Something is shifting inside you. You cannot quite name it or explain it to anyone around you — but you feel it. Old habits that once gave you comfort suddenly feel hollow. Relationships that seemed permanent now feel misaligned. You find yourself staring at the sky for no reason, or weeping at a piece of music, or lying awake at 3 AM with a strange, restless knowing that there is more to life than what you have been living.
You may be in the middle of a spiritual awakening.
According to ancient Vedic wisdom and the teachings of Shri Premanandji Maharaj, awakening is not a dramatic, one-time event reserved for saints and sages. It is a gradual — sometimes turbulent, sometimes blissful — process by which your consciousness begins to peel away the layers of illusion (maya) and glimpse its own divine nature. Millions of people around the world are experiencing this right now, and most of them have no language for it.
This article gives you that language. Here are 15 signs that you are going through a spiritual awakening — and what each one means on the path.
The 15 Signs
You Feel a Deep Dissatisfaction with "Normal" Life
Things that used to satisfy you — career success, socialising, entertainment, shopping — suddenly feel meaningless or exhausting. This is not depression (though it can look similar). It is your soul outgrowing a container it has worn for too long. In Sanskrit this state is called vairagya — a sincere detachment from the fleeting pleasures of the material world. It is not a sign that something is wrong. It is a sign that something is waking up.
You Are Drawn to Silence and Solitude
Crowded rooms, constant noise, and small talk begin to feel genuinely draining. You crave quiet — long walks, early mornings before the world wakes up, sitting alone with a cup of tea. This is your inner being asking you to listen. In the noise of the world, the voice of the divine is a whisper. Awakening turns your attention inward so you can begin to hear it.
Your Intuition Becomes Unusually Sharp
You start knowing things before they happen. You pick up the phone a moment before it rings. You meet someone and immediately sense their emotional state beneath their words. You follow a gut feeling about a decision and it turns out to be right, even though logic gave you no reason. This heightened intuition is a natural consequence of your consciousness becoming clearer — like a lake whose sediment has settled, revealing the bottom.
You Experience Intense or Vivid Dreams
Your dream life becomes extraordinarily vivid — symbolic, layered, and sometimes prophetic. You may dream of light, of flying, of ancient temples, of meeting a teacher or a luminous presence. The Mandukya Upanishad describes four states of consciousness, and dreams (the taijasa state) are one of the doorways through which the deeper self communicates. When awakening begins, that door swings open wider.
You Feel a Pull Towards Spiritual Teachings and Seekers
Books on consciousness, discourses by spiritual masters, ancient scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita, the works of Ramana Maharshi, the teachings of Premanandji Maharaj — something draws you to these. Not out of intellectual curiosity, but out of a deep, almost hungry recognition. "I have been looking for this," something in you says. This is called jijnasa — the burning desire to know the truth of existence. It is one of the most beautiful signs an awakening is underway.
Old Relationships Begin to Fall Away
Some friendships and connections that once felt central to your life start to feel misaligned. You do not necessarily fall out with anyone — there is simply a growing distance, a sense that you are vibrating at a different frequency. This can be painful and disorienting. But it is part of the process. As you grow, your circle authentically reorganises. People aligned with your new level of awareness arrive; those who are not gradually drift away — and that is okay.
You Develop a Deep Empathy for All Living Beings
Your heart visibly softens. The suffering of a stray animal, a homeless person, a struggling stranger — these now affect you at a cellular level. You feel connected to things you used to overlook. Non-violence (ahimsa) begins to feel less like a principle and more like a natural expression of who you are. This expansion of your circle of compassion is one of the clearest indicators that the ego's walls are thinning and consciouness is expanding.
You Experience Moments of Inexplicable Joy or Bliss
Without any external reason — no achievement, no good news, no substance — you are suddenly flooded with a quiet, fierce joy. It may last a few seconds or a few hours. It feels like coming home. In yogic terminology this is a glimpse of ananda — the bliss that is your natural state underneath all the conditioning. These moments are the universe giving you a preview of what is available when the veil of maya lifts fully.
You Become Acutely Aware of Your Thoughts
You begin to observe the movement of your own mind with a strange, detached clarity. You notice the loops, the fears, the narratives you have been running for years — and for the first time you do not feel entirely identified with them. "Who is watching this?" you wonder. That question — ko'ham, who am I? — is the beginning of the most important inquiry a human being can undertake. What you are observing is the ego; who is doing the observing is your true self.
Time Begins to Feel Strange
Some days seem to stretch into eternity; others vanish in what feels like minutes. You notice yourself increasingly absorbed in the present moment — forgetting to be anxious about the future or resentful of the past. Eckhart Tolle calls this the Power of Now; the Gita calls it being established in the present (sthitaprajña). The spiritual path does not happen in past or future. It only ever happens here, in this breath, this moment. When awakening begins, the body starts to instinctively know this.
