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Interesting introduction to the experiences of a female Tunisian poet many of us may not have come across.  Publisher, mysticexperiences.net.

Reposted from The Guides with review comments in bold:

Here are 10 “unmistakable” signs of spiritual awakening:

1. A strong feeling that something major has changed inside you. You must have experienced something that forced your soul to wake up and show you the truth and this truth was so shocking to you that you could feel deep inside that you had been living in an illusion all this while. With time, you start feeling that you have changed as a person. You are transforming into someone you never imagined you could be. You become a better person and you can feel that.

Different words but somewhat similar to my experiences, except for the bit about becoming a “better person”. Becoming a better person is only a human ambition.

2. You start questioning the purpose of your life

 

Oh yes! Bewilderingly so… I feel stranded here.

Despite possessing everything that you need, you still feel incomplete and unaware. You desperately want to know the meaning of this world and the purpose of your life.You start questioning God, you start finding answers to afterlife, soul, spirituality and desire lasting happiness.

Yes, more or less. But there was no god in any of my experiences. I also prefer contentment to happiness, contentment is more profound and permanent than happiness.

 

3. You naturally start distancing yourself from people with whom your thoughts don’t match. These people can be the ones you were the closest to. After the awakening process has set in, your soul has already reached a higher vibrational frequency and therefore, cannot match up with the souls of lower frequency. People start telling you that you have changed, but you know that this is not a change but just your soul waking up! Slowly, your old relations break and new begin that help your soul to grow further.

Absolutely. At last count I have cut over 100 close friends and relatives from my life since my experiences. Their worldliness was oppressive. Cutting them out brought instant relief. The process continues to this day …

4. You become absolutely disinterested or at least less interested in materialistic aspects. Shopping, hanging out with friends, partying, wearing expensive clothes or decorating the house with expensive furniture etc, become alien to you. You want to indulge in soul-enriching activities like travelling, meditating, taking care of your physical, emotional and spiritual health like never before and the like. You don’t even feel like doing your regular job and look for doing things which have some purpose. This often makes you pursue your dreams because you realize how short life is and how much is to be learnt and done.

Absolutely, except for “pursuing dreams”. That sounds worldly. I have no earthly ambitions except to be self reliant. Otherwise all the world gets from me is legality, decency and honesty. I avoid all other attachments and human expectations.

5. You realize your earlier mistakes and negative habits

The mistakes that you made in the past haunt you to make you feel guilty. Your old negative habits like judging people, mocking people, back-biting, being selfish, talking rude etc. stand like humongous walls in front of you which you sense you need to break in order to see the good in you. These keep haunting you until you forgive yourself for what you did and try being a better person.

True, except for the trying to be a better person bit… though I do think it is axiomatic, automatic that you become increasingly detached from lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego in all their human personifications.

6. You are constantly sad/depressed about the what’s happening in the world.

Even if it’s just a TV news channel showing a murder or a newspaper mentioning the deteriorating climatic conditions, you feel utterly depressed, you feel like doing something to help people around you, to make this world a better place to live. You want to alleviate the world’s suffering by doing something, anything that you possibly can. This can even overwhelm you to such an extent that you start crying and feel as if all this is happening to you.

True, except for the crying bit. Thankfully the world is not as primitive as it used to be and more humans, still in a primitive state of development, have nevertheless never had it so good, despite passing appearances and hysterical reactions. All is well.

7. You become a healer. Every spiritually awakened person has the potential to become a spiritual healer. A spiritual healer is someone who has the power to spiritually and emotionally heal people. By this I mean, you feel like motivating and inspiring people, in fact, you might even develop the power of pulling away emotional blockage from people.

No, I am not aware of any personal healing properties. I know what people have to do to be content but have come to the conclusion only one in a million could benefit from any advice about it in their present state of unawareness of Reality. In any case Reality is in charge. Interference in Reality’s process by religions, isms, politics and ideologies is what currently ails the human race. These sociological human traits always fail. Reality is all there is. It is inexorable. It never fails. (And it only works with individuals). All is well.

