When Spirit Leaps Quotes

“it is a natural, human potential that offers greater clarity, wisdom, and peace to us personally, to the culture we live in, and to the earth as a whole.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“And as we awaken, our collective experience awakens. As the Buddha reportedly said, “When I woke up, the world woke up.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“What is predictable after an awakening or mystical insight is that the trajectory of our life is changed. We undergo a process of restructuring our energy, consciousness, and lifestyle.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Knowing the truth and feeling the spirit leap are kinesthetic and cellular, which is how awakening expands us into the unfamiliar territory of enlightenment”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Many scriptures suggest this longing arises from an unconscious, deeper part of self that wants to be remembered.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Journeying from despair into a transformed perspective, through energy, is common for many people who awaken without understanding or preparation”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Many among us were abused or neglected as children, experienced trauma or violence, or report chronic illness”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Paul of Tarsus, and Milarepa the Tibetan saint are examples of the sudden transformation from fighter to spiritual seeker. Siddhartha was a wealthy prince and father, but when he saw suffering and death for the first time, he plunged dramatically into a spiritual search, leaving home to pursue truth and to become the enlightened Buddha.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“For hundreds of years, their recorded writings—whether nuns or poets, inspired teachers or artists—have described a division, or painful restlessness, within themselves prior to a moment of illumination when a great light or descent of grace fell upon them.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Most have neither done a practice nor had a conscious longing for awakening.2 Many spiritual teachers speculate that this is happening because we live in desperate times and need an influx of aware, creative, compassionate people who will actively serve others and contribute fresh ideas. This is a radical change from the traditional spiritual path of withdrawing from society and from the 1960s movements when young people felt a need to drop out of the mainstream to seek social alternatives.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Enlightenment” describes a natural consciousness and presence that is fully awakened to its own true nature. This liberation, as I’ll explore in Part Three, feels like freedom, peace, and at times an irrepressible love without conditions. We deeply relax into life, and a way of being unfolds that does not feel at all personal.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“It requires continual alignment with the truth we have seen while awakening. It is more enduring—and therefore more challenging—than having initial moments of awakening.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Her momentary awakening can be called a “glimpse of freedom” or a “touch of grace.” Many who experience it feel distressed when it passes, but its transience can offer encouragement to keep entering the silence of meditation”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“There was only joy, awe, and amazement.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“clearly remembering who you are: one with all existence. Therefore, the universal consciousness within you awakens itself.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Awareness and consciousness are suddenly clear and expansive, undisturbed, and undivided by thought. The experience may be accompanied by great insight, ecstatic bliss, or a mystical infusion of light, love, and vision.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“A near-death experience (NDE) Deep meditative practice A traumatic event or injury Yoga or qigong exercises Suffering, despair, or grief Encountering a guru or awakened teacher Childbirth An exercise found on the Internet Experimentation with psychedelics Devotional practice and prayer A visitation, vision, or mystical dream Breathing practices A sudden aha! moment A shamanic journey or treatment Through these moments of expanded awareness, we recognize there is something much bigger than “me,” that “I” is not limited to the boundary of personal consciousness”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“We appear in order to have our experiences.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“I cannot avoid seeing the so-called dreamworld of life with all its challenge, suffering, joy, and possibility. I feel we know and live in two worlds: infinite consciousness and ordinary expressions of material life. To me, we are the wondrous expressions of form within a timeless, unlimited vastness.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“On the other hand, those who believe kundalini is the mechanism that leads to enlightenment are often skeptical about the non-dual teaching that awakening can be sudden and without preparation. Their perspective is that the body is involved in transformation, which makes cultivation through practices essential.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“When we struggle with overwhelming energy bouncing around us, or vibrating like a truck inside of us, the subtle energy field needs attention. The energy we are experiencing has two functions: the first is to clear away what is not needed and the second is to bring in new potentials. There are some common blockages that need to be cleared and then transformed as we awaken. They include: Toxic events and experiences Toxic people who may, or may not, still be in our life Enduring grief over losses Attachment to anything that we fear losing, but would be better off letting go Toxic substances, such as drugs, cigarettes, or unhealthy food Ways we learned to constrict our body rigidly in childhood as forms of defense”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“You may feel love and compassion for everyone, but that does not mean you can continue to be in environments or with people who are hostile or toxic. You may need to leave.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“We can develop heightened sensitivity as we awaken. Some people can no longer go into large box stores or be in crowds, as their senses are too easily overwhelmed or they seem to absorb others’ problems psychically. This absorption can cause feelings of nausea or illness, which is especially hard for anyone in a profession that involves working with people’s pain and suffering. After a deep and insightful meditation retreat, Barbara returned to the world and encountered this. Sensitivity has increased so that I take in others’ feelings and emotions. This causes physical problems, mostly tension in the muscles of my back, arms, and legs. I also feel tired. Memory problems have increased at work, where I try unsuccessfully to follow very logical and technical discussions in a noisy environment.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“I have been working in science publishing for most of my adult life. I lost my interest and ability to work, as I could not focus on reading emails and could not find the motivation to write. My interest in science was almost reduced to zero, as I couldn’t see the relevance of it anymore. Before awakening, my belief in science and science publishing was because of its objective truth. I then experienced how irrelevant scientific ideas and any other rational concepts are when it comes down to holding truth or reality.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“When we are in a deeply spiritual transition we can lose interest in work, social interactions, and other life activities. We can feel lost when a familiar enthusiasm has vanished or we struggle to find the motivation to engage the world. This is a stage of awakening. It can last for a long time, and our old drives will not return in the same familiar forms. Peter was thirty-eight when he had an abrupt and intense energy awakening and psychic opening.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Why am I having these odd experiences and what do they mean? What am I supposed to do with this? Am I losing my mind? Or ill? Or dying? What does this sense of nothingness have to do with God? What do I tell my family is happening to me? Am I enlightened? What is going to happen next? How do I align my life or work with this knowing? Why did this happen to me? What is life asking of me?”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“Emptiness can feel like a dark night of the soul, as described by Saint John of the Cross,18 because it is disorienting for the egoic self, which strives hard to keep us identified with our roles, emotions, and thoughts. But once we understand the nature of emptiness, we may fall in love with it, and then become it.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening

“This process can be chaotic, intense, and rock the spirit and body to its core. There may be moments of ecstasy beyond what we ever imagined possible, visions that lift our soul, an elimination of everything we ever believed was true, and the unfolding of great challenges and blessings. For a few, this happens simply, as a calm and radiant seeing that penetrates the small self, dissolves the seeker, and accepts life as it is. This feels like seeing something obvious that had been strangely overlooked.”
― Bonnie L. Greenwell, When Spirit Leaps: Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening