and political frameworks which you find disempowering. Let us say too that you are about to enter a gathering of people who have fundamentally different religious or political views from you. What will your energetic point of attention be as you enter this gathering?
Are you going to focus on the potential that they might judge you because of your choice to believe differently? (This will of course, by the laws of energy, invite an experience of judgement).
Are you going to be on the lookout for all the reasons why they are wrong?
Are you going to focus on your idea that “these people” could never understand you?
Are you going to focus on how “misguided” these people are?
Are you going to focus on feeling like the odd one out?
OR
Are you going to be open to the potential experience of having a good time?
Where your beliefs are concerned, it’s fine to find your tribe, and people of like mind to associate with. But this time of awakening on the planet really is a very tricky time to navigate. The challenge that we all face as spiritually awake and awakening people is to be agile and graceful. The task is not to totally check out from associating with people who have different beliefs, and who operate within more conventional paradigms. There is a reason why you have had a spiritual awakening. Being spiritually awake means that you have access to more spiritual maturity. Therefore, use it.
Many people are just now beginning to wake up and are questioning the very fabric of their realities. You cannot assist them on their awakening journeys if you totally dissociate from interacting with people who are still integrated into more traditional paradigms. You are part of a collective, and you have responsibilities toward it. This is what you signed up to do – on a soul-level. It’s why you have woken up.
The challenge is to learn how to hold your energy regardless of what other people are doing, and you’re going to have to learn and practice not making other people wrong. Once you are in an energetic of making other people wrong, you are out of spiritual alignment. Of course, you will have your preferences, or as I like to say, your “vibrational selections.” But having preferences does not necessarily entail walking around in an energy of judgement. How will you know if you are walking around in an energy of judgement? It’s quite simple. You’ll know by how you feel. You’ll feel the resistant energy inside your body.
You are not lighting the way for others fundamentally by the external things you do, such as eating certain kinds of foods and eliminating others. You light the way by the energy you transmit.
Let it be free of judgement.
Onward, awakening people. Keep going.
Peace,
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