The Great Spiritual Awakening

By David Winston

Hi there,

I'm David Winston. I'm a spiritual teacher and philosopher, but I didn't plan to be these things. In my twenties, I had the most amazing spiritual awakening.

There are many different definitions of spiritual awakening. Here's my definition. A spiritual awakening is when a person has a deeper unde

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Winston
• Release date: May 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781777001650

Book preview

Preface

In my teenage years, I watched TV and saw spiritual teachers give advice on how to get through life's difficulties. I wanted to know more about spirituality, so I went on the internet and watched videos about the topic. I learned that a part of us existed before birth, and this part exists after death. I’m talking about the soul. Many spiritual teachers say the soul is not physical, which means it exists outside of space and time. I instantly became fascinated with the soul. If there was an eternal part of me, I wanted to know everything there is to know about that part of me. But because the soul is not physical, I could not use my senses to know the soul. In addition, I could not weigh the soul, measure the soul, and take a photo of the soul. How was I supposed to know that the soul exists?

Countless people around the world believe the soul exists. And the idea that we are souls experiencing life has been around for thousands of years. But I didn’t want to believe in an idea just because other people believe in the idea. I wanted to know whether the soul exists.

Now I am certain the soul exists. There is strong evidence of reincarnation, and this evidence implies the soul exists. But I didn’t discover the soul's existence through evidence of reincarnation. I discovered the soul's existence several years before I learned there is evidence of reincarnation.

You see, in my twenties, I had an amazing spiritual awakening. It caused me to change how I saw myself, everyone else, reality, time, heaven & hell, God, Jesus, and the universe. It was a truly eye-opening experience. And I want to share this important information with you.

Here are nine things that I aim to do through my book:

Explain what the soul is, and present evidence of reincarnation.

Explain how the reincarnation of our greater selves connects all souls with one another.

Explain how we are one with everything.

Explain how the reincarnation of our greater selves will force us all to experience an immense amount of hell/karma. And explain what we can do now to experience much less hell in the future.

Explain how spirituality can be a powerful tool in the fight against global warming.

Explain how spirituality can be a powerful tool against pandemics, racism, sexism, and other forms of inequality.

Explain how prayers were an important part of the origins of the universe.

Explain how love, flowers, trees, slavery, and the Avengers Endgame (movie) are all symbols of the origins of the universe.

Provide information about how to get through some of life's difficulties.

Join me on the most amazing journey of self-discovery. I will provide some evidence, I will use some analogies, I will use some science, and I will use some photos to explain my ideas to you. You are far greater than you think you are. And we are connected in ways that you didn’t even begin to think.

Here are a few important things you should know about my book:

I explain certain ideas through multiple chapters.

I present many new ideas in the book. Furthermore, if you skip pages or skim through the book, then you may get confused.

Chapter 1

About Me

The word spiritual awakening can have multiple different meanings. My definition of spiritual awakening is to have a deeper understanding of oneself, one another, or the universe, or a combination of the three. Spiritually awakened individuals know that we are all souls that are experiencing life.

Spiritual awakenings are generally about moments when we realize something important that causes us to change the way we see the world in some sense. In my 20s, I had a spiritual awakening like none other. My spiritual awakening gave me great insight into the secret framework of reality. It was a life-changing moment.

In this chapter, you’ll learn about my spiritual awakening. Then, you’ll learn about why I decided to write a book. Next, I’ll talk about a moment in science class that taught me an important life lesson. After, I’ll tell you about an important lesson that I learned from animals. And we’ll end the chapter with a couple of thought-provoking questions.

Chapter 1 contents:

My Spiritual Awakening

Why I Wrote a Book

The Dream That Opened My Eyes

The Truth That People Didn’t See Coming

The Important Lesson I Learned From My Pets

Here Are a Couple of Thought-provoking Questions

My Spiritual Awakening

In my 20s, I worked as a loss prevention officer (LPO). An LPO works in stores and secretly watches people steal things. When an LPO witnesses a person stealing something, the LPO arrests the thief, and he gives the thief a warning, or he calls the police and makes a police report. While working as an LPO, I experienced deep depression. I suffered from certain health problems. And I knew that I would continue to suffer if I continued to live. Was that all that I was created for? Was my purpose in life only to suffer and die? It seemed that way to me. I thought it would be better for me to die sooner so that I didn’t have to suffer any longer. I decided that I was going to take my own life. But something happened to me before I could do that.