You Begin to Question Everything You Were Taught
Religion, society, identity, purpose — the frameworks you inherited and never questioned suddenly feel like they deserve examination. This is not cynicism or rebellion. It is the authentic impulse of a mind no longer content to outsource its knowing. The Vedas call this viveka — discriminative wisdom — and it is an essential faculty on the path. Question everything, but question from a place of sincerity, not simply scepticism.
Synchronicities Multiply
You think of someone and they call. You need guidance on a particular issue and a book falls open to exactly the right page. You overhear a stranger's conversation that answers a question you were sitting with. These synchronicities are not coincidences — they are the universe becoming legible to you, because your attention has shifted from the surface to the deeper currents beneath life's events. As awareness expands, the intelligence woven into existence becomes more visible.
You Feel a Longing You Cannot Name
It is a longing that no relationship, no accomplishment, no destination satisfies. A homesickness for a home you have never been to — or perhaps always been in but forgotten. The mystic poet Mirabai wrote about this longing; Tukaram cried it out in his abhangas; Kabir wove it into every doha. Shri Premanandji Maharaj describes it as the soul's memory of the divine — the pull of the drop toward the ocean. If you feel this, honour it. It is the most sacred thing in you.
Physical Sensations: Tingling, Heat, or Pressure
Some people undergoing awakening report physical phenomena — tingling sensations in the crown of the head or along the spine, sudden waves of heat, pressure between the eyebrows (the ajna chakra), or a feeling of electricity moving through the body. These are described in yogic literature as symptoms of shakti beginning to move through the subtle body. They are generally benign. If they are ever intense or distressing, seek the guidance of an experienced spiritual teacher.
You Start to Experience Life as Sacred
A morning cup of chai, a child's laughter, sunlight falling through leaves, the act of cooking for someone you love — ordinary moments begin to glow with an undeniable holiness. Nothing about your outer life has changed, yet everything looks different. This is perhaps the most unmistakable sign of awakening: the recognition that the sacred is not somewhere else. It is here, in this, right now. Always has been. The journey of awakening is simply the journey back to seeing it.
"आत्मा वा अरे द्रष्टव्यः श्रोतव्यो मन्तव्यो निदिध्यासितव्यो"
— Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: "The Self must be seen, heard, reflected upon, and deeply meditated upon."
What Should You Do If You Are Awakening?
First: breathe. A spiritual awakening is not a problem to be solved. It is an invitation to be accepted — gently, patiently, without forcing.
Here are practical steps to navigate this period well:
- Establish a daily spiritual practice. Even 20 minutes of meditation or mantra japa in the morning creates an anchor. Consistency matters more than duration. The mind needs gentle, repeated steering inward.
- Seek satsang — the company of truth-seekers. The awakening journey is profoundly supported by others who are walking a similar path. Attend discourses, join a study group, listen to teachings by realised masters like Shri Premanandji Maharaj.
- Spend time in nature. Trees, rivers, open sky — nature slows the nervous system and supports the integration of spiritual experience. Many seekers report that time outdoors accelerates their inner clarity.
- Be compassionate with yourself. Awakenings are not linear. There will be periods of intense clarity followed by intense confusion. This is not failure — it is the natural rhythm of deepening.
- Reduce digital noise. The awakening process requires a quiet inner environment. Constant scrolling, news consumption, and stimulation keep the surface mind agitated and make the deeper signal hard to hear.
- Journal your experiences. Writing down your dreams, synchronicities, feelings, and questions creates a record of your journey and helps you identify patterns and growth.
The Dark Night of the Soul
Not every stage of awakening feels blissful. Many seekers pass through what the sixteenth-century mystic St. John of the Cross called "the dark night of the soul" — a period of profound disorientation, grief, or emptiness that precedes a deeper opening. If you are in this space right now, know that it is not the end of the journey. It is a necessary passage, a burning away of what was false so that what is true can stand more clearly.
The caterpillar does not become a butterfly while remaining comfortable. The darkness inside the cocoon is not punishment — it is the condition of transformation.
Awakening Is Not a Destination
One of the most liberating and humbling things to understand is that awakening is not a medal you earn and then hang on a wall. It is a continuous, ever-deepening process. Even the greatest saints described their journey as ongoing — a progressively more intimate meeting with the divine that never bottoms out.
The signs described in this article are not a checklist to complete. They are waypoints along a pathless path — markers that confirm you are alive to something real, something profoundly important, something that has been waiting for you since before you were born.
If you recognise yourself in even a handful of these signs, consider this: you are not lost. You are not broken. You are not going mad. You are waking up. And the world needs the light that becomes available when even one person truly does.
Jai Shri Radhe. 🙏