8. You develop a very strong 6th sense. Your intuition suddenly gets alert.The universe, through your intuition will try to send you messages in the form of synchronicity (11.11, 22.22. and other number symbols) on clocks, roads, street signs, lift floor numbers, number on bills etc. that might click something in you to tell you that this has some meaning to it that you must pay attention to, these messages can also be in the form of prophetic dreams for not just yourself but also for the people that you know, meeting like minded people and people who are experiencing spiritual awakening etc. All this helps you in moving ahead in your journey of spiritual awakening.

In comparison with others I notice I have this ability somewhat, so instinctively avoid noisy “spiritual sleepwalkers” and threatening or unpleasant situations. I used it to develop the ability to disguise myself with small talk in my forties, with gratifying results when forced to deal with humans. Some wisdom schools call this particular use of the sixth sense “the cloak of invisibility”.

9. You get strongly connected to nature. You feel like being close to nature. You might feel like moving out of cities to live in the suburbs, or travel to places that are close to nature. You develop strong love for animals, you want to pet them or help them in some way.

Long, solo overnight sailing cruises have given me the most spiritually profound, satisfying days of my life – land based life not so much.

10. You experience physical changes. Spiritual awakening is like a nuclear bomb of energy as a result of which you may experience many physical changes like you may experience extreme weight gain or loss, tingling sensation at the top of your head, your sleeping pattern may get badly disrupted. You may feel excessively sleepy or not sleepy at all or feel like sleeping and waking up at odd hours of the day. Your appetite might also decrease, you might have frequent pain on the back of your neck and shoulder(s) and tingling sensation in your fingers.

Can’t say any of this applies to me.

10. You develop a creative personality. Suddenly, out of nowhere, you start getting a rush of creativity which could come out in the form painting, writing, poetry, pottery, tarot reading, travelling, playing any musical instrument, singing etc. You become gutsy and get the strength to dream again and dream big and not only that, you get the courage to fulfill them as well. The latter part comes in the later stages of awakening. In the very beginning you might feel the exact opposite, you might feel utterly hopeless or even suicidal, but as you progress in your journey all this pain subsides and you get the courage to fulfill your dreams.

Some creativeness was one of the lifesaving attributes I was graced with to endure being marooned here. As for having human dreams/ambitions, being graced with spirituality excluded such irrelevant personal attachments.

11. You accept yourself for who you are and don’t stop yourself from being your actual self. You feel free!

No matter for how long you have been willingly trying to be what others wanted you to, once your soul is awakened, you can no longer contain yourself from loving your actual identity. You stop caring of what people have to say about you and do only what gives you happiness. Despite going through myriad of sudden physical, emotional changes you have a strange feeling of being free, as if you have been set free. You start realizing that there’s only one true asset in life and that is eternal happiness.

Freedom is a human word with no relevance in the limitlessness of the mystical experience of Reality (MER) if my MER experiences are anything to go by.

Mysticalexperiences.net 2018

“At some point in the unfoldment process the individual chooses to embrace an integrity that transcends opinion, belief, religion, culture, language, and everything that we’ve ever been taught.”

From “Inspirience: Meditation Unbound: The Unconditioned Path to Spiritual Awakening” by Richard L. Haight.

 

Publisher’s note: In my annual experiences of MER there was no question of any choice in embracing what was happening to me spontaneously, then or since.

Mysticalexperiences.net 2018

Higher consciousness is the consciousness of a higher Self, transcendental reality, or God. It is “the part of the human being that is capable of transcending animal instincts”.[1] The concept was significantly developed in German Idealism, and is a central notion in contemporary popular spirituality. However, it has ancient roots, dating back to the Bhagvad Gita and Indian Vedas. Wikepedia.

Mysticexperiences.net 2018

Category: Consciousness

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Mysticexperiences.net 2018

Q: Refined to its very basic premise, what is the message of the mystics?

