Spiritual awakening is one of the most mysterious and elusive events a human can have. Perhaps you’ve even decided that you want to experience awakening for yourself.
How do you even experience it? What are the things that cause a spiritual awakening?
Core Insights
- Many things can cause a spiritual awakening, but the most common event that triggers awakening is psychologically traumatic events.
- There are many things you can actively pursue to have a spiritual awakening, though most of the time spiritual awakening happens spontaneously without your control.
- Spiritual Awakening is more common than most people initially believe. It’s quite likely you will have an awakening if you desire to take the necessary steps.
What Causes Spiritual Awakening?
Many things can cause a spiritual awakening. There are certain spiritual techniques that can trigger a spiritual awakening as well as the possibility of it happening by random chance or by working with a guru.
There are many potential factors that can cause a spiritual awakening you should know about.
Here are all of the things that can cause a spiritual awakening:
Traumatic Events
According to current spiritual awakening statistics, the most common cause of spiritual awakening is “psychological turmoil” causing around 23.6% of awakenings.
This psychological turmoil can mean many things including:
- major depression
- death of a loved one
- breakups or divorce
Spiritual awakenings are like a life ring thrown to a drowning sailor. They’re your brain’s last option.
A break from your current reality becomes a way to detach from all of the pain being experienced.
These breaks from reality allow detachment from your ego. When you hit rock bottom the only way out is into something greater. This is when spiritual awakening is most likely to happen.
Major Life Transitions
Major changes in our lives can shake things up so much that we trigger an awakening.
During these periods of drastic change we can begin to view reality from a new point of view. If the perspective shift is just right or intense enough, it can cause a spiritual awakening.
WHAT STAGE OF YOUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY ARE YOU IN?
WHAT STAGE OF YOUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY ARE YOU IN?
Discover the 6 stages of awakening and find out where you are in your journey.
Some of these major life events include:
- Moving cities, states, or countries
- Quitting or changing jobs
- Breakups
- Retiring
- Other drastic life changes
This is also a reason why spiritual awakenings can be lonely and hard.
Spiritual Practices & Meditation
There are many spiritual practices and techniques that have been developed over many thousands of years that can aid in the awakening process.
I triggered a kundalini awakening in myself after practicing a particularly powerful visualization technique in 2023.
Here are some practices and techniques that may cause a spiritual awakening:
- meditation
- mindfulness
- visualization
- mantra
- self inquiry
- breath of fire
Some are more potent than others. Different practices may be right for you depending on the speed and intensity you want for your spiritual growth.
According to research done on the causes of spiritual awakening, meditation was the cause of spiritual awakening 13% of the time.
Spending Time In Nature
There is something spiritually profound about spending time deep in nature. It connects us back to our spiritual roots.
Spending time in nature reminds us of the interconnectedness of all things including ourselves with the rest of existence.
In the face of vast beauty you can’t help but feel insignificant. These realizations come much more naturally in nature than they do in our regular life.
According to the research spending time in nature was a cause of spiritual awakening 18% of the time.
Spontaneous Awakening
Sometimes there is no reason for a spiritual awakening. It may just strike you like lightning for no apparent reason.
Some people are meant to awaken from birth. You could say it’s their destiny in a way.
Another way of explaining this is karma. Everyone has a unique karma or destined life path they are going to follow due to past actions in this and past lifetimes. Some people’s karma involves spiritual awakening while others’ does not.
For some people awakening happens randomly and naturally. Some advanced souls just stumble upon profound spiritual experiences, insights, and awakenings naturally.
Working With A Guru
One thing that is guaranteed to speed up the awakening process is working with a spiritual master.
If you’re learning from a guru who is enlightened or awakened they will be able to pass on that information and wisdom to you faster than you could attain it on your own.
If the guru is enlightened enough, they can give you direct spiritual downloads just by being in your presence or by touching you. This direct transfer of divine grace is known as shaktipat in the Hindu tradition.
The bigger problem is actually finding a truly enlightened guru.
Psychedelics
Something that can cause a spiritual awakening in you in a very immediate way are psychedelics.
Psychedelics are potent substances that drastically change your consciousness. Many report that the states encountered are blissful, divine, and expansive.
Others report that psychedelics helped them achieve breakthroughs in their understanding of the divine.
These substances include:
- Psilocybin mushrooms
- LSD
- DMT
- THC
- Mescaline
A common experience on high doses of these substances is the dissolution of the ego and mergence with divine consciousness.
Divine Grace
It may be entirely possible that your spiritual awakening was divinely orchestrated. You may have spirit guides working to help you wake up in this lifetime.
You may have no control or say in the matter and simply be blessed with an awakening from seemingly nowhere.
This spiritual experience may be given to you as a gift randomly by the divine.
Near Death Experiences
Near death experiences are commonly reported to be mystical and transcendent experiences.
Near death experiences are sometimes also out of body experiences, leading to realizations that there is more to life than just the physical body.
People who experienced a near death situation come back to say their perspective on reality is forever changed.
During the period of death many people say they peak behind the veil and merge with universal consciousness before being revived and coming back to life.
