Signs Of Spiritual Awakening

Are Sometimes Funny

Awakening is funny. In fact those that experience early signs of spiritual awakening often find it hilarious, and so it was with me.

I was new to the world of self help and had no concept or experience of spiritual growth. In fact ironically I booked to go on a workshop that I thought was going to make me understand more about others and how to get them to align with me. In short, I wanted more power.

So there I was flying half way around the world to attend a workshop on something I didn’t know anything about and I hadn’t even heard the name of the workshop before!

Peter Ralston was running a month-long retreat, the first week of which was entitled an Ontology Workshop, or Experience the Nature of Being

Peter started introducing me and 15 others to the possibility that what we assume is real can be challenged and seen as simply an idea held firmly by the mind.

Throughout the eight days we confronted and challenged a lot. I hated it and was counting down the hours. I didn’t hate the workshop or the teacher or the environment or theother participants but something inside felt confronted and was screaming to go. About half way through the workshop Peter quoted somebody which had a profound impact on me.

Who Am I?

He said if you can hold the question Who am I? in your awareness for three days, the same way a feather would gently sink and sway to the bottom of a lake, you will be enlightened. The last one and a half days of the workshop were to contemplate such a question.

The workshop finished and I left Texas to head for San Francisco. I continued to contemplate Who am I?. On the ride to the airport, at the airport, in the plane, at the hotel, that afternoon, that evening, right up until dropping off to sleep. As soon as I woke there the question was again, and I held it in my awareness until later that morning when the three days were up. Nothing had changed and nothing happened. Oh well, I will just have to try again some other time. Maybe this is more difficult than I thought.

But I do remember reading about Peter’s experience. He held the question for three days and then let the question go and carried on with his life. That is when he got the direct experience of reality. So, remembering that, I happily let go and enjoyed my week in that great city San Francisco. At the end of the week I was heading to Napa Valley, California for another eight-day retreat. This was just as intense and challenging as Peter’s workshop but in a different way. If we weren’t crying we were laughing for eight days straight as we challenged our childhood patterns and beliefs.

The second-to-last morning we were doing a very intense exercise involving confronting everything that we were frustrated, angry and annoyed with about ourselves. This was a dark-side confrontation letting loose with mallets and cushions and a lot of yelling, swearing and intensity. Then suddenly without warning, maybe half way through this 40 minute exercise I changed from bashing to giggling and laughing.

I was awakening. This was one of the very definite signs of spiritual awakening. I was aware of who I am. The one that I thought I was split into two so to speak. The one I always thought I was was still there but now there was another me; the real me. It was hilarious.

How could I have been so blind? How could I have been fooled into thinking I was my inner voice? My story? So this is what awakening is! After a few minutes of laughing while everyone else was still swearing and bashing, I suddenly had the urge to take out the frustration at being tricked.

I gladly resumed bashing but this time I was empowered. I knew I could never suffer again. Nothing had quite the same importance, nothing meant so much about me, I had less to defend. I could simply be who I was and be OK.