Spiritual awakening feels like eternity, knowledge and bliss.
Spiritual awakening begins when one becomes aware of one’s spiritual self, beyond the body and mind. As long as one identifies with the body and its culture, there is no question of spiritual. Now a days there are so many misunderstandings of what it means to be spiritual. Belief in God, people who are interested in tarot cards, or natural herbs, crystal healing, etc. in fact, anything alternative to mainstream culture, it is considered spiritual.
But
nothing that relates to the body or the mind is spiritual. Only that which
relates to the spiritual self and God is spiritual, in the true sense of the
world. Spiritual refers to consciousness. Spiritual doesn’t refer to what we
are conscious of, it refers to consciousness itself. The soul is a minute
particle of God’s consciousness. In the material world the only thing spiritual
is our real selves, the spiritual soul.
So
what is the soul? The Vedic version tells us that God is made of eternity,
knowledge, and bliss, which means the soul is a minute particle of eternity,
knowledge and bliss.
Brahma
ji says:
Krishna
who is known as Govinda is the Supreme Godhead. He has an eternal blissful
spiritual body. He is the origin of all. He has no other origin and He is the
prime cause of all causes. And it makes perfect sense that eternity, knowledge
and bliss is the substance of God. We can test it on ourselves. As souls, ie.
atomic fragments of God, we consist of the same spiritual substance as God, and
this fact should be somehow measurable.
It's
like, by examining one drop of the ocean one gets an understanding of the
entire ocean. The very fact that all living entities instinctively gravitate towards
these three factors, indicates that this is our natural state. All living
entities seek eternity, knowledge, and bliss. We all have the distinct
experience that these three are the prime moving factors of our core existence.
We are all pleasure seeking. We all try to learn something. And we all try to
preserve our being. Some people say - I don't seek eternity. It must become
boring in eternity. But we all seek eternity in the sense that we try to
preserve our being. The survival instinct together with the mating instinct are
the strongest instincts in all living entities.
Besides,
boredom is a factor of material existence, as souls on the spiritual plane we
will never get bored playing with Krishna. Who would not want to be eternally
young and blissful? Does anyone want his or her happiness to end, because it's
just so boring being happy? The only reason one would want his existence to
end, is if it's miserable. In reality we are happy all the time. Who wants
bliss to end? Who sits in a real happy frame of mind, and thinks - gee, I wish
this happiness would end... nobody does that? Thus, it is a direct observable
fact that all living entities gravitate towards eternity, knowledge and bliss,
exactly as predicted in the Vedic version.
By
connecting with our real identities as souls we become re-situated in God's
substance of eternity, knowledge and bliss. By connecting with our real selves,
we connect with eternity, knowledge and bliss. The method to do so is to invoke
the name of God and petition Him. This is done in this age by chanting the Hare
Krishna Mantra. If we want to know what spiritual awakening feels like, we must
focus our consciousness on God’s names. It is the only means against evil in
this age.
Hare Kṛishna
Namasivayam.C
Ps:
The above article is written in my understanding of the purports given by Srila
Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (A great Spiritual Teacher
and Founder Acharya ISKCON)
For
more derived original article based on Bhagavadgita please refer below
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