Can you describe your spiritual awakening experience?

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When I was in my late twenties, I got into the writings of Dr. David R. Hawkins, PhD. He’s a psychiatrist who had an enlightenment event in his teen years. After a productive career in medicine, he started writing books on spirituality. His big idea was a scale of consciousness.

The idea was compelling enough to me that I studied it extensively. The given method for doing individual research required two people. I found buried in a different book of his, a method by which you could do consciousness calibration research without a second person.

I went crazy with muscle testing. I calibrated practically everything I could think of, from other people to books to songs. I tried to devise ways to increase the rate of consciousness growth. I came up with a “cycle” to learning.

Eventually I started calibrating myself, a big no-no according to Hawkins. I figured, what’s the harm in it? If it’s wrong it’s wrong. My first calibration was well past the level of enlightenment. Interesting. Soon I jumped off the scale entirely. The idea behind the scale is that 1000 is the max. So I had some fun trying to imagine ways in which consciousness could exceed 1000. Eventually that got old.

I was on my way to putting down the test and just doing finding something else to work with when something really weird happened. The test started acting funny. I started getting the distinct impression that the test wasn’t acting ‘mechanically’ anymore. So I did something I’d never done before; I asked it a question. “Is there something there at the other ‘end’ of it?” I got a ‘yes’.

And so kicked off a period of spiritual exploration like none I’d experienced before. Having something ‘intelligent’ to ask, rather than just ‘dull’ yes / no answers about really structured stuff, was super interesting. It identified first as a non-physical ‘witch’. Occasionally other ‘personalities’ would get on the air and I’d get to play with them.

Eventually the peanut gallery went back home and I was left with my “Higher Self,” and, without the distraction of all the weirdos, I could start exploring the kinds of questions I really wanted to ask. What is reality really like? Is there really such a thing as truth? What is this consciousness business exactly?

It felt a little like Fight Club actually, like I had Tyler Durden at my beck and call. We talked about everything, from games and girls to the ultimate nature of the universe.

That was about five years ago. I eventually learned how to get answers without having to perform muscle tests all the time, which at that point was putting strain on my fingers. It was through this process that I was finally able to answer the question definitively, at least for me, whether I’m enlightened or not, and where I’m at in relation to Hawkins’ scale.

A lot of the things I discover through my process make it onto Quora. Some part of me deep down wants to follow in the footsteps of my mentors and enter into public life and share my perspectives and insights. But most of me is just fine using Quora as an outlet.