If you want to deepen your spiritual awareness, the first thing you need to do is become more mindful of both your inner and outer worlds.
In essence, spiritual awareness is the recognition and attention to the fact that you are but a part of a much greater reality than you can perceive with your five senses.
Sounds simple, but the problem is that our hyper-developed, logical brains get in the way of the beyond-logic knowing of this greater reality.
For people still living within a traditional framework of “reality” yet have the humble wisdom to know they’re only a part of a greater divinity, religion sometimes fills the gap where spiritual awareness is missing.
But here’s the problem: heavily entrenched (read old and resistant to change) religious traditions have usually replaced paradoxical spiritual truth (the kind of truth that logic cannot grasp) with rules, regulations and the dogma of doctrine to control people.
True spiritual awareness doesn’t require a ‘middle man’ between individual and Divine. Nor does a deeply spiritual life demand outdated dogmas or rigid behavioral rules to assure a blessed afterlife.
These are creations of men – and usually men with an ‘agenda’ that has little, if anything to do with enhancing the spiritual awareness of their ‘followers’.
Now, I’m not knocking religion per se. I believe that each and every spiritual tradition holds, at the very least, a seed of divine truth – and usually a lot more, once you look deep enough.
What I am saying though, is that when this truth gets lost in dogma created by men, there’s a problem. If this isn’t painfully evident by the fact that the majority of our human history’s wars have been fought in the name of ‘God’, then I’m not sure what is.
So whether you follow a particular religion or not, here are a few tips to help you cultivate deeper spiritual awareness and strengthen your connection with the Divine.
1. Meditation And/Or Prayer
Stilling the mind daily for quite contemplation of the spiritual nature of things is paramount for deepening spiritual awareness.
Whether you’re saying the rosary with heart-felt intent, quieting the mind completely, visualizing divine light or something in between these, you want to make a consistent habit of ‘communing’ with that which is most sacred to you.
2. Read Spiritual Books
You don’t have to agree with all of them. But by reading spiritual books from different traditions, you give yourself at least two things:
1). something for the rational mind to do, and
2). an opportunity to see the connections (those ‘seeds of truth’) inherent in all spiritual traditions.
3. To Forgive Is Divine
Letting the past go is numero uno for the heart, folks. And the heart (the energetic, metaphoric ‘heart’ – not the muscle) is the seat of deep spiritual awareness.
For as every single awakened spiritual master and teacher throughout time has said, love and compassion are the true keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Without love, we are nothing. And without forgiveness – of ourselves and others – we cannot fully love.
4. Surrender
“Let go, let God” – or however you imagine the higher power.
Surrendering things like: the need to be right, the need to control minutia (or the peeps around you), the need for your life to look or feel a certain way, the need for your spouse to put down the toilet seat, your kid to take out the trash, the government to give a damn about its people, or all the other things that cause you aggravation.
When you surrender, when you stop trying to make things happen or go your way, you can then turn within to a place of deeper wisdom and awareness.
An awareness that beyond this particular life drama – with all its little annoyances and joys – that you are an eternal, spiritual being having a physical experience.
What do you do to deepen and expand your spiritual awareness?
