What got you into spirituality?

[spacedout]

Hey all you spiritual nuts -

What got you into seeking spirituality in the first place?

I'll tell you why I did. I had an awakening when my heart went into highspeed overdrive and I woke up in the hospital. I saw the light, if you know what I mean. After that, there was no stopping me.

[themaster]

Wow, you went to great lengths to give yourself a wake up call..

I gave myself one as well but not that physical.. and created a plan from there of change.. I'm now topping out on my 6th year.. with 3 years ago starting a path on loa..

[Old Soul]

Originally Posted by spacedout

Hey all you spiritual nuts -

What got you into seeking spirituality in the first place?

I'll tell you why I did. I had an awakening when my heart went into highspeed overdrive and I woke up in the hospital. I saw the light, if you know what I mean. After that, there was no stopping me.

for me it was the death of my father, he came to me in a vision dream, in a blining white light the light was like a kazzilion shards of white glass that just exploded and there he was standing in front of my eyes, then he just smiled and disipated through me, as he did this my senses were heightened and I could feel his whisker stubble on my face and smell his cologne

and it seems I am still on this divergent road since then :-)

[young]

What got me into spirituality?

Hmmm... well I didn't know what was real anymore. Moments kept changing, I as the body kept changing, my thoughts kept changing.

Everything kept changing!!!!

I realized there was only one thing that never changed, yet it wasn't even a thing. I asked myself how I knew I existed. It wasn't a thought that told me. It was pure knowing, a feeling. I knew I existed because I was aware. Not aware of something, just aware.

This led me to spirituality. Although teachers' words never helped me. It was what they were pointing to that did. I had to feel it!

[Xanafax]

I was bullied.

So I turned inwards.

[Andrew Gubb]

I remember in hospital, spending months in great pain, thinking, "the suffering is the resistance to pain, not the pain itself". I later started noticing buddhism more and thinking that it vibed with my realisations there. I resisted it, though, a bit. Eckart Tolle and Steve Pavlina were instrumental in breaking through my resistance.

I think though that I've had this faith in there being something "more" to life all my life. I've experienced unconditional happiness, and I knew without a doubt that this was the most important thing. Seeking, firstly through psychology and finally through spirituality, was just natural for me.

[ns123]

What got me into spirituality was I failed. I failed BIG TIME in something that was so easy for me to succeed in. It made me question everything, to search for a meaning. Did I fail? Or was I put in a situation that created misery and I self sabotaged?

Sometimes, failure is actually a success. I failed at my job then, but I succeeded in opening my eyes to a philosophy that I never before considered. I am thankful for my misery, because it allowed me to actually see.

[Old Soul]

the suffering is the resistance to pain, not the pain itself

yes how true :-)

[mohrbeers]

A past life dream that changed my life, before I even knew what a past life was. Then a evil smoke being that tried to steal my soul on a quite sunday morning.

[Old Soul]

Originally Posted by mohrbeers

A past life dream that changed my life, before I even knew what a past life was. Then a evil smoke being that tried to steal my soul on a quite sunday morning.

ya gotta watch out for those "Soul suckers"

[SimonaRich]

What a great question. I was lead into spirituality through Robert Kiyosaki, when I read his book 'rich dad poor dad' I have experienced a shift in my consciousness. Now many would say that this book has nothing to do with spirituality, but it lead me to see the world in a different light which led me to other books about LOA, meditation etc.

[Jack]

Nice question.

Mine was this:

A few years ago,I was thinking about suicide,I was never so serious about suicide.Then I heard from my mother that my father bought a book about power of thoughts, and when I saw it on a table at home,I decided to read it.The book was "Heal Your Life" by Louise Hay.That book affected me a lot,especially in that days I was feeling like I was in a beautiful dream.I even thought that maybe I killed myself and came to the paradise The book was basically saying that we are the creator of our world and responsible for everything that happens in our world.

I started to notice my thoughts' results in life.I was very happy and excited.Also that book was talking about spirituality too,for me that book was an introduction to reality creation and spirituality .In that days,"by chance" I saw the Matrix Movie on Tv again and watched it.I understood Matrix in a way that I had never understood it before.(Before reading that book,I was thinking that Matrix Movie is about computers(virtual reality on computers,I never thought that virtual reality on world,and never could understand what Matrix means)I heard on Tv about someone out someone who is able to twist metals by thought power on Tv.It strengthened my thoughts that this is the way to truth.

[MagicalRealist]

For me it wasn't a single event (though there was one event that pushed things along). I've always been this way, even as a kid. I always wondered what the point of life was; I always wondered why so many people stayed miserable rather than follow their dreams; I always wondered why so many people believed that there was something morally wrong with choosing one's own happiness. And I didn't get religion--I couldn't understand how people could believe certain dogmas or take certain things totally on faith--but at the same time I knew there had to be something bigger.

When I was a young adult, and later at times when things got tough, I tended to fall into a "this is all there is, and there is no significance" mindset. During the most economically trying period of my life I even got into Objectivism. But I kept having too many things happen in my life that couldn't be explained rationally--hearing voices, intuitively knowing what was going on with other people before they ever said anything, receiving strange images I didn't understand but knew I was supposed to paint, picking up on the "vibe" of a room, building, or object.

So for me it's been a lifelong process of muddling along, trying different things, and occasionally going through long periods of spiritual "hibernation," where I didn't actively engage in any spiritual practice or study at all.

