Every lock has a different key, every room has a different door, and every person’s path to awakening is different from another’s!
The spiritual journey meaning indeed varies for each individual. But even in ambiguity, there are some similar patterns and experiences on this path.
Let me share with you the stages in my journey of finding ‘me’. It will help you understand the phases in your journey and have the heart of a child.
Control on Body
Whether we realize it or not, the first step in every spiritual journey begins with developing some control over our physical bodies. Our bodies are the most obvious manifestation of the unmanifested.
Just like many boys in their teenage, I also used to push my body to its limits. If you have tried and deeply observed it, you will know there is a certain peace when your body gets tired. When most of your physical energy is exhausted, then there comes a moment when your mind awareness & consciousness becomes focused within.
Moreover, building some control over our bodies can be later transformed into developing control of our minds. Such control is important in the initial phases of meditation.
Control on Mind
If you have been searching for an answer to the question, “How to start spiritual journey?”, then you must know that meditation is the easiest path to it. Than whether you do it as the group mindfulness activities or alone.
In its true essence meditation helps us to let the mind flow freely. However, initially, it is better if you start with some mind control techniques.
For me, it started after completing my high school. At that time, I used to have a continuous overflow of thoughts. They used to exhaust me and started to hinder me even with my daily activities.
I started with mantra meditation and creative visualization techniques. At that time they seemed to me as spiritual journey examples. Sometimes I also used to mix creative visualization with the techniques in Chakra meditation. At that time practicing them daily helped me a lot to get out of the loop of continuous thoughts and mental disturbances.
Awareness of Thoughts: Letting Go
It was somewhere around 2020 when I first gained deeper insights into the spiritual journey meaning.
At that time I had taken 1-month leave from my job and joined a few days of Vipassana training camp. For the first time there I learned the art of becoming an ‘observer’ rather than a ‘controller’. I learnt how to feel feelings on an energy level.
If you think about it, it is the whole phase shift in a spiritual journey. When we learn to ‘let go’ instead of trying to control the thoughts and emotions within us.
Earlier it used to exhaust me a lot to keep control of the mind and its thoughts. But, through mindful observation, I was able to flow a little better with life.
Awareness of Mind-Body Energy
By becoming a mindful watcher, I started to go into other realms in my spiritual journey stages.
It all happened a year later after that camp. Till now, I had left my job and family home, to live alone for some time.
During this time I realized that my mind and body worked differently daily. On different days the flow of energy was different in body and mind.
Gradually I started to understand this flow and worked accordingly. For instance, on days when the energy flow was more toward the body, I used to do my physical chores, exercise, and even travel to nearby areas. On days when my mind had higher energy flow, I used to do my writing work and earn money from it.
By working as per body-mind intuition, I realized that I was happier and at more peace. These feelings were much better than previous times when I unnecessarily used to push my body or mind to work even when they didn’t have the energy for it. If we follow this practice it may help us with our daily spiritual journeys.
Emotional Awareness
When we have suppressed our emotions enough, then comes a moment when they manifest into major mental and bodily issues.
Towards the end of 2022, I was struggling with symptoms of depression, anxiety, and unexplained bodily issues. At that time I had to end my isolation phase and seek refuge with the family.
It was during that time I was introduced to the stages of emotional healing. I started doing self-healing work with the help of journaling and continuous mindfulness meditation. During that time I became aware of how our subconscious emotions get triggered by the events in our surroundings. Healing helped me to resolve these emotions and thus get less and less triggered by events around me.
The connection with the emotional realm is the next phase after the body-thought awareness. Emotions are the more subtle form of our existence. So once you have developed certain body-mind awareness only after that will you be able to enter into this realm and gain deeper insights into the question of what is spiritual journey.
Deeper Emotional Awareness
After some initial healing, we tend to enter a deeper emotional realm. You will realize that it is not only the events and memories with others that trigger you. But your emotions also get triggered by the subconscious feelings of others. You will be able to feel and identify the exact emotional energy of a person, place, and even objects.
For me, this phase started when I fell for a woman who owned some of the darkest emotions that I’d suppressed in my subconscious. We remained connected for six months. During that time I felt some of my deepest loneliness, extreme sadness, and fears through her emotional energies. Even when we weren’t talking and were several kilometers apart, I used to feel every up-down of her emotions in my body and subconscious mind. Unknowingly she helped me to deeply understand what is spiritual journey.
During this phase, I entered into deeper healing and was able to resolve a deeper subconscious. I was able to do ancestral healing, womb healing and deal with the unresolved past-life memories.
So if you were wondering how to start spiritual journey after some initial healing, I would say try to become more aware of how others’ feelings impact you on the energy level.
Soul Awareness
In my spiritual journeys, I am currently in the very initial phase of soul awareness. Every day there are very brief moments of mere seconds when I feel the presence of a soul.
In these moments I feel as if I am a completely different entity from my mind and body. Every event around me feels as if a movie or stage drama is taking place. At the same time, some deep and true me is calmly sitting at some other place and just observing it all.
It is in these moments when I experience some ‘zero point’ where there is no stress, no fears or causes of feeling sad without reason. This point also does not have the anxieties of pleasures and shallow happiness. Rather, it feels like a moment of pure joy and some undisturbed bliss.
All in All
In our efforts to be more awake every day, we all are learners. Our paths and ways might be different. But ultimately we all have one goal – to connect to the deepest us.
I hope this post helped you relate to this topic and maybe find some answers. If you want to share some insights from your spiritual journey stages, I will encourage you to comment below. It will help me and other readers to find some answers to our questions.