Awakening
Awakening is defined within the International Nath Order as an experiential awareness of the Union of Macrocosm and Microcosm. It is also intended to refer to the process of attainment to and experience of hitherto unknown mind dimensions and levels of this awareness. In the Address to the Sacred Stone Nation Shri Gurudev Mahendranath writes,
“… This experience of self realization or Awakening seldom, if ever, comes in one stage. At the time we may regard it as the final and ultimate; but the first phenomenon will later be repeated and several times but on a higher level. The transformation of a man or a woman into a God or Goddess can be both extended and complex. But even the first experience is Dynamic and you will never again be the same person you once were. These gradual developing stages are necessary because it is not easy for the Spirit to free itself at one stroke of a lifetime of attachment and conditioning.”
In The Tantrik Tapestry Shri Gurudev Mahendranath writes,
“ALL Occult Sciences are interlinked, even if only by their ultimate objective whereby the microcosm unites in oneness with the macrocosm. In this sense and in spite of mere material appearance, the attainment of Ultimate Reality is the aim of all Occult wisdom.”
Related words such as Enlightenment and Self Realization have been deprecated within the INO. This is due to there being so many contrasting definitions and contextual usages of these words found in the writings of other authors.