5 Profound Life-Changing Stages of Spiritual Awakening
Five stages of spiritual awakening are:
- Physical Health
- Intellectual Efficiency
- Harmonious Relationships
- Purification of Genetic Centre
- Realization of Truth
Our Guru Yogiraj Sri Vethathiri Maharishi has written a beautiful book on this topic.
I will tell you what I learnt from his teachings in a nutshell.
1. Physical Health
The first stage of spiritual awakening is taking care of your body.
Your body is your temple.
As soon as you realize that your body is your most sacred asset, you can start caring for it.
You need to understand that your body is an instrument. An instrument that creates ideas, emotions and experiences. And that means that you hold the keys to its well-being.
Your body is a self-diagnostic, self-healing machine.
Learn how it works. Respect it.
Here are five things you need to do to take good care of your health. Never over-indulge, ignore, or inappropriately gratify in any of these five.
1. Food
Food affects your body. Whole Food plant-based diet nurtures your body and helps you grow spiritually. Animal-based foods and processed foods have no place in your life.
2. Exercise
Exercise is another way to take care of your body. It’s good for your mind too. Like me, you are probably in front of the computers for most of your working hours. So, exercise is essential. If you don't exercise, you'll be unhealthy physically and mentally.
3. Sleep
Sleep is critical. You should sleep at least 7-8 hours every day. But you won't feel energetic if you're not sleeping enough. There is no substitute for sleeping. You can put on the deep relaxation audio of mine and go to bed. You will be able to fall into a deep sleep quickly.
4. Use of Thought Force
Disciplined use of thought force is another way to take good care of yourself. When you think positive thoughts, you create positive feelings inside you. Negative thoughts create negative emotions.
Thought force is like a magnet. Positive thoughts attract positive energies. Negative thoughts attract negative energies.
When you think positive thoughts, your body feels happy. Your mind becomes peaceful.
Thought force also helps you get rid of bad habits.
5. Sex
Moderation and discipline in sex are essential. Sex is one of the best ways to connect with your soulmate.
But when you indulge in sexual activities without love, it's just lust. Lust doesn't lead to any kind of fulfilment or happiness.
Never indulge in sex in an inappropriate manner or an uncontrolled fashion.
2. Intellectual Efficiency
The second stage of spiritual awakening is intellectual efficiency.
This is where you start using your intellect to discover who you are.
In the modern world, emotional control has gone missing.
We are bombarded by advertising and media messages telling us that we must buy certain products, watch certain shows, read certain books, or listen to certain music.
We are taught to desire things that we shouldn't. And we are discouraged from expressing emotions that we shouldn't. We crave people, objects, and experiences. We get disappointed. Anger or worry takes us over.
We are encouraged to suppress feelings that we shouldn't. We are punished for feeling too much.
As a result, most of us suffer from unhealthy anxiety and stress levels.
We fear rejection, embarrassment, or failure.
Six temperamental moods arise from an emotional state of mind:
- Greed
- Anger
- Miserliness
- Immoral Sexual Passion
- Vengeance
- Vanity
In a temperamental mood, five crimes are insinuated.
- Murder
- Thievery
- Rape
- Gambling
- Dishonesty
You must learn to control your emotions.
To build emotional control, you have to develop self-awareness. Not just awareness of your thoughts and feelings but also understanding your behaviours and attitudes.
Self-awareness helps you understand your motivations, your expectations and your beliefs. Self-awareness gives you insight into your habits, your patterns and your triggers.
Without self-awareness, you're blindsided by emotion. You're unable to predict your reactions, which makes you reactive.
With self-awareness, you can anticipate your responses, allowing you to regulate your emotions.
Meditation develops awareness. Introspection practices in silence create intellectual efficiency.
With emotional control, you gain intellectual efficiency. The six temperamental moods are sublimated.