A: It’s not clear that mystics are messengers if my experiences and readings are anything to go by. What they experience is exclusively for them, however similar the experiences seem.
Q: Well, if you will allow me to be personal, how would you as a mystic advise someone like me?
A: Someone like you? What is that someone like you?
Q: To use a phrase of yours, ‘Through no fault of my own’ I am a passionate Seeker. I have been all my life.
A: How does this affect you?
Q: I guess it seems to consume my life to the exclusion of everything else almost.
A: It’s your only passion?
Q: Yes, underneath everything else, it’s come to define me, isolate me, alienate me … I seem to have been born with a persistent ache to know what it’s all about. I feel worn out by it all, even though I sculpt, write, paint, play the piano, but my heart’s not in any of it really, though it is relaxing and time consuming.
A: it sounds as if it might be appropriate to share my own conclusion about the purpose of life. It might be helpful.You seem ripe for the experience, ready for the demands it it makes.
The purpose of human life if my experiences are anything to go by, is to examine what you can of the Process of existence.
Do this by relaxing and watching, letting go, accepting how things unfold, grow and change, how they are veiled behind the inconsequential hullaballoo of being human.
This will be much like the early days of learning a musical instrument, how to sculpt, paint, and develop your writing to express the inexpressible. (Bearing in mind all these things by the way are art, artifice, not the real thing …).
Let discovering this Process channel your Seeker passion.

The growing knowledge of the Process of existence will reveal itself in ways profoundly new to you. Eventually it will take you beyond all human understanding, give you profound peace and contentment.

I see tears! You’re puzzled. Big sighs too! These are a good sign. They could mean the task has already taken, that it’s already working on you. Take a deep breath. That’s a good smile. Well done.
What I’ve told you isn’t meant for everyone. You had to be ready and I think you are. This advice may take you on a short journey or a long one, but there will be more help than you know working on you as you work on knowing this Process.
Eventual discovery of the meaning of what I have said will tell you more than everything, not just about your purpose in life.
This eventual discovery is like a captivation perpetrated on me in a different way in one of my MER’s (Mystical Experiences of Reality). It sharpened my awareness too. It baffled me at the time as I had not asked a question, and could not have asked anything to justify such an answer. Over time however, 50 years in my case, that mystifying, apparently meaningless message of captivation has revealed a continuing abundance of meanings and certainties.
Q: May I ask what your specific ‘captivation’ was that took you on, what it said?
A: Yes. It said:
“All Is Well”.
This was repeated three times.
Q: What have you concluded about it’s meaning after all these years?
A: That ALL, everything known and unknown, everywhere, on all levels, is well, in good order, as it is meant to be. Humans don’t have the answers. Nothing human is of much spiritual consequence. My probing into all the meanings arising from this enigmatical assertion sensitised me to all manner of truths and processes, not the least of which revealed why humans did such evil things to mystics and why mystics have historically learned to keep their revelations to themselves and how humanity is in such a primitive state of existence. Reality is all there is. Reality is enough.
All is well.
Mysticexperiences.net. 2018

A Review of an article in Psychology Today by Dr. Steve Taylor, author of the Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening.

MER’s review comments are in bold type:

What are spiritual experiences? I don’t think of them in religious terms. I see them as moments in which our awareness becomes more intense and more expansive than normal, so that the world around us becomes more real and alive, and we feel a strong sense of connection to nature and other human beings.

These attachments were not true of my experiences.

We might feel a sense of joy or inner stillness, and feel that somehow the world around us is “in harmony” or has a meaning that we find difficult to express.

Yes, but not just “the world”, everything.

If a person from a religious background has such an experience, they may well interpret it in religious terms. They might see it as a gift from God, and believe that the aliveness and harmony they perceive is a glimpse of the divine, or of heaven.

But if you’re not religious, there’s no reason to think in these terms. The experience is just a psychological one. It suggests that our normal vision of the world is limited and in some ways even aberrational.

In awakening experiences, there is a strong sense of ‘seeing more,’ of expanding beyond limits and perceiving a more authentic reality.

Yes! Very much so.

