The Three Movements of Spiritual Awakening (More Important Than Any State)

What matters in a spiritual awakening is not which state you are in. Nonduality, no-self, enlightenment, awakening: the labels are not the relevant part. What is relevant, in my experience, are three movements. They are not stages you complete and leave behind. They keep breathing through the whole path.

The first movement: understanding

Awakening is a recognition of what life actually is. I thought I was this small, separate piece of life, and then it is seen: I am life, living this experience. That recognition can be verbal or completely wordless. It can show up as safety, as relaxation, as a sense of being much bigger than you thought.

After a first awakening, almost everyone does the same thing: read all the books, watch a thousand videos. We all did. It makes sense, you want to grasp what happened. And then, at some point, you feel something like the end of knowledge. More understanding is still interesting, but it is not actually moving you anymore. There is a limit to what understanding does, because what you are looking for is not information. You have already seen that you are this life. Something else is in the way.

The second movement: orienting toward your suffering

What is in the way is the places where you still feel small, while you are actually this huge thing. That is suffering.

Everybody runs from their suffering. Avoiding it is the default. But there comes a moment when you understand that it has to be the other way around: you orient toward it, because it wants to be seen and dissolved. And for many people it does not wait politely. Once there is some clarity, the suffering comes knocking on its own. It wants to be met. It is like your inner child that wants a hug.

The third movement: surrender

At some point the suffering gets bigger than the small self. More than one life's worth, you could say. Whatever you make of that, the practical reality is the same: that amount is not something the small self can dissolve.

And life itself keeps offering more than the small self can compute. Thousands of options, you could be anywhere in the world right now, so how would you ever know the right choice? You cannot, from there. The way forward is for the small self to surrender to the big self, to whatever is seen, and to float on whatever life wants to express as you. It wants to express itself in a way that is so unique that comparing your journey to anyone else's misses the point entirely.

This third movement is why my channel and my work are called From Doing to Being. Alignment with the flow, with whatever wants to arise in this moment. That is where true freedom lies.

The movements never end

Understanding stays beautiful; insights keep coming, and if you do not hold on to them, they are genuinely enjoyable. Suffering can still arise, and when it wants to be seen, you can be there for it. The difference after surrender is the weight. You no longer meet it from a place of heaviness and responsibility, from I need to do this. You let life unfold as it wants to unfold.

These three movements matter more than any state. What is relevant is whether you are honest with what life wants to bring you in this moment. That is often not comfortable, because it is new, and the small self wants predictability. But holding on to predictability is precisely what creates suffering, because life is not predictable. It is just moving. Every moment is different.

If you are reading this and wondering which movement you are actually in, that is exactly the kind of question I look at with people in a free call. You can book one here: https://calendly.com/keesblok/gratis-kennismaking