Jacob Gotwals

Jacob's Blog

The Call of Awakening

As I see it, awakening is a process—a process that we all participate in. Part of that process is a powerful feeling that we all have from time to time; this feeling serves as an invitation to move forward on our spiritual path. I call this feeling the call of awakening. By learning to recognize this feeling, you can become a more active participant in your own process of awakening. In this episode, you'll learn how to recognize when life is offering you an invitation to awaken, and you'll learn how to respond when you receive such an invitation. You'll also learn what I mean by awakening, and you'll learn how awakening is related to mindfulness, insight, and evolution. (read more)

Seven Stages of Spiritual Insight

As I describe in my introductory article on insight, insight practice is the experiential exploration of the relationships between self, reality, awareness, and subjective experience. The result of insight practice is insight, which is both an understanding of those relationships and an ability to access modes of perception in which those relationships are evident. I (read more)

How to Visualize Your Interpretations of Experience

Visualizing a conceptual overlay on your nonconceptual subjective experiences can help you stay grounded in experience-focused perception. As I describe in my article Seven Stages of Spiritual Insight, the fourth stage of insight practice (inverting experience and reality) involves cultivating experience-focused perception. Visualizing our conceptual interpretations of experience can help us stay grounded in experience-focused (read more)

How to Invoke Experience-Focused Perception

Learn to enter a state of experience-focused perception at will. As I describe in my article Seven Stages of Spiritual Insight, the fourth stage of insight practice (inverting experience and reality) involves cultivating a new way of perceiving phenomena: experience-focused perception. Alternating between concept-focused and experience-focused perception can be a helpful practice for distinguishing these (read more)

How to Investigate Your Experience of Reality

Look at something—for instance, a stone. Concentrate on the visual experience you’re having. Notice your sense that this experience corresponds to an actual, real stone. Use questions to investigate the relationship between the visual experience you’re having and the supposed reality of the stone; for instance, “What do I experience more directly: experience or reality? (read more)