My research shows that awakening experiences are connected to certain activities and situations. They are associated with contact with nature, spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer, sporting activities (such as running and swimming), and sex. They are also strongly associated with states of intense psychological turmoil. That is, paradoxically, they often occur in the midst of stress and depression, or in relation to traumatic life events such as illness, divorce or bereavement.

None of my experiences of the mystical experience of Reality were associated with any of the activities and situations suggested here.

However, one of the most interesting things about these experiences is that they are apparently becoming more common.

In a 1962 Gallup poll, just 22 percent of Americans reported that they had “ever had a religious or mystical experience.” In 1994, 33 percent of people answered yes to the same question, while by 2009, the figure had risen to 49 percent.

Research by the Pew Research Center in the U.S. has shown a similar trend. In 2007, 52 percent of Americans reported that they regularly felt a “deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being.” In 2014, the figure stood at 59 percent. In 2007, 39 percent of Americans said that the regularly felt a “deep sense of wonder about the universe”—a figure which had increased to 46 percent in 2014.

Perhaps significantly, these increases coincided closely with a decrease in interest in organized religion.

In the U.K., the surveys of the Spiritual Experience Research Centre have had similar findings. In a 1969 survey, the question “Have you ever experienced a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self?” was answered affirmatively by 29 percent of people.

In 1978, the figure had risen to 36 percent, and then to 48 percent in 1987. In 2000, there was a further steep rise to 75 percent—a 27 percent increase in 13 years (which was, coincidentally or not, exactly the same figure by which church attendance declined over the same period). (1)

A Collective Movement?

Why should spiritual experiences be more common now than they were a few decades ago? It could simply be that people are simply getting better at recognizing them, or are more open about discussing them.

A lot of historically known mystics had no choice but to keep quiet about their experiences or take the consequences from the brutal conventional religions of their day.

Now that there is more general awareness of spirituality in our culture, and concepts such as “spiritual peace and well-being” are a more common part of discourse, it could simply be that more people are describing their experiences in this way, when they might have described them in other terms in earlier decades.

Or perhaps it’s right to take the research at its face value. Perhaps spiritual experiences actually are becoming more common. This is the approach I take in my new book The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening.

It is hard to tell if the good doctor is actually talking about mystics and the mystical experience of Reality that defines mystics as mystics.

I suggest that spiritual experiences are glimpses of a new state of being that is slowly becoming more normal to human beings. This is a higher-functioning state that I call “wakefulness,” in which a person feels an enhanced sense of well-being, clarity, and connection.

This is certainly a partial view of the traditional mystic experience.

They have a more intense awareness of the world around them, a greater sense of appreciation of nature, a broad global outlook, and an all-embracing sense of empathy with the whole human race. In many ways, it is a permanent, ongoing variant of the ‘awakening experience.’

Empathy with the human race is certainly not where my experiences have lead me. Humanity as a collective is at a very primitive state of Realisation (or cosmic consciousnesses).

I have found many examples of people who shift into this higher-functioning state in the midst of intense psychological turmoil – for example, bereavement, serious illness, or alcoholism—I describe some of these examples in The Leap.

If true, such descriptions would make their “experiences” suspect, very anthropological, not mystical experiences of Reality at all.

This shift is quite common, and can be seen as a variation of “post-traumatic growth”—I sometimes refer to it as “post-traumatic transformation.”

There are also hundreds of millions of people around the world who are gradually cultivating wakefulness by following spiritual practices such as meditation and service, or spiritual paths such as Buddhism, Yoga, or the Kabbalah.

The mystical experience of Reality cannot be evangelised or experienced from books or religions. The ancient and modern records of the phenomena of MER suggests the experience is caught, not taught. That’s certainly my experience.

A constantly increasing interest in self-development, spiritual practices, and traditions is one of the most significant cultural trends of our time.

Beware of such cultural “trends”. Reality is not interested in human “culture” if my experiences are anything to go by.

It seems to me that there is a collective moment towards awakening, which is manifesting itself in a variety of ways—one of which may be the increasing frequency of spiritual experiences.

