Biblical Stories of Awakening: Israel

Today I am exploring another famous story in the Bible that describes spiritual awakening. It is commonly known as the story of the prophet Elijah being taken off to heaven in a fiery chariot. But it is as much about Elisha as it is Elijah. It is also story of the enlightenment of the prophet Elisha.

I am continuing to tell these biblical stories of Awakening. I do this because I think it is helpful to show how, when, where and to whom spiritual awakening happens. This is important because there are so many misconceptions about spiritual awakening. There is no better story that illustrates the circumstances surrounding awakening than the story of the prophet Elijah. 

I am continuing the Biblical Stories of Spiritual Awakening. Today I am going to talk about one of my favorite characters and books in the Bible: Job. I resonate with Job because his path was like mine in some ways. He struggled with the same philosophical problems that I struggled with and that many Christians struggle with: the problems of evil and suffering. And in my life it led to a spiritual awakening, just like with Job. 

I am continuing to look at stories of spiritual awakening in the Bible. This episode explores one of the most famous accounts - the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. 

Today I continue to explore biblical stories of spiritual awakening. We have looked at Adam, Enoch, Abraham and Jacob. One would expect to find more stories of awakening in the rest of Genesis. But we look in vain for any hint that Joseph or any of his brothers or sister experienced spiritual awakening. That tells us something about spiritual awakening. There can be long periods of time without spiritual awakening. This episode explores how that was true in biblical times, throughout history and in modern times.

In the last episode I looked at the figure of Jacob in the Book of Genesis. I said that I would be taking two episodes to explore Jacob’s spiritual awakening because there are two stories of awakening associated with him. Jacob’s first experience was a vision/dream known as Jacob’s ladder, which we looked at last time. That happened when he was running from his brother Esau, who wanted to kill him for tricking him out of his birthright and blessing. Today I am looking at when Jacob is returning to Canaan and he wrestles with an angel. At that time his name was changed to Israel.

Today I am back to the series on Biblical Stories of Awakening. I am talking about one of my favorite characters in the Bible, the patriarch Jacob. There are two stories of awakening in the Biblical account of his life. They are both important so I am going to take two episodes to deal with them. The first occurred when he was a young man known as Jacob, and the second when his name was changed to Israel.

I am going to take a brief break from the biblical stories of spiritual awakening to address a question that I am asked regularly by listeners. They may ask the question in different ways but it always comes down to the same thing. They want to know what spiritual practice would help them to spiritually awaken.

Last episode I began a series entitled “Biblical Stories of Awakening,” exploring accounts in the Bible that are examples of spiritual awakening to unitive awareness. I talked about Adam and Enoch. I also mentioned that I would be talking about Jacob next. Well I am changing that. I need to explore another important biblical character before Jacob. I want to talk about Jacob’s grandfather Abraham.  Abraham is a very important figure in the history of religion. Three monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – trace themselves back to Abraham. So you would think that if anyone was an example of spiritual awakening, it would be Abraham. But we do not see this happening in Abraham’s life. I must address the reason why.I was just going to skip over Abraham and go onto Jacob, but that would be ignoring the issue.  Abraham is typically exalted as a champion of faith, but I consider him an example of what can go wrong in the spiritual life. This explains why these three Abrahamic faiths do not - generally speaking - exhibit nondual awareness but have become entrenched in dualistic thinking.Abraham experienced a call to spiritual awakening, but he did not take it. He misunderstood it, and therefore missed it. 

Today I am beginning a series of episodes entitled Biblical Stories of Awakening. People tell me that they appreciate it when I tie the Christian heritage and particularly Christian scriptures to nonduality. So I am going to focus on Biblical examples of spiritual awakening for a while.We do not find a lot of examples of nondual awakening in the Christian Bible. But they are sprinkled here and there throughout the Bible. The Bible begins with the Book of Genesis. The clearest example of spiritual awakening in the Book of Genesis is Jacob, and I will get to him next time. But today I am going to talk about the first two examples in Genesis: Adam and Enoch.