Changing beliefs is not spiritual awakening

[Jack of Spades]

Originally Posted by Tuesday

So... It seems that many people mistake changing their beliefs (to starting to believe in vibrations, twin flames, New world order, vaccinations being bad, organic food being healthy etc.) to be spiritual awakening.

I think that what you describe there is basically the New Age version of the "Now just confess to the church doctrines and that will mean you are then a born again - Christian.". I think humans generally have a habit of reducing everything deep and beautiful to mere social signalling. Confess to a set of beliefs and you're part of a club, question the beliefs and you're an outcast. That's entirely social dynamics and has very little to do with anything related to spirituality at all.

From spiritual point of view: I think it's true that spiritual transformation often leads to some changes in people's beliefs (that's how it appears to work). But on the other hand, people can change their beliefs for all kinds of reasons, as a reaction to peer pressure, or very simply as a result of being exposed to new ideas.

If I taught a parrot to repeat a set of beliefs that I consider enlightened, would that parrot now be enlightened?

Originally Posted by Tuesday

Yes, i am definitely looking for Answer and that's why i put up this thread. I am looking for Peoples opinions on this Matter. Doesnt mean i dont believe it strongly Or that it isn't the truth.

What Comes To what is True spiritual awakening. I Can only talk from my belief system. As i'm only starting this Journey, i do not have An experience on lets say what realizing oneness means. I Can speak only what i've heard and understood, and of course, from experience.

Spiritual awakening is letting go of everything that makes you you. It's a never ending process of realizing that we are all one. When you let go, Or clear issues so the energy Can run freely through you, you find immense clarity underneath, and also something beautiful and meaningful: your place in the world, which you accept without questioning.

Spiritual awakening is anything you want it to be - anything anyone wants it to be. But that isn't your question, is it?

Personally I don't like the phrase 'Spiritual awakening' because of the connotations - and the contradictions because like you I believe there is nothing that isn't Spiritual so using the word means contradiction. When you define what is 'Spiritual', by that definition you define what is not 'Spiritual', and it's you who makes that choice. Like the truth and awakening, it's relative to one's own agenda.

We are not awakening because we have never been asleep, consciousness still occurs in sleep. We are remembering, rediscovering, releasing, realising.

"You have always been here."
Kosh

[Starman]

Originally Posted by Tuesday

So... It seems that many people mistake changing their beliefs (to starting to believe in vibrations, twin flames, New world order, vaccinations being bad, organic food being healthy etc.) to be spiritual awakening.

True spiritual awakening has nothing to do with your beliefs. It has nothing to do with taking Jesus into your heart, atheism or theism. It it the shredding of beliefs that is true spiritual awakening. It is the giving up every belief you have, giving up yourself while at the same time becoming more yourself than you ever were. But beware! Also giving up beliefs can become a belief itself. A delusion if you may.

True spiritual awakening is very rare. It is something that happens to only few people in a century.

If Reiki and meditation and all that were as powerful as people think, we would all be enlightened by now.

In my opinion words and labels don't go there and the term "spiritual awakening" is just another label, a label that means different things to different people. The bottom line about the spiritual experience is that it is the most personal and intimate experience that a person will ever have. The human mind attempts to objectify everything with the dynamics of compare and contrast, but in my opinion, the spiritual experience does not compare nor contrast with anything else. It is fashionable for human beings to place everything in a hierarchy, and the term "spiritual awakening" denotes a particular hierarchy of consciousness. But I do not accept any high or low in these matters.

Its' sort of like a one-upsman-ship in a so-called spiritual community. Ego loves to raise itself up by putting others down, and there are lots of labels people use to do this. I do not say I am "spiritually awakened," or enlightened, because to me the spiritual journey is infinite, way beyond thoughts, words, and labels, and any kind of awakening is not a plateau. The minute we start agreeing on what something is, or what something is not, when it comes to spirituality, we have left the purview of spirituality and are entering the arena of religion. Religion is an attempt to codify spirituality, but spirituality is unique to each person's particular intimate unfolding, and that defies codification. The codification of spirituality is one of the reasons why there are so many religions and different beliefs about spirituality, and spiritual awakening, in this world.

[linen53]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

How do you define information?

What one learns

[Tuesday]

Jack, i understood very little of your message for some reason... But i think you just compared my opinion to the catholic church... Well ok.

Originally Posted by Greenslade

We are not awakening because we have never been asleep, consciousness still occurs in sleep. We are remembering, rediscovering, releasing, realising.

I agree. We are not asleep, we just think we are. But that you realize only once you are realized. Before that you are asleep.

In my opinion words and labels don't go there and the term "spiritual awakening" is just another label, a label that means different things to different people. The bottom line about the spiritual experience is that it is the most personal and intimate experience that a person will ever have. The human mind attempts to objectify everything with the dynamics of compare and contrast, but in my opinion, the spiritual experience does not compare nor contrast with anything else. It is fashionable for human beings to place everything in a hierarchy, and the term "spiritual awakening" denotes a particular hierarchy of consciousness. But I do not accept any high or low in these matters.

What comes to spirituality. I don't think... you know seeing auras or reading energy is any more spiritual than vacuuming or drinking coffee. It's how you relate to it. Yes, seeing or feeling stuff can tell how far along you are in the process, but it doesn't tell much else.
What comes to "high" and "low": I already addressed this in a previous message. But there is such thing as a person being more awake or less awake than someone else. In truth, in the eyes of a realized being, this is not "high" or "low" it just is.

[Jack of Spades]

Originally Posted by Tuesday

Jack, i understood very little of your message for some reason... But i think you just compared my opinion to the catholic church... Well ok.

No I didn't! I'll try to rephrase it:

Changing beliefs is not the equivalent of spiritual transformation, but there seems to be people in every belief-group thinking that it is so. In my opinion saying "Changing beliefs = spiritual transformation/awakening" is basically just the same as confessing to a credo, like in the old churches.

Am I making more sense now?

[Tuesday]

You are, thank you :)

[Starman]

Language is but a code and we here are speaking in the “English” code.
There are more than 500-languages in this world, and it seems that for most
the words that we speak become more real for us than the things those words
are suspose to represent. We believe in the words we use much more than
what we apply those words to. Words by themselves mean nothing as all
words point to something else. The wisdom of the Tao teaches that,
“the Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” “Nothing in the universe
is what we call it here on Earth.”

[Tomma]

Changing beliefs is not spiritual awakening - I agree with that because for me spiritual awakening means knowing. Knowing is by definition not a belief.

I like the metaphor someone else in another thread gave (paraphrasing): if you're in a dark room and you see a scary shadow on the floor looking like a snake, and then the light comes on for a second, and you see it's in fact a rope, then even if the light goes out again you won't be afraid anymore because now you know what it is, a rope. The first situation is a belief (you are in the dark and belief it's a snake), the second situation is knowing (you have seen it).

Changing beliefs can never substitute knowing, any belief will always leave doubt. In my understanding, spiritual awakening refers to an experience, not to any belief at all. This experience will lead to an understanding without any doubts.

I've often read it in accounts of NDEs. People often say, they know now what awaits us after physical death. They have no doubt their experience was real. This I call a real spiritual awakening.

[django]

I think new beliefs can be small awakenings on the journey to the big awakening. I think there is the big one, but all the small ones have to lead in the right direction to get to the big one.

I think no one is fully awake, though a handful have gotten very close in the last couple of millenia. I can't help but believe that Jesus was fully awake, and there's been no one like him since he was around. That's not to say that I'm promoting Christianity, more promoting Jesus as the role model for 'true' awakening.