While working as an LPO, I suddenly had certain thoughts that repeated for weeks. I had no control over the thoughts. I had no control of my mind. I was aware of certain things repeatedly, whether I wanted to or not. My thoughts were happening to me. Some of the thoughts came with strong feelings that left me in tears. It seemed to me that the universe was speaking to me. It felt like the universe was screaming something at me. I had no choice but to listen.

I had thoughts of being on a cross with nails in my hands and a nail in my feet. I had thoughts of being taken down from the cross and then traveling to India. Each time I had these thoughts, I got the sense that I experienced these moments. But I thought to myself, When have I ever witnessed a man being taken down from a cross and then going to India?

I didn’t watch a movie about these events, and I didn’t see a TV show about these events, and I didn’t read a book about these events. Yet, I got the sense that I experienced these moments. It felt like I suddenly remembered an experience I had. Could it be that I survived crucifixion and went to India in a past life? Could it be that I was Jesus Christ in a past life? I didn’t want to believe it.

In the first week that I began having uncontrollable thoughts, my friend Ali called me by phone. I was surprised to hear from Ali because I hadn’t heard from him for several years until that moment. I first met Ali at adult education. Adult education is education for adults looking to get high school diplomas.

Ali’s life story is sad. He came from Burundi, which is a country in East Africa. When he was young, he had 17 guns pointed at his head. He and his family feared for their survival, so they moved far away.

I was not supposed to talk with people over the phone while working as an LPO. However, I wanted to speak with Ali, so we talked while I walked around the store and watched people shop. Ali told me that he believed that I was destined to do great things with my life. He said that he strongly felt I would do great things. And he told me to aim high.

Aim high, and don’t give up! he told me.

I thanked Ali for his kind words.

Later, I thought, How strange.

For days I was repeatedly getting thoughts of surviving crucifixion and going to India, and then Ali called out of the blue to tell me that he believed that I was destined to do great things. The universe was trying to tell me something. But what was its message to me?

As the days went on, I had more repeated thoughts. I had no control of my mind. I remember a moment when I saw a wallet on top of a shelf.

Whose wallet is that? I thought.

I opened the wallet, and I saw my photo ID cards inside.

Someone tried stealing my wallet! I thought.

But then I realized that this was not the case. Sometimes I took out my wallet before taking out something else in my pocket because it was hard to feel for what I was looking for when I had multiple things in my pockets.

I realized I took out my wallet for whatever reason and placed it on the shelf. Then I forgot about it. But I noticed it after some period. Seeing my wallet on a shelf made me aware of how little attention I had to what was going on around me. Almost all my attention was in mind, even though I was trying to pay attention to my surroundings.

I began to have repeated thoughts of a red ball of light suddenly appearing with the word Ah! In my mind, I could only see darkness. Suddenly, a red ball of light appeared, and the ball said: Ah! There were many red balls of light appearing in my mind, and each of them was saying the word Ah as they suddenly appeared. While having this repeated thought, I got the sense that I experienced this moment. But I knew that I never had this experience in my life. I never watched a movie about these events, and I never saw a TV show about these events.

What was going on with me? I didn’t do drugs, except for the one time I inhaled some marijuana out of curiosity when I was a teen. And I didn’t drink alcohol, except for the one time I took a sip of beer out of curiosity when I was a teen. And I didn’t have any mental disorder, other than some depression.

The red balls changed. They became white balls of light with a bit of grey in their centers. Not long after they changed color, the white balls had faces. Their faces reminded me of the faces of Greek busts/sculptures. I got the sense that the white faces were aware of their existences for the first time. The faces changed many times. I never saw just the side of a face, or the back of the head. I only saw the front of the face. I saw many faces in my mind. I saw Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr., and more. But all their faces were white with some grey—like Greek busts. Some of the faces were saying things, but their mouths weren’t moving. And some of them were singing, even though their mouths weren’t moving.

