Spiritual awakening is more than just a phase. It’s realising and opening up to a more optimal way of being that is felt in the mind body and soul. It’s like a having a taste of things to come, not a high state that peaks and ends.

Staying Spiritually Awake

Still, as a purely subjective experience, it is enough to set the ego on the prowl trying to rationalise it away and convince you it’s your imagination. You just need to keep to the memory of those times you felt euphoric or a lightness of being and a taste of universal love.

Don’t be put off by the subtle cues in our culture that detract from spiritual awakening. One of the prevalent examples is where popular iconic movies subtly put down spirituality. Take the simple example in the James Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), where there is reference to ‘chakra knives’ as an attack weapon. The association is obviously meant to diminish the importance of the power of chakras. Physical knives can’t harm the chakras.

So as you feel at first boosted by the spiritual awakening, as time goes by, like a toddler making its first wobbly steps, you are left with the spur to keep taking those small steps on your own two feet. It’s time to trust yourself fully and the spiritual help will come when asked. From then on it’s up to you, continue in this new state of being, or revert to the old less evolved ways. For the most part, the choice is easy.

But at times when life can test the mettle and we find ourselves rallying to the old ways, we learn our lessons well when we end up taking the high road. Then the mistakes made along the way were just vehicles for learning.

Age of Aquarius Legacy

There was possibly a mass awakening in the ‘flower-power children’ of the late 1960s, the counter-culture youth movement that celebrated ‘This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!’. It was the only time that more spiritual values were fashionable.

It was an outward show and so it wasn’t long before the movement became clouded by sensational reporting of over-the-top drug use ending the lives of some very famous iconic rock music stars. Spirituality was associated with ‘weirdness’, drug addiction, and being ‘off with the fairies’.

Yes the hippie generation had celebrated early, since the Age of Aquarius didn’t start in calendar terms until the late 1990s. Then it wasn’t till the September 11 event in 2001 in New York and a closer look at the footage years later, that more people in the West realised that reality as reported in the news may be largely fabricated and we could have been ‘off with the goolies’.

The difference with the spiritual awakening of post 2012 is that it’s an individual and internal movement, no outward signs except for the inner change (eventually leading to incremental outer change).

The Mayan calendar 2012 as the ‘end of the world’ is instead the mark of the Earth’s shift to a higher vibratory rate. Awareness of the global spiritual awakening started to make traction. The higher vibratory rate making it easier to stay on course with it.

Even so, those who are awake, like yourself, are a tiny minority of the whole human population. But realistically, who can say with any accuracy when spiritual awakening is so deeply personal and individual.

Spiritual Awakening Signs and Symptoms

So here are the most common lasting signs of a spiritual awakening. They are also symptoms of change which is what makes it not just an experience, but an evolution:

1. You’re more in touch with your spiritual nature
You are becoming more in tune with the universal love fabric of the universe, more open to the subtle energies.

2. You may get waves of ache-like molten feelings from the heart and/or heart bursting
Don’t be concerned but sit them out, it’s not always possible to know why you have them when you do. Think of them as growing pains.

3. Sensations under the scalp of your head: tingling, sprinkling, trickling, crawling
This can be felt mostly at night in bed, or when meditating. Can occur at unexpected times during the day. Often felt during moments of inspiration and loving insight.

4. You are better at picking up subtle impressions from people without your five senses
You may get telepathy with others, precognition in dreams and daily events, and sense moods in people when they are projecting the opposite in their behaviour and expression.

5. You care less about materialistic values and note more sensitivity towards animal and environmental welfare
Donating or volunteering may have crossed your mind as you become more conscientious about how you spend your time and money.

6. You notice your intuition is stronger and gets through to you easier
The sense of knowing that comes with intuition gets stronger and you make a conscious decision to follow through with your ideas more.

7. You sense the world is a stage, and you are the director, producer and actor of your Life Play
The world is a stage and the actors on it are poorly rehearsed yet you play your part with gratitude and a more robust humor, not taking life so seriously. As Nietzsche wrote: ‘The struggle of maturity is to recover the seriousness of a child at play.’

8. Making mistakes doesn’t bother you as much
You tend to look for the lesson you can harvest from the disappointment, or take it in your stride much sooner and put it down to experience.

9. You understand the journey is as important as the destination
Your sense of the tapestry of life makes you realise that as long as you live your days to the full you will reach your destination. Getting there is part of the joy of finally reaching your goal.

10. Health improves or stabilises:
• a better colour in the skin – even a glow
• immunity improves as you get colds and flu far less often
• your food preferences may change and crave more natural foods
• feel lighter in the body, still get tired but no longer sluggish
• better centre of gravity and balance and tend to recover from slips well
• the aging process slows down (noticed longer term).

11. Your closer relationships improve or become clearer
It’s easier to see others as truly whole beings playing a part as you are – souls just like you living to learn. It also makes it easier to feel compassion for and forgive them.

12. Better able to dissociate from thoughts and feelings that don’t serve you
You notice you are able to stop and judge a feeling-thought you are having and whether it uplifts or depresses you before you go any further with it.

13. You notice the polarities of life more, like the anti-spiritual values in the media
Denser vibrations become more evident to you in tones, tempo and dissonance in music, imagery and movies and even social events.

You may be attracted to practices like deep breathing meditation, tai chi and releasing all forms of negativity. It’s like reminding yourself at times of all the love and natural beauty in the world and refusing to be brought down by all the bad news reporting. Some wisdoms say that as you continue on to higher vibrational levels the more you let Love live in your heart and Divine Light activate the cells in your body.