- Greed becomes contentment
- Anger becomes tolerance
- Miserliness becomes philanthropy
- Immoral sexual passion becomes chastity
- Vanity becomes parity
- Vengeance becomes forgiveness
By using cognitive behavioural techniques like meditation, visualization, introspection, and self-awareness, you can train your brain to function at its peak regardless of your emotional state. This means that you can focus on tasks that require concentration and attention instead of letting your emotions dictate your actions.
As you master the inner world, you are ready to tackle the external world.
3. Harmonious Relationships
The third stage in spiritual awakening is building harmonious relationships.
Harmony is the ultimate goal of all human interaction. It is the key ingredient to building strong relationships. Without it, we would be unable to connect with others, communicate effectively, build trust and establish lasting connections.
Relationship problems are common. They arise because of selfishness, jealousy, anger, greed, hatred, and other destructive emotions.
These emotions cause disharmony between two individuals.
They make them fight each other instead of working together.
Consider the following scenario:
Your wife has an important meeting with her boss tomorrow morning. Your son has his first cricket game after school. And your daughter needs a haircut before she leaves town. You have a planned meeting with your close friends.
Which one of these priorities does your family prioritize?
Does everyone agree on which task is most important? Does anyone disagree?
Most likely, there is conflict. Most likely, there will be arguments.
Without harmony, the entire family dynamic is thrown off balance.
What stops you from maintaining harmony?
Your ego.
Ego stops you from being tolerant. It causes you to be judgmental.
Ego is an obstacle. An enemy. A demon.
Egos distort our view of the world. They block our vision.
Egos prevent us from living fully. Egos prevent us from becoming more. Egos prevent us from loving deeply.
Harmonious relationships are built through mutual respect, trust, empathy, compassion, forgiveness, gratitude, humility, and generosity.
Swamiji has taught three mantras for maintaining harmony in relationships.
- Tolerance
- Adjustment
- Sacrifice
Meditation and blessings are two excellent tools for developing harmonious relationships.
Meditation sublimates the ego.
Blessings bring peace and fulfilment.
4. Purification of Genetic Centre
Our genetic centre has three contaminations:
- Ego
- Illusion
- Sin Imprints
There are three ways to eliminate the contamination in your genetic centre.
- Superimposition
- Sublimation
- Neutralization
Superimposing positive thoughts in place of negative ones is called superimposition.
It is done by repeating positive affirmations when the mind is at the calm Alpha level of frequency between 8 and 13 cycles per second. You can reach the Alpha level by meditating at the Sahasrara chakra.
Forgiving yourself and others and seeking forgiveness for past mistakes is called sublimating.
You can start by forgiving yourself for any wrongs you may have committed. When you say sorry to others, you sublimate your sin imprints and seek their forgiveness.
The final step is to remove all the impurities from your genetic centre. You prevent further accumulation of sin imprints. Constant awareness through meditation helps you achieve this.
When you neutralize sin imprints, you remove the bad karma accumulated over time.
In this process, you begin your journey to realize God in you.
5. Realization of Truth
Meditation is a powerful tool for attaining enlightenment.
Meditation helps us quiet our minds, clear our heads and focus our attention. Meditation gives us peace. It lets us relax. It allows us to connect deeply with our souls.
In meditation, we transcend our physical form. We leave behind our egos. We come closer to the source of life.
We leave behind our worries and our fears. We gain clarity and perspective. We realize that we are connected to something greater than ourselves.
Just as meditation brings us closer to the divine, it also brings us closer to our potential.
Meditation is the gateway to enlightenment.
In meditation, we focus our attention inwardly. We turn our attention away from external stimuli and toward ourselves.
By focusing on ourselves, we connect with the source of all creation. By connecting with the source of all existence, we experience an awakening of spirit.
Through meditation, we transcend the limitations of our ego and open ourselves to the infinite possibilities of the universe.
All of this is possible. All of this is available to you. Through meditation, you can transform your life forever.
The other end of your mind is almighty consciousness.
There is heaven inside you.
Which stage of spiritual awakening are you in?
Let me know how I can help you find the heaven inside.
I Love You.
Thank you for being a source of inspiration.
Be Blessed by the Divine!
Krish Murali Eswar.