What did all this mean? I thought. Why do I know this?

Sometimes my boss sent me to stores where many thefts were happening every day. Typically, I caught many thieves in those stores. But while I had the strange memories, I couldn’t pay much attention to my surroundings. Virtually all my attention was in my mind while my body moved on autopilot. One day, I was supposed to get a ride home after work. My brother was waiting for me in his car. But instead of going to the car, I took the bus home. Because my mind kept repeating certain thoughts with the sense that I experienced those thoughts, and because my body was on autopilot, I went on the bus without thinking about my brother waiting in his car to drive me home. When I got home, I realized that I forgot about my brother. It’s needless to say he wasn’t happy about that.

My thoughts continued. The white faces disappeared and what remained were the white balls of light. I got the sense that the white balls were tired. Then, they collapsed into large disk galaxies. This was shocking to me. I knew what galaxies were. But I didn’t realize that we were galaxies.

Is that what really happened at the origins of the universe? I thought. Is that what the universe was trying to tell me?

If everyone was present in the origins of the universe and before the origins of the universe, then that would mean consciousness had another physical form that is far greater than the human body. But how? How can consciousness be a galaxy and then a human?

There were so many questions that I had. But I could ask no one these questions because no one knew the answers. And if I asked people these questions, they would think I was insane. So, I kept thinking about the questions, and I began to connect the dots. Then I made a couple of significant discoveries. First, I discovered what God is. Second, I discovered what hell is. When I made the second discovery, the repeated thoughts stopped. I was back to my normal self. But I was not the same person that I was. That experience changed how I saw reality, time, God, Jesus, heaven & hell, and the universe.

Why I Wrote a Book

In my opinion, the main reason so many people become religious is to avoid Hell. People don’t know what happens when they die. But they know that they don’t want to go to Hell. And if going to a temple and praying to God are what we need to do to avoid Hell, then we do those things. If spending some of our time for God means we can avoid Hell, then we do that. But most people don’t know what God is, and they don’t know what hell is.

There are many different things that I talk about in this book. But what motivated me to write this book was to educate people about hell. The hell that I will teach you about is not the same thing as the Hell taught in the major religions. If you ask me, hell is not a place, but it only happens on earth. Most importantly, we can do things to experience much less hell in our futures.

Hell is connected to karma. If you believe in karma, which some spiritual teachers call Newton’s third law of motion, then you shouldn’t have difficulty understanding my explanation of hell.

The Dream That Opened My Eyes

Several years before I had my spiritual awakening, I had an eye-opening dream. In the dream, I was walking in a forest. But suddenly, a small snake quickly slithered across my path. I then awoke. And I thought about the dream. But I didn’t know what it meant.

That day, I went on Craigslist (website) to look for a job. There was a job that I was interested in, but it was far away. According to the job post, the hiring person who was also the supervisor wanted people to hand in their resumes in person.

Because the job location didn’t have any bus stops nearby, the hiring person stated that he would drive the new employee to the job site. The new employee just needed to travel to the hiring person’s house every day. Then the hiring person would drive the new employee to work every day.

I wanted to be the new employee, so I took several buses to go to the hiring person's home. I brought my resume. But I couldn’t find the house number that I wrote down. I wrote down the address. And I walked around the neighborhood, but I couldn’t find the home. I went around different areas, and I went around the same areas several times. But I could not see the house number that I was looking for. Feeling frustrated, I stopped, and I looked around. I saw a man mowing the front of his lawn. So, I walked up to the man and asked him if he knew where the address that I was looking for was.

I think it’s over there, he said to me while he pointed in a specific direction.

I went down the direction the man pointed to, but the house wasn’t there. However, I saw a path between two fences that led to a forest, and I thought, Maybe the house is past this forest.

