In the sea of information this produces, awakening is a word that gets a lot of attention in the press. It is widely used in spiritual circles. However, the confusing thing for many people is that it is often used in very different ways. I have observed this often and felt it might be useful to write this piece to outline some of the different ways different communities use this word. As I will further suggest, while they are all valid and involve real shifts in the way an individual relates to themselves, others and the world, it is important that we distinguish between these different forms of awakening.
Sometimes people use the word awakening to describe some kind of shift or intensification that takes place at the level of the body and energy system and that has powerful effects on the way they experience themselves and the world. This form of awakening is often described among practitioners of practices such as Kundalini Yoga, Hatha Yoga, Neo-Tantra, Sacred Sexuality, Tai Chi or other forms of body, sexuality or energy-based practice. Suddenly there is a new tension of energy that is released in their body and mind and begins to circulate through their being. This may be temporary or permanent, but energetic openings such as these often dramatically open one to new levels of consciousness, embodiment and energetic intensity. Sometimes people can even find this very challenging, and it is important to explore these things carefully.
2. The awakening of the mind
Sometimes people use the word awakening in relation to a shift taking place at the level of the mind. This could mean the dawning of a new intellectual insight. We may have one of those wonderful moments when we realize something new about the word or when a piece of information clicks into place to broaden, deepen, and enrich our entire understanding of life. This way of understanding awakening – as it relates to a new piece of information that can end up entirely in the mind – is often described as a way in which people suddenly begin to objectify their lives in a new way and perhaps decide to break away from collective society, the conventional world or relative reality as a whole (e.g. samsara in Buddhist cosmology).
Another way that awakening is discussed in relation to the level of mind is in relation to mindfulness. As global interest in mindfulness increases, more and more people are thinking about what it means to be ‘awake’ in terms of being attentive, present, in the now, aware and truly here and available for the moment.
3. Awakening a new personality
Sometimes people use the word awakening to refer to a shift that is taking place at the level of the personality as a whole. This may involve a person experiencing a deep breakthrough in their sense of personal connection to themselves, personal authenticity, personal integration and their sense of their life path. In such shifts as these, previously unintegrated aspects of their being can be reincorporated into the fullness of their unique individual self.
And sometimes people also use the word awakening for processes that take place at the level of the soul. As the spiritual teachings of the world tell us, as souls we journey through spiritual beings who go through this human experience on a continually unfolding path of learning and growth. When awakening is described in terms of shifts taking place at the level of the soul, it often involves a series of significant expansions in the individual’s consciousness, sense of presence, and the energy tension flowing through their system.
Sometimes slowly and sometimes with great explosions of opening, their consciousness expands to embrace the entire world and touch the cosmos. This can also mean, for example, that we open ourselves to a deeper connection with God, with Christ, with a deity or archetype, with the earth as a whole. As this happens, more and more new information and insight begins to penetrate their consciousness, and they know themselves more and more as a constantly evolving soul in a living cosmos.
5. Mystical awakening
A final form of awakening that I will describe here concerns what the non-dual mystical traditions (e.g. Vedanta, Vajrayana Buddhism, Zen, Kashmir Shaivism, Sufism, Adidam) understand by the term ‘awakening’. This is awakening to the level of Ultimate Reality, the Ground of Being. Here, instead of the relative body and mind of an individual experiencing expansions of consciousness, intellectual insights, new levels of connection with their personal self, or a major energetic opening, now any sense of separation between self and the world collapses utterly .
Every experience of an external world or an internal self is burned through by the infinite waking light that is realized as one’s true nature, without any realizer left to know. All stories of the existence of a separate self navigating a separate world are seen through in an awakening that does not involve any self that can claim it anymore. Then there is simply Reality that knows itself as the indivisible space of naked consciousness, light, presence, openness, love and energy, radiating as the entirety of creation.
Within the non-dual mystical traditions they are very careful that the word awakening is reserved only for this form of opening. When the awareness becomes stable and has subsequently burned through and transfigured the entire body, emotional field and mind of a practitioner so that he functions in total harmony with it, they call it enlightenment.