The one major spiritual event I experienced, back in late 2000 (I received a "visit" from a friend who had died a couple of days before) accelerated my progress by completely blowing away a lot of my nagging questions about life beyond death. That experience profoundly changed my entire worldview, and obliterated my fear of death, and I'm still receiving insights and learning from that experience to this day. (Just thinking about how much my friend loved me, to give me that gift, still makes me cry.) But overall, things have really begun clicking into place for me in the last two years. I've gone back and read spiritual books I initially read 10-20 years ago, and they are like completely different books; all the stuff that was boring or confusing or seemed too woo-woo back then now makes perfect sense. I'm finally in a position to fully understand what is being said and how it actually works in my life.

[yoopersmith]

Originally Posted by spacedout

Hey all you spiritual nuts -

What got you into seeking spirituality in the first place?

I'll tell you why I did. I had an awakening when my heart went into highspeed overdrive and I woke up in the hospital. I saw the light, if you know what I mean. After that, there was no stopping me.

There were many phases to my journey...

When I was about 20 I met a teacher and learned alot...but then got depressed and forgot about that stuff until many years later...

...sometime around 2003 or 2004 my wife and I decieded not to have children and that sort of re-started my spirtitual journey...

If you want to hear more of the story you can check out my about me page...

About Jeff (Yooper) Smith: Who the heck is writing this?

or this page on my blog...

A Journey in the life of Yooper | YooperSmith.com

CHEERS!

[JanT]

Hello spacedout - what a neat question.
I was born this way. Sounds corny, I know - but spent my youth learning to quit talking about all the stuff I saw, heard and knew because it scared those around me. At one point, my mother even threatened to have me 'exorcised'.

As an adult (and one who has come to terms with her 'oddities') it's really nice to see, read, hear, and share with others now, and not be the odd person out - ha!

I work to let others know that they aren't weird or odd - and that they aren't alone with their development.

Thanks for asking!

[ijpeatey]

Great question.

For me it was a combination of three things all in the space of a few months.

First was a conference I went to. I thought it was a business conference but it turned out it was a bit more than that. I was introduced to NLP, meditation, breath work and Nonviolent Communication.

Second I spent a week at Findhorn in Scotland. I agreed to go with my girlfriend at the time more as a token to prove how open-minded I am. It proved to be a very deep and eye-opening (and soul opening) experience.

Third I did a Family Constellation 3 day session. That convinced me that we're connected to each other in ways we can't understand intellectually.

It was a remarkable couple of months (that was in 2001 ... '2001 - A Spiritual Odyssey')

[spacedout]

Great replys. All of your reasons for taking the path of spirituality are very interesting to say the least. Not only that, no two are the same reason - very diverse. Different starting points but same path. Very interesting indeed.

Thanks. I'll ponder this for awhile.

[Philemon]

The pursuit of creativity led me to spirituality. Long before that, a bedtime prayer with my Grandmother as a child, "Now I lay me down to sleep," always put me at ease and made me feel "filled" with something. I now want to learn anything possible about "something".

[sk8joyful]

Originally Posted by spacedout

What got you into seeking spirituality in the first place?

like asking "what got you into seeking joy in the first place?, right

At the outset, children, most anyway until indoctrinated differently, live
astutely aware of this Truism:

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. Rather, we are a spiritual being, adding... human experiences.

[StrongDizzle]

About 4 years ago I hit a brick wall. I was in deep with classes at my high school. The stress combined with some depression led to a complete mental breakdown. Since then, I've abandoned almost everything from my past and have moved on with healthier thought patterns. Only recently have I finally reached a point where everything I have learned has come together. My biggest help has been discovering friends that are on my same path. It gave me confirmation that I had learned the lessons from my illness. I learned to value each book, different perspective, or way of thinking I stumbled upon. Every day has become an opportunity to expand and understand.

[Eric Roosevelt]

It's always interesting to read about how people got into spirituality.

To be honest I object slightly to the term itself. "Spirituality" seems to imply that some kind of spirits are involved, which isn't necessarily true.

I'd call myself philosophical, though. I'm in complete awe of this remarkable reality we inhabit. Just looking at certain things, especially pictures of our galaxy or of our earth, can be a fascinating experience for me. I can't really remember a single point in time when I started thinking about the "big questions". It was more of a slow process of questioning my assumptions about the world, and getting some more control over my emotional state.

I remember some occassions when I was much younger when I would get some sort of peak experience like "WOW, what the heck is this? All this... stuff. All these feelings and colors, and thoughts!" and just be fascinated by all of it without really thinking very deeply what exactly I was fascinated by.

Recently I've taken an interest in Eckart Tolle, whom I learned about through this website.

[spacedout]

From your posts, it looks to me like, there are two different ways you entered the road to spirituality. Some of you came into it rather quickly while others did so gradually.

[ttt]

Since i was very young i have always been thinking about the point of life and what happens after that.

[spacedout]

That is a good point you make about the word "spirituality" Eric Roosevelt. However, I don't think it necessarily has to be about spirits. To me, spirituality has to do more with unearthly or ethereal experiences in a paradisiacal sort tof way. Do you know what I mean? In other words, reality cannot be known simply by use of the senses alone because reality is not completely material in nature. This is something the rational mind cannot comprehend. That is why we are all in this forum - we know there is more to reality than what "meets the eye."