Like childhood, adolescence, and midlife, aging is a developmental stage in the human life cycle. We continue to develop psychologically and spiritually as we age. This is not a time of stasis, retreat, or simple decline.

To ground this conversation, let’s look more closely at this experience of changing consciousness. I’m going to describe some of the changes in consciousness older readers might already be experiencing, changes indicating a subtle enlightenment process. For those over 60, see which changes you recognize and keep a tally.

So, have you noticed…

  • A gradual fading of identity, as if who you were or think you are is no longer very important or even that real.
  • The progressive dissolution of time’s importance in your life, so that clock, day planner, and calendar no longer drive your day, and the distinctions of past, present, and future seem less real or important. I sometimes can’t remember what day or month it is! You still have a day planner, but it’s not the tyrant it was.
  • A loss of “high gear,” that hard-driving, goal-oriented focus on getting things done, and a concomitant shift in values from pressured doing to naturally flowing being.
  • Loss of interest in and attachment to material things that once seemed important. Stuff! Now it’s clutter, you don’t want so much of it.
  • Memory failures for names, dates, details, information, intentions, ideas, and habits that may initially trigger concerns about senility but instead reflect a letting go of information that is no longer important or meaningful.
  • Moments of silence, stillness, and timelessness, when it seems as if the mystery of eternity were leaking into your everyday world, moments with time stops. For example, sitting in your kitchen, sipping tea, watching dust motes dance in the sun stream through the shutters, you lose track of time and everything else.
  • An awareness of a larger consciousness existing all around you, filling all space and time, and feeling a sense of comfort, peace, and reassurance of its “Presence.”
  • Spontaneous spiritual insights that surprise you with their depth and significance. In other words, things you had to think about before but now you just know.
  • Increasing awareness of the sensory richness of everyday life discovered with a still and empty mind, and an increasing enjoyment of living in the present, sensing every moment as precious just as it is.
  • Moments of unexplained and unconditional joy, childlike innocence, and spontaneous playfulness.
  • A loss of personal boundaries, when it feels as if you are what you’re looking at, allowing you to feel one with a friend, a plant, the Earth, or even the whole Cosmos, and know the world as Self.
  • A spontaneous welling up of gratitude, concern, and love for the whole world and its peoples, animals, plants, insects, cycles and processes.

Now add up the number of subtle changes you noticed in yourself.

If you’re old enough, you’ve probably experienced many of them though you may not have paid attention or blamed them on “senior moments.” But how would you feel if these changes were signs of enlightenment? We’re changing the frame here – aging is not about decline, it’s about awakening! When the mind’s obsessive thinking ceases, what’s left is God’s consciousness. And experiencing your own consciousness as divine consciousness will progressively change you.

 

 

 

 

John’s newest book invites us on a personal journey of transformation into a new consciousness and a new world.