What does it mean to be spiritually awakened?
By Pr. Fred Castor
If you are reading this material, you most likely see yourself as a spiritual person. You recognize your true nature as being spiritual, coupled with your physical and mental components. You probably engage in spiritual practices such as prayer, meditation and quiet time spent with God. You are open to God’s love, and are deeply grateful for it. You ask for God’s direction in your life, and follow it the best you can. You recognize God’s handprint in your daily life. These are all parts of being on a spiritual journey, and activating your spiritual nature.
What you may not be aware of is there is alwas more to explore. It is like the endless universe we can view in the sky. The night sky filled with stars and planets is not a flat screen but an endless universe. There is infinite depth we cannot begin to comprehend.
So it is with spirituality. The journey into spirituality is infinite. We never arrive. There is always more out there - more to come - more to experience - more to explore. So wherever you are on this endless continuum, there is more awaiting you - another dimension of your spiritual nature to be awakened. The journey promises more than you can even imagine.
What will it be like for you to embark upon the next stage of your journey? It will definitely be a mountain-top experience. Once again, it will give you an entirely new perspective of life. You will discover new things in your life you never experienced before. God’s overall plan for you and for the world will come into even sharper focus than ever before. God will become even more real.
You will essentially move into what feels like a different world - a world you have never experienced before - a world that hints of heaven, and even seems to participate in it.
It will feel as if you have been asleep - dormant - and are newly awakened. Although you are already on a spiritual journey, and experience the joy it brings, this next step will feel like something entirely new and fresh - A NEW AWAKENING. It will be like looking at the stars at night through a powerful telescope and seeing new things for the first time.
If you pursue this next leg of your journey, your perspective of the Holy One will change, making you even more aware of God’s unbounded and unconditional love for you and the world. Amazingly, your life will begin to glow. Others will see it and be drawn to it.
While we experience God’s love now, we very likely still feel it is conditional, inevitably affected by our weaknesses and failures. Breaking out of the attitudinal prison, which those thoughts and feelings create, will be freeing and renewing. Becoming more acutely aware God’s love is absolutely unconditional, uncompromising and universal is SPIRITUALLY AWAKENING.
How then do we go about becoming spiritually awakened - assuming we are momentarily dozing spiritually? Ask someone to wake us up - that someone being God. “Holy One, awaken me spiritually. Enrich and expand my spirit. I yearn to grow. This spiritual journey is so meaningful. I want more.”