(1) I am grateful to my fellow author Jules Evans for bringing my attention to this research.

Steve Taylor PhD is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, UK. He is the author of The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening.
Source: Psychology Today

The Chinese sage Lao Tsu is said to have warned, “Those who know don’t talk, those who talk don’t know.”

He was talking about MER, the mystical experience of Reality – the Tao. As a generalisation I think he was right. But as in most generalisations, there are exceptions.
But why blog about mysticism anyway?
Because as E.M.Foster, the English man-of-letters and many other writers have said in similar words – ‘How do I know what I know until I write it?’
My own mystical experiences were frightening, debilitating and inexplicable until I started writing about them 60 years later.
Writing about a subject can lead writers into vast areas of reading and research, into empirical facts they didn’t know existed – as well as into awareness of personal attributes like concentration, patience, passion, intuition, ‘knowing’, contemplation, meditation, transcendence, epiphany, certainty – these are all or just some of the multiple abilities writing can reveal.
The deeper their understanding, focus, integrity, truthfulness, precision and their prose develops in writers on mysticism the more their personal paths are revealed.
Finding and creating words that stick into readers’ hearts and minds like benign burrs, creates a serendipitious ripple of meaning for others too.
The more such writers lift veils, ignite unseeing stares of mindful enchantment in their readers, the more they sometimes wonder if they are doing the writing themselves or if something else is. (Always say yes when you’re prompted to write something – you never know what serendipities await your development).
So when I read a Follower’s web post asking Why Blog? I found myself prompted to write the following haiku, of all things:

WHY WRITE?

Encore! Encore! to
Deepening stillnesses:

To Ultimate Word?

Are those who attempt to express the inexpressible the Called Ones? Are they the exceptions to Master Lao Tsu’s rule?

Mysticexperiences.net 2018

“MANY ARE CALLED, BUT FEW ARE CHOSEN”.

By Lewis Lafontaine, Depthpsychologysite.blog

Publisher’s note: I don’t know where Dr Jung got this insight, but it validates my own mystical experiences of Reality about the supreme importance of the individual over mere social conventionality in the development of existence:

“The words “many are called, but few are chosen” are singularly appropriate here, for the development of personality from the germ-state to full consciousness is at once a charisma and a curse, because its first fruit is the conscious and unavoidable segregation of the single individual from the undifferentiated and unconscious herd. This means isolation, and there is no more comforting word for it. Neither family nor society nor position can save him from this fate, nor yet the most successful adaptation to his environment, however smoothly he fits in. The development of personality is a favor that must be paid for dearly. But the people who talk most loudly about developing their personalities are the very ones who are least mindful of the results, which are such as to frighten away all weaker spirits.

“Yet the development of personality means more than just hatching forth monsters, or of isolation. It also means fidelity to the law of one’s own being.

“For the word “fidelity” I should prefer, in this context, the Greek word used in the New Testament, nioris, which is erroneously translated “faith.” It really means “trust,” “trustful loyalty.” Fidelity to the law of one’s own being is a trust in this law, a loyal perseverance and a confident hope; in short, an attitude such as a religious man should have towards God. It can now be seen how portentous is the dilemma that emerges from behind our problem: personality can never develop unless the individual chooses his own way, consciously and with moral deliberation. Not only the casual motive – necessity – but conscious moral decision must lend its strength to the process of building the personality.

“If the first is lacking, then the alleged development is a mere acrobatics of the will: If the second, it will get stuck in unconscious automatism. But a a man can make a conscious decision to go his own way only if he holds that way to be the best. If any other way were held to be better, then he would live and develop that other personality instead of his own. The other ways are conventionalities of a moral, social, political, philosophical, or religious nature. The fact that the conventions always flourish in one form or another only proves that the vast majority of mankind do not choose their own way, but convention, and consequently develop not themselves but a method and a mode of life at the cost of their own wholeness.”Carl Jung; The Development of Personality.

Reblogged by Mystic experiences 2018