Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
An answer to "What is spiritual awakening?"
Hello, my name is Noah Elkrief and in this video, I’d like to answer "What is spiritual
awakening?. It’s quite a hard subject to explain even if it’s your own experience,
but I will do my best. So what is spiritual awakening?
The loss of the idea of yourself The end of your story about who you think
you are The death of your self-image or identity
When you recognize that who you think you are isn’t who you are
When you see that the story about who you are isn’t actually real or who you are
what is spiritual awakening
What is a self-image or identity?
In order to understand what "the death of your self-image or identity" means, you first
need some context about what a self-image or identity is (I will use these 2 terms interchangeably).
Basically, we all have an identity, a self image that’s created from thoughts. It may
seem that our identity is real or factual but let’s look at what some example self
images would be or some aspects of each person’s self image. We might think:
I am successful or I’m a failure I am stupid or I am smart
I’m caring or I’m uncaring I am beautiful or I am ugly
I am funny or I am boring I am spiritual or I am not spiritual
We all have many different ideas about who we are, and these are just some examples of
the types of things we think describe who we are (i.e. some of the things that comprise
our self-image). What is spiritual awakening? Losing your self-image.
what is spiritual awakening
A hypothetical to demonstrate how we believe our self-image is actually who we are
Let me give you an example of how we strongly we confuse our self-image to be who we actually
are. If you’re in a jungle and a lion is approaching you, what are you going to feel?
You’re probably going to be feel really afraid right? You will be afraid for your
life, afraid for the loss of your physical body, and this will create a strong fear.
You’re going to feel tense, your heart will pound faster and stronger. All this will occur
because you are afraid of the death of your physical body.
Okay, now imagine another situation. Imagine that you need to go up on a stage to speak
to a couple hundred people. What are you going to feel in that situation? You will almost
certainly feel fear. The same exact feeling in your body will occur on stage as in the
jungle when the lion is attacking you. So why is that? Because you are going to be unknowingly
afraid of death in both situations. In the jungle, you are afraid of losing your body,
and in the situation where you’re up on stage, you’re going to be afraid of the
loss of your self image, the loss of what you think you are. You’re so afraid of losing
your self image because you think it’s actually who you are but it’s really just a thought.
what is spiritual awakening
We worry about others' opinions because we are afraid of losing who we are
If you think "I am smart", and you deliver a speech to a large audience, but everyone
thinks what you said was stupid, then it will become much harder for you to think "I am
smart". In fact, you might even lose the ability to believe "I am smart". And if you lose "I
am smart", then you lose who you think you are, you lose who you seem to be. If you think
you are funny, and the large audience doesn't laugh at your jokes, then it's going to be
very difficult for you to continue to think you’re funny. You might lose that part of
your identity.
The fear that we experience when speaking in front of people is based around the fear
of losing our identity. But, we don't see it as being afraid of losing a thought about
ourselves, or worsening a thought about ourselves, we see it as possibly losing who we are. We
are so confused about who we actually are, that we fear losing a thought about ourselves
in the same way that fear losing our body. That is why the fear of public speaking is
often stronger and more prevalent than the fear of death.
what is spiritual awakening
What is spiritual awakening?
Most people live in a perpetual and constant state of confusing the thoughts in their mind
(their self-image) to be who they are. Spiritual awakening is simply recognizing that the thoughts
about who you are, aren’t who you are. It is the recognition that the thoughts which
say "I am funny, stupid, ugly, cool, boring" aren't true, aren't real, and don’t mean
anything about me.
who we are isn't part of reality or the facts. It is a concept that only exists as a fantasy
land in our minds when we think about it.
Spiritual awakening in this moment
Lets take a moment right now to discover the difference between who we actually are and
the illusion of who we are. I am going to ask you a series of questions now:
Where is your nose? Please take a moment to locate your nose and put your finger on it.
Since you can touch it, that nose is part of reality.
Now, where is success or failure in this moment? Can you find it? Can you locate it?
Where is your ear? Locate it. Where’s caring or uncaring right now? Where
is it? Does it exist as part of reality? Is it part of the facts? Where is it right now?
Can you locate it? If you can't locate something or touch it,
it is not real. If it is not real, then it can't be who you are. You are here right now.
You exist right now. Anything that isn't here in this moment or doesn't exist factually
right now, can't be you. If it doesn’t exist right now and you are here, none of that can
be you, that’s it. Spiritual awakening is the recognition that I am here. I am here.
Anything else we just don’t know to be true. We just don’t know, right?
what is spiritual awakening
I hope you found this post about what is spiritual awakening helpful. If you would like some
more help with this, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Thank you for reading. Bye.
Noah Elkrief