Posts by Paul Smith
More Signs You Are Waking Up

Part Six: Welcoming Expanded Consciousness/Spirit Into Your Life

In this last part of our series on welcoming expanded consciousness, we continue to briefly explore some signs that signal that we are on the journey of waking up spiritually. Remember, a spiritual awakening is a continuing and highly individual experience; not everyone will go through all these signs. You may want to note which ones apply to your journey.

While these signs can vary from person to person, here are some more common indicators that you may be moving into a state of expanded consciousness.

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How to Tell You Are Waking Up

Part Five: Welcoming Expanded Consciousness/Spirit Into Your Life

Moving into expanded consciousness is a profound and transformative experience that often comes with identifiable signs and shifts in one's perception and awareness. However, we may not always easily recognize them when we are in the midst of such significant changes. 

For the last two parts of this series, we’ll look at sixteen signs you are moving into expanded consciousness.

Remember, a spiritual awakening is a highly individual experience, and not everyone will go through all of these signs. You may want to note which ones apply to your journey. While these signs can vary from person to person, here are some common indicators.

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The Path of Devotion into Expanded Consciousness

Part Four: Welcoming Expanded Consciousness/Spirit Into Your Life

In our context, devotion refers to a deep sense of love, reverence, and commitment to God, a divine presence, person, and cause, such as bringing healing to the people of the world and the earth itself. It can take the form of prayer, meditation, reflection, other spiritual practices and always includes loving service and action. Devotion can be a powerful avenue for expanding consciousness/spirit and deepening one's connection to God.

The first followers of Jesus were devoted to him while he was in their physical realm. Their devotion became even more supercharged with the expansion of their consciousness/spirit at Pentecost and following. They now sang to him as the Living Resurrected Jesus, talked to him, and enjoyed his exhilarating presence in their gatherings. While in trance spirit consciousness, they received messages from Jesus and other spiritual presences of guidance, comfort, encouragement, and strengthening for one another. 

Significantly, within a few years after his resurrection appearances, these first, soon-to-be-called Christians were giving Jesus the same devotion they gave the awesome God of their Jewish faith. 

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Trance State Consciousness in the Bible and Today


Part Two: Welcoming Expanded Consciousness/Spirit Into Into Your Life

The New Testament describes two of the first followers of Jesus entering expanded spirit-consciousness as "falling into a trance," an awakened subtle state of spirit/consciousness. 

In a trance state, Peter heard a message that was to radically shape the emergence of early Christianity from Judaism. Paul received a message concerning his personal safety from harm by those who were persecuting him. We can learn from both these experiences of expanded awareness.

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Welcoming Expanded Consciousness/Spirit Into Your Life

Part One: States of Consciousness in Integral Christianity

What do you think of when you read and hear the term " Spirit"? (Traditionally written with an upper case "S" to make sure (wrongly, in my opinion) that we are thinking about God's spirit and not the human spirit.) 

What do you think of when you read or hear the term "consciousness?" Consciousness is what allows you to be aware of reading this sentence. It has been defined as a complex and multifaceted concept that refers to our subjective awareness and experience of the world and ourselves. This dimension of being human is crucially important because it encompasses our ability to perceive, think, reason, have self-awareness, and connect with spiritual realities. 

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Transmitting Awakened Spirit Consciousness

What, in the World, is Holy Spirit?
Part Four

When we define spirit as awakened consciousness, we can then see there are many avenues to it. A sudden transforming experience, as we see in Acts. We see the slow work of contemplative prayer in mystics down through the ages. The Enlightenment found in Eastern traditions. Some Eastern traditions transmit spirit-awakening in a way similar to what Jesus, Paul, and Peter did.

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Who Else Believes Spirit is Consciousness?

What, in the World, is Holy Spirit?
Part Three

What comes to your mind when you see, hear, or say the word "spirit"? Spirit personified as a shadowy, mystical presence? A vague, mysterious force in the universe? God at work everywhere? The third person of the Trinity?

What comes to my mind after considering this for several years is the amazing, still mysterious, single word: "consciousness." God's spirit as Consciousness Beyond Us, Beside Us, and Being Us. We are that divine consciousness, localized and encased in a human body.

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A New Look at Holy Spirit

What, in the World, is Holy Spirit?
Part Two

In the recent Coronation of King Charles, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke of "the anointing of the spirit." I wondered what came to mind in the millions of people listening in. Did it mean Charles was not just a religious man but also a "spiritual" one? And then, what is a "spiritual" person? It must have something to do with "spirit!" So, back to what spirit means in progressive, evolving, integral Christianity.

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What, in the World, is Holy Spirit?

Part One – The Bible and Holy Spirit

For the vast majority of Christian groups in the word, the "Holy Spirit" is considered the third person of the Trinity of God consisting of "God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit." Holy Spirit is referred to as "the Lord, the Giver of Life" in the Nicene Creed, summarizing several key beliefs held by many Christian denominations.

When Jesus was baptized, he saw "the spirit of God descending upon him like a dove." Christian artists throughout the centuries have used this symbol to represent the holy spirit, though it has little connection to the experience it is meant to describe.

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