Remember Rip Van Winkle? REMOVE SPELLS of us in the American English speaking component of the world who passed our high college years in the 1950s to 1970s do try to remember him. He was the man who slept for 20 years in a hollow in New York. We knew him in our English Literature class.

For the younger generation who know nothing about Rip Van Winkle, here is a incredibly brief summary. He was the principal character in Washington Irving’s story “Rip Van Winkle.” He was a Dutch American who did not want to work for a charge. He just wanted to play. 1 day he was lost in the mountains of New York as it was then just before the American Revolution and got into the company of the ghosts of Henry Hudson and his crew. He drank their drink and fell asleep. He woke up only right after 20 years, with a extended beard and an aged man. He goes back to his village only to uncover it was no longer the same as he left it. America was now independent from Good Britain. Immediately after some searching he found his loved ones.

The purpose why I started with the story of Rip Van Winkle is because he illustrates the individual who sleeps for a lot of years, who is awakened only soon after sleeping those numerous years, that is, in his physique, the physical life.

In the spiritual life, like Rip Van Winkle most people are asleep and unless somebody wakes them up they will continue on sleeping spiritually, possibly for the rest of their life. Some of them will wake up only in eternity.

Here are three strategies to know you have had a spiritual awakening. If you have not gone through these 3 approaches, this indicates that you are nevertheless asleep, that is, spiritually, like Rip Van Winkle physically, and it is time for you to wake up.

And that is the difference involving spiritual awakening and physical awakening. You can’t know that you are physically awake if you are asleep. You can’t know that you are awake when you are nevertheless sleeping. But you can know that you have not but awakened spiritually. How? By reflecting on your life, whether any of these methods are present in your life. If they are not yet present, then it implies that you have not however awakened spiritually. Figuring out this you can now want to awaken spiritually. And desiring to awaken spiritually is the step just before in fact awakening spiritually.

Thankfully, the ways to know we’ve had a spiritual awakening are equivalent to the ways to know we’ve had a physical awakening.

The very first way to know that you are physically awake is by becoming aware of your surrounding, at 1st indistinctly, then tiny by small, more distinctly.

Even prior to you open your eyes you can know that you are currently awake, that you are still in bed, that it is late in the night or early in the morning, and so forth.

Even so in spiritual awakening you are aware of the spiritual realities about you. You are aware that you are in a globe of spiritual as effectively as physical realities. Once more, as in physical awakening, this awareness is at very first indistinct, but as time goes on and as you proceed in our spiritual journey this awareness becomes clearer and clearer.

This awareness of spiritual realities around you might outcome as a consequence of a dissatisfaction with your present job, of a failure in enterprise, of a loss of a loved 1, of a joyful encounter with a beloved. Whatever it is that triggers this awareness, you are created aware that not only physical, visible things surround you but also spiritual, non-visible issues, like love or fear, inner peace or turmoil, joy or confusion.

Have you had this expertise? If you have, then you have begun to awaken spiritually.

In physical awakening, immediately after being conscious of your surrounding the organic factor to do is to open your eyes and you see issues around: the fading darkness or the onrush of sunlight, the furnishings around the area, the light switch, the door, and so forth.

So also in spiritual awakening you open your spiritual eyes and perceive the spiritual realities about you: the strivings of human beings to strengthen their lives and seek ultimate happiness, the crimes committed in the search for some kind of satisfaction, the exultation and joys of these who succeed in their endeavors, the struggle in between very good and evil occurring before your quite eyes.

Do you perceive these spiritual realities around you? Beneath the stories of sordid crimes and wars, of organic and man-made calamities, do you see the mighty spiritual forces claiming for your consideration? Do you see the ever growing hordes of human beings who are digging deeper into poverty and homelessness? Do you see the handful of elite masters of this planet earth who continue to obtain resources beyond their consumption and just waste them away? And do you see these events as portion of a spiritual battle between the invisible superior and evil forces of the universe, beyond psychological, sociological, financial and political elements? Do you see the forces behind our planet leaders which push them to dominate peoples and exploit them? If you do, you’ve had a spiritual awakening.

Thirdly, in physical awakening following you are aware of your surrounding and immediately after you open your eyes, you act. You get out of bed, go to the wash area, etc., preparing yourself for the function of the day.

So also in spiritual awakening, soon after you are aware of your spiritual surrounding and after you see what is happening spiritually around you and all more than the planet, you act. You prepare for the spiritual function ahead of you. You do not sink into hopeless resignation, pondering you can do nothing at all mainly because of the enormity of the spiritual forces around you. You act simply because you are convinced that the Spirit in you is mightier than the thousands of difficulties about you.

You act but you do not do so rashly. You do not go into battle unprepared. So also in spiritual warfare you place on the shield and weapons of a spiritual nature, entirely prepared to vanquish the enemies.

Are you struggling with spirit power to make this globe a far better spot for you to live in, even just in your corner of the globe? If you say, Yes, then you are acting and you are spiritually awake.

The 3 techniques to know irrespective of whether you have had a spiritual awakening is by 1) being conscious of the spiritual realities around you two) opening your spiritual eyes to the events of spiritual forces about you three) acting spiritually in your corner of the globe to make it a far better place to reside in. If this has happened to you, you know that you are spiritually awake and you can now aid other people to wake up spiritually.