Lifting the Veil, Defining Your Spiritual Awakening

What is a spiritual awakening? It can mean different things to different people. Some describe an intense feeling of love and connectedness with the universe. It doesn't necessarily have to involve a religion, but it can. There is no absolute answer. 

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Eckhart Tolle: 

"For many years I had been deeply identified with thinking and the painful, heavy emotions that had accumulated inside. My thought activity was mostly negative, and my sense of identity was also mostly negative, although I tried hard to prove to myself and to the world that I was good enough by working very hard academically. But even after I had achieved academic success, I was happy for two weeks or three and then the depression and anxiety came back.

On that night there was a disidentification from this unpleasant dream of thinking and the painful emotions. The nightmare became unbearable and that triggered the separation of consciousness from its identification with form. I woke up and suddenly realized myself as the I Am and that was deeply peaceful."

Jim Carrey:

"I understood suddenly how thought was just an illusory thing. And how thought is responsible for, if not all, most of the suffering we experience. And then I suddenly felt like I was looking at the thought from another perspective and I wondered who is it that’s aware that I am thinking and suddenly I was thrown into this expansive amazing feeling of freedom from myself from my problems."

Russell Brand:

“It's difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe. Everything beautiful in the world is within you. No one really feels self-confident deep down because it's an artificial idea. Really, people aren't that worried about what you're doing or what you're saying, so you can drift around the world relatively anonymously: you must not feel persecuted and examined. Liberate yourself from that idea that people are watching you.”