Although a spiritual awakening is frequently referred to as a journey, it is not always a journey of physical travel or pilgrimage; rather, it is a process of expanding your horizons and moving forward in your evolutionary development.
In Sanskrit, the word avidya, which means “incorrect understanding,” the veil of ignorance, is lifted during a spiritual awakening. Your true nature is hidden by this ignorance, which also keeps you functioning at lower levels of consciousness.
This is a situation in which you are unaware of your ignorance. One of the three gunas, or fundamental aspects of the cosmos, tamas, is at the root of this ignorance.
Tamas entraps you in the mental, emotional, and physical quicksand of lethargy and represents gloom, dullness, inactivity, and entropy.
Thankfully, however, the process of spiritual awakening immediately opposes the avidya currents in your existence. One of the most potent forces in the cosmos, the evolution of consciousness creates a forward pull, a momentum toward growth, transformation, and change.
Spiritual enlightenment propels you out of the constricting gravity well of ignorance and toward the ultimate goal of cosmic self-realization, much like a spaceship gaining escape velocity.
However, how can this occur? So, it makes sense that spiritual awakening is something you are born to experience if you believe that all humans, and perhaps even all sentient beings, have a hardwired desire to evolve.
There must be signs or steps that show you are on the road to waking if this process is inscribed into your mind and body.
Your spiritual journey’s purpose
Five different types of sight are used in this paradigm to symbolize various stages of the spiritual path:
1. Glimpsing: The call to adventure
The main starting point, often known as the call to adventure, occurs at the beginning of every hero’s journey. An escape from routine, the call to adventure is a signal that emerges from the unconscious, grabs your attention, and points you in a fresh direction. A spiritual awakening is sparked by a call to adventure.
2. Closer examination: Choosing a path
You start to understand that your life is a spiritual journey, an awakening of your consciousness, when you realize that your constrained worldview can no longer accommodate your growing awareness.
To assist contextualize or re-map your worldview, you might now set out to discover a new approach—a new philosophy, a different tradition, or a different practice.
3. Seeking: Following the path
The following stage demands that you pursue spirituality. Once you’ve identified your route, consistent practice, research, and discipline help you progress farther toward the bigger picture of increased awareness.
4. Loss of sight: Losing the path
You could feel lost or helpless at this point as if you’ve given in to spiritual blindness. You frequently fail to recognize, though, that these blindness or difficulties are really just the ego’s ruse—your limited self, which worries about being extinct in the ever-expanding realm of spirit.
5. Seeing: Merging with the path
The seeker finally progresses to a new level, one of vision, transcendence, and sight beyond sight. At this point, you have transcended sadhana and are the practice.
You return to yourself at this stage, but interestingly, the process doesn’t involve collecting new knowledge or experiences. Instead, it’s a perpetual process of decreasing and letting go.
The greatest journey you can ever take is the route to spiritual awakening.
You already have a great deal of privilege just by realizing that you have such a trip ahead of you. And accepting it is equivalent to answering the heroic call of your life’s work and destiny.