Delve within yourself, know who you are, what you are capable of doing, get the giant within you up, move the mountains, touch the skies, swim the oceans, and find yourself.

This article is an answer to two questions; one, when does the spiritual awakening take place; and second, how does it benefit our lives?
In the basket of life, we all carry almost every type of emotion, be it joy, sorrow, anger, disgust, fear, pleasure, etc. All these types of emotions play important role in defining our personality. The art of balancing all the emotions at the right times, with equal proportions, and in the right situations is termed Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is a subject in itself that helps us understand the importance of balancing all the emotions throughout the living, to have a productive and successful life. One of the aspects, probably from such a subject is what we call Spiritual awakening, which may also be understood as ‘unleashing the giant within’.
Islam provides us with an authentic way of living that probably starts after the spiritual awakening. Spiritual awakening to me has different stages that ultimately lead to a productive and successful life. The stages consist of (1) Self-awareness (2) Self-clearance (3) Change, and (4) Consistency. These stages fall in a sequencing order as mentioned, one after the other.
One way around, we all born Muslims are Muslims because we are fed, and grow up with such a concept. Our belief runs because of our ancestral mastery over such a belief. I feel, during life, almost all of us reach one such point, where we question our existence, we question the existence of God, don’t we? It is human nature, rather the universe we live in is such that we question the existence of everything. We all, somewhere, somehow, someway live with that question in our minds, and never work in such a way to really find the purpose of life in connection with the existence of God. To me, the point that this question hits a human brain is where the spiritual awakening begins. Before we question the existence of God, we must question our own existence. Once we become capable of understanding the purpose of this life, we start to understand the concept of God. The best-ever ways to understand the purpose of this life and the existence of God is authentically explained in the holy Qur’an. The seerah of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is what we should follow to have a meaningful and valuable life. This demonstration answers the question about when does one’s spiritual awakening take place. In simpler terms, it begins when a person starts questioning his/her own as well as the Creator’s existence, and thus heads towards a purposeful perspective of life.
The foremost stage of spiritual awakening is the concept of self-awareness, which literally means being aware or conscious of one’s own self. It is a process, where we ought to be our own mirrors (for the soul, the desires, the conscience). In other words, to delve within ourselves and search for the strengths and weaknesses of our own, to know our boundaries and our capabilities, and most incredibly, to know what thoughts we feed our mind with and all such similar stuff leads to the process of self-awareness. This process knocks the giant within us, it makes a revolution from ordinary to unique. We all somehow are a copy, a copy of someone we aspire to, we are influenced by, and we are moved by. Once we become aware of ourselves, we perform self-talk. That is where we truly act as who we really are.
The second stage comes in the process of self-clearance, where we restrain from performing wrong actions. This stage does not abruptly get established in a person, however, it takes a hell lot of emotional intelligence to reach this point and perform selective actions. In this process, the human brain becomes capable of performing good deeds that anticipate long-lasting benefits of high EQ (emotional quotient). This stage can also be understood as an act of self-control. Once a person becomes capable of restraining bad actions, means he/she is fresh for a new start.
The next step is about the Change. In the process of Change, a person organizes his/her actions. One needs to separate the basket of bad deeds and good deeds, thus one can prefer to pick only from the one containing good ones. The person here begins to change, change in an optimistic way, do positive self-talk, count the blessings and spreads love and authenticity. This phase of spiritual awakening makes a person emotionally intelligent in many ways.
Once a person decides to change and become more likely of an authentic nature, then it demands consistency over the change. Of all the mentioned stages, this stage of spiritual awakening is the most gruelling yet most phenomenal one. One needs to stick to the change made in the personality until it becomes a habit that develops a phenomenal life for him/her.
A person who undergoes spiritual awakening perceives life with much powerful and vivid lenses. The person becomes authentic, generous, composed, much contented, and with a more lively yet triumphant spirit. He/she realizes that in order to visualize God, we must become what He wants us to be like, we must worship Him, for He deserves to be worshipped, our vision must become so holy and powerful to understand and visualize His existence. One needs to become worthy of knowing the omnipotent, omnipresent, Almighty Allah., and that only comes with practising His deen. The level of maturity one gains here is such that a man becomes what he is supposed to be, to the fullest. At this stage of life, one precisely and completely surrenders to God.

The writer is a research scholar in Mathematics at Lovely Professional University, Punjab, India, and can be reached at [email protected]

By Mir Aaliya Manzoor