I entered the path, and I walked into the forest. I was expecting a small forest with more houses on the other side. But I was wrong. This was a large forest. I became lost. At some point, I didn’t want to look for the house. I just wanted to get out of the woods. I walked away from the trail, and I walked into the bumpy land, which was covered with grass, leaves, and twigs. I wanted a shortcut to get back to the entrance of the forest. Suddenly, a small snake slithered across my path. This was the first time I saw a real-life snake in a forest. (before that, I saw real-life snakes a few times in pet stores). I believe it was a harmless garden snake.

As I continued to walk in the forest, I thought about the dream I had that day. I realized that my dream revealed the future to me. But how was that possible? How can someone see the future through their dreams? And what does that mean?

I got a glimpse of the secret framework of reality. But I wanted more.

I eventually found a way out of the forest, and I took the bus home. I didn’t find the hiring person's house, but I didn’t care. On my way home, I thought about everything that happened to me that day. Had I not walked into the forest at the right time, and had I not gone down the right path, I would not have seen the snake. I realized that even when I feel lost, I am going down the path that I am destined to go. And I realized that destiny governs everything. You see, if destiny governed a moment where I witnessed a slithering snake, then it must govern everything. Why would it govern just that moment and not every other moment?

I had many questions about destiny and my dream. But who could answer my questions? The following are just some of the questions I had.

How is it possible that a person can see the future? If destiny/fate is real, then why do we experience it? Why are we destined to exist? What is my destiny?

If free will doesn’t exist, then how can Heaven and Hell exist? According to some religious books, if we make the wrong decisions and believe in the wrong ideas, we go to Hell. And if we make the right decisions and believe in certain ideas, we go to Heaven. But Heaven and Hell are ideas that are connected to the idea that we have free will. Without free will, Heaven and Hell wouldn’t make sense, at least not in the ways people normally think about Heaven and Hell.

If destiny is real, why is there so much suffering in the world? And why are there so many different religions that are against one another? And why are there wars? And why do children get cancer and die at a few years old? I had many questions about reality, dreams, time, and destiny. But I knew nobody could answer my questions.

When I went home, I went on Google to see whether other people experienced something similar. What I learned was that there is a name for what I experienced. It’s called precognitive dreams, also known as prophetic dreams. Many people experience precognitive dreams.

A precognitive dream is a dream where people see the future.

When I was young, I didn’t pay much attention to my dreams. When I woke up after having multiple dreams, I sometimes briefly thought about my dreams. Then I went on with my day. But my dream with the snake in the forest freaked me out when it became my reality. I began to question reality.

I experienced a dream that felt so real that I didn’t know I was dreaming. But then I awoke from the dream. And I experienced the same events in my waking life. It had me wondering: is life a dream? And who or what am I outside of the dream?

I later had other precognitive dreams. I was walking toward my home in another precognitive dream, and I saw a small bird on the pavement near my home. In the dream, I was walking on the path that’s on the right side of the front of my home, even though I usually walk on the path that’s on the left side of the front of my home. As I walked toward my home, the bird began hopping away from me. It hopped into my neighbor’s driveway. And then it hopped into my neighbor’s yard. Then the bird disappeared, and I woke up. I thought I dreamt about a wild bird hopping away because I own several parrots, and I thought the dream was a metaphor related to my parrots. But I was wrong. A few days later, I walked toward my home through the path that’s on the right side of the front of my home. And I saw a small bird standing on the pavement, and it saw me. It hopped away from me. I think it couldn’t fly, and I think it was scared of me. As I continued to walk toward my home, which was toward the bird, the bird hopped toward my neighbor’s home. It first went on to my neighbor’s driveway. Then it went into my neighbor’s yard. Then I couldn’t see it. I was surprised because I realized my dream became a part of my reality. Keep in mind, this was the only time I ever witnessed a bird hopping toward my neighbor’s yard in my life.

It felt like I relived a moment. First, I lived a moment in my dream. Then, a few days later, I lived the same moment in my waking life.

After experiencing the snake dream, I began writing my dreams for a few months. I remember having a dream where I saw a gold Dodge Caravan on my driveway. When I woke up, I wrote down, Saw gold Dodge Caravan on driveway.

