Spiritual Awakening: Start Where You Already Are — Here And Now
On the map in a railway station, there is usually a small dot with three words beside it: "You are here." That dot is what makes the map useful, because every route you plan on it starts from that one point.
Most of what you find under the words "spiritual awakening" is a map with the dot left off. Such a map shows you a far-off place called awakening, with stages and signs along the road towards it, and it leaves out the one point you need first: where you are standing as you read. (I followed such maps myself for twenty-five years, and I sent others along them too.)
The posts listed on this page start from the dot. Each one takes a question that people ask about spiritual awakening and follows it back, as far as it goes, to the same spot: you, aware, here and now. That spot is where the series begins, and it is also where every post ends.
I start from there too, and three short sentences I once wrote say exactly where I stand: "I am the teacher at the threshold. This is my permanent home. I am already here."
So start with the first post below and read the posts in order, or begin with whichever question brought you here today. Each new post in the series joins this list.
Read the series in the order it was written
- You Will Never Have A Spiritual Awakening, Because You Cannot Have What You Are
It answers the first question most people ask, what a spiritual awakening is, and finds an answer that is shorter than any list of stages: what you are, with nothing added. - All Signs Of Spiritual Awakening Point To The One Looking For Them
It goes through the signs that a search turns up, from vivid dreams to waking at 3am, and shows that each one points back at the person reading them. - You Cannot Prove Spiritual Awakening Is Real, And You Never Need To
It asks whether spiritual awakening is real, checks the usual promises with Carl Sagan's tools for spotting baloney, and finds what every check relies on: you are aware. - Spiritual Awakening Is Not Painful, But Waiting For It Is
It questions the claim that suffering means progress, draws on Kafka's parable of a man who spends his life at an open door, and makes clear you can stop waiting for awakening today. - There Are No "Stages" Of Spiritual Awakening
It looks at the "stages" of spiritual awakening that popular articles list, such as bliss, the dark night and the void, and explains why each one of them is just a fleeting experience rather than proof of "progress". - What Does Spiritual Awakening Feel Like? It Feels Like Being Who You Truly Are, Here And Now
It sets aside the ecstasy or terror that many expect from awakening, likens being yourself to breathing, and brings in Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki, for whom enlightenment is nothing special. - Why Spiritual Awakening Does Not Wait For Your Dark Night Of The Soul To End
It weighs whether the dark night of the soul comes before or after awakening, offers something to try at two in the morning, and quotes psychiatrist Gerald May, who called the dark night obscure, not evil. - Anxiety Is Not Part Of Spiritual Awakening, Nor Does It Foreshadow It
It takes apart the idea that anxiety is a sign of awakening, cites Australian doctor Claire Weekes, who found that fearing panic prolongs it, and reminds you that you are the one aware of whatever you feel. - Getting Help For Depression Does Not Affect Your Spiritual Awakening
It traces how taking depression for a door to awakening can lead from putting off treatment to blaming yourself, turns to John Welwood, who coined "spiritual bypassing" for sidestepping your wounds, and explains why getting help cannot stop your awakening. - Spiritual Awakening Cannot Cost You Your Friends
It challenges the story that awakening makes you outgrow your friends, recalls the street corner where Catholic monk Thomas Merton suddenly saw that he loved every stranger around him, and names the ordinary reasons friendships change.
The series grows out of two earlier posts
Who You Think You Are Can Never Experience A Spiritual Awakening
It explains why years of sincere searching stall: who you think you are is a description, and no description can ever wake up.
There Is No Way to Free Yourself — There Is Only the Way You Make and Walk Yourself
It is for anyone who has worked through practice after practice, quietly blaming themselves whenever another one stopped working, and it shows why no method could ever free you.
Whichever post you open first, you will be reading it from the same dot. And that dot, here and now, is precisely where you need to be.