Reading Spiritual Books
Reading literature by the most enlightened beings to walk the earth can also cause spiritual awakening.
By reading spiritual books you’re directly downloading information from spiritual masters.
These books can shift your perspective in just the right way to cause a profound spiritual insight or awakening
These books can also teach you specific techniques and practices that cause spiritual awakening. By practicing what you learn in these books you can get closer to awakening yourself.
Guided Meditations
There are guided meditations just sitting on YouTube and around the internet that will guide you into a spiritual awakening.
Some of these guided meditation are lead by highly enlightened people. You’d be surprised how profound some of these free guided meditations can be.
Do a simple search on YouTube and try some of those guided meditations out for yourself.
Spiritual Awakening Happens Most Often At Our Lowest Points
The #1 cause of spiritual awakening is psychological turmoil.
It’s in our darkest moments that we have the greatest potential to wake up.
Life can become so uncomfortable and painful that you are literally forced to surrender your old perspective on reality.
In an instant your pain and problems can vanish with a simple paradigm shift. One shift in consciousness can create more peace and relief than you could ever imagine.
Why Exactly Does This Happen?
You can be in so much pain that your brain tries to find a new way out. You become open to other possibilities because nothing else has helped.
The suffering you experience may become so great that you become open to literally anything.
Our darkest moments create a state of surrender and radical open-mindedness that we have never been able to access.
It’s in this state of surrender and radical open-mindedness that spiritual awakening arises from.
Spiritual Awakening Symptoms
How do you know if you’re experiencing a spiritual awakening? What are the signs and symptoms that you may be on the brink of awakening?
Dissociation From Your Body
One commonly experienced spiritual awakening symptom is dissociation with your body.
This can feel like you’re observing your body from afar, rather than actually being in your body.
One friend of mine describes this symptom like this:
“Imagine there’s a pane of glass between you and reality. You’re observing what your body is doing but you no longer feel like what you’re watching is even you.”
Vivid Consciousness
Being in a high vibrational state grants you hyper vivid consciousness.
If you feel like things are more crisp and clear in your consciousness you may be getting ready to experience an awakening experience.
Having vivid consciousness allows you to have more spiritual insights and reality altering realizations.
Increased Synchronicities
Synchronicities are moments of unexpected connection. As you pursue spiritual growth you’ll begin seeing concepts and phenomena that you’re learning about in the real world.
These moments of unexpected connection can feel uncanny and leave you feeling like you’re on the edge of a profound spiritual insight.
The more of these synchronicities you experience the closer you are to having a breakthrough in consciousness.
How Rare Is Spiritual Awakening?
Spiritual awakening isn’t as rare as once thought.
Roughly 2 out of 5 people will have a profound spiritual experience in their lifetime according to research.
What this tells you is that spiritual awakening is possible if you desire it. Though spiritual awakening isn’t a daily common occurrence, it’s possible to have one during your lifetime.
Full lasting enlightenment on the other hand is incredibly rare.
Most spiritual awakening experiences are relatively brief transcendent realizations. Some people can stay in a state of spiritual awakening for days or even weeks, but most will eventually come back down to Earth pretty quickly.
How To Navigate Spiritual Awakening
If you’re going through a spiritual awakening or plan on going through one there are some things you should know about getting through the process.
Surrender
The most important thing I tell people about handling a spiritual awakening is that you really have to surrender to the experience.
Any resistance you have to the experience will ultimately kill your chance of having an awakening or will make it an unpleasant experience.
Approach your awakening with humility and surrender. Trust that the universe knows what it’s doing with you.
Any fear, sadness, or anger you may feel simply allow them to flow through you. Feel all of your emotions fully during your experience. Cry when you need to cry and laugh when you need to laugh.
You may be surprised by how you react to a spiritual awakening experience.
Find A Spiritual Guide
Try to find a guide on your path to awakening if at all possible.
There are many people who have gone through the experience you are trying to have yourself.
Let them do the hard work for you. Any bumps you may encounter on the path to awakening a spiritual will be able to help you through.
Take It Slow
There’s no need to be in a rush for spiritual awakening. I know it can be exciting, but take your time.
Rushing into difficult spiritual techniques can get you into trouble in some cases. (see my article on Kundalini Syndrome).
Learn and practice at a pace that you are comfortable with. Letting your awakening unfold naturally is an important part of the process and will make for a smoother spiritual ride.
Wrapping up
Knowing what causes a spiritual awakening is important for knowing what direction you want to take next in your spiritual journey.
Though many things are out of your control on this journey, many aspects are. What you can control, you should know about to awaken your spirit as fully as wanted in this lifetime.
Find out what stage of your spiritual journey you’re in. Take the spiritual awakening quiz here.
Hi, I’m Ryan. I’m a meditation teacher, spiritual seeker, and founder of nurtureyourspirit.org. I’m glad you’re here! I founded Nurture Your Spirit because of my love of meditation, spirituality, and spiritual awakening.
Ryan, I really like your articles. You have a knack for distilling information. Can you write an article on how journalizing can be used to bolster a spiritual awakening experience?
Thank you,
Brandon
In Calgary, Canada
I’ll put that on my list of blog posts to write 🙂