A few months later, my father’s work car, a white van, broke down. And my father needed to get a new car. So, he came home with a blue sedan. The sedan was a rental. But a week later, he bought a used car. It was a gold Dodge Caravan, just like the one in my dream. I never told my family that I had a dream of seeing a gold Dodge Caravan in the driveway. And I didn’t know that the dream was precognitive until it became my reality.

No matter how many times I have dé·jà vu because of precognitive dreams, I am always surprised when I realize I had a precognitive dream. (dé·jà vu is when a person has a sense that the present situation happened before.)

I experienced a precognitive dream where I saw one of my pet parrots die. A few days later, the parrot died. I also experienced another precognitive dream where I saw another pet parrot die. Again, a few days later, another pet parrot died. However, seeing parrots die in my dreams was quite unusual.

I experienced a precognitive dream where I was in the hospital, and I had difficulty breathing. A few months later, I had trouble breathing, but I didn’t want to go to the hospital. However, the breathing got worse with time, and I felt I had to go to the hospital, so I went.

I experienced a precognitive dream where I was told by an employee that my help was not needed. A few days later, I was fired from work. This was the first time I was fired from work. (I was fired because I told my employer I couldn’t show up to work because I felt sick.)

Experiencing the future in my dreams gave me the impression that the future already happened, just like the past. It gave me the impression that the future and past are deeply connected to one another. And it gave me the impression that life is a dream, and I exist in another form outside of the dream.

When I experienced my spiritual awakening in my mid-twenties, I learned that the future and past are deeply connected to one another. And I learned that life is a dream, and we exist outside of the dream. My intuition was right all along.

In a later chapter, you will learn how the past and future are connected to one another.

The Truth That People Didn’t See Coming

Several years ago, I was in science class, and my science teacher asked a science question, and she gave multiple choice answers.

She asked the class, Who thinks the answer is A? Raise your hand.

Some people raised their hands. And they seemed confident.

This has to be the answer, said one student.

Other people who seemed uncertain looked around, and they saw that there were many hands raised, and they saw that some of the smart students had their hands raised, so the uncertain people raised their hands too.

Next, the teacher said, Who thinks the answer is B? Raise your hand.

Some people picked B. And some people who seemed uncertain looked around, and they saw that there were some hands raised, so the uncertain people also decided to go with B. However, there were fewer people who picked B than A.

Then, the teacher said, Who thinks the answer is C? Raise your hand.

Honestly, I didn’t know the answer. But I had a gut feeling that C was the correct answer, so I raised my hand. I looked around and saw that I was the only one with my hand raised. This made me uncomfortable.

Finally, the teacher said, Who thinks the answer is D? Raise your hand.

No one raised their hands.

Then the teacher said, The correct answer is C. David is the only one who got it right.

People were surprised that C was the correct answer.

How?! one student loudly asked.

Please don’t ask me how I got my answer, I thought.

I got the correct answer, which was a great feeling. But I didn’t want to immediately look like a fool for saying that I picked C just because I had a gut feeling that C was the correct answer. Thankfully, the teacher explained why C was the right answer.

At that moment, I realized that just because most people think they know the answer to something, that doesn’t mean their answers are correct.

People don’t know what happens when they die, and there is so much that people don’t know. But they look at certain popular ideas, and they begin to believe and follow one of the popular ideas.

If you’re looking for the truth, then you shouldn’t believe an idea is the truth just because the idea is popular. But that’s what so many people do. They look at the popular ideas, and they choose one of them. However, the truth could be one of the least popular ideas. It could be an idea you never heard of because you were so quick to go with a popular idea.

Even though virtually all the students got the wrong answers in my science class that day, the students accepted the teacher's answer when the teacher explained the correct answer. Sometimes the teacher must explain the truth; otherwise, the students will continue to believe in false ideas.

The Important Lesson I Learned From My Pets

When I was a teenager, I bought a couple of parrots called lovebirds. I named the male Teddy, and I named the female Harp. A few months later, I purchased another parrot called a cockatiel. I named her Serena.

When Serena wants head scratches, she flies to one of my hands, and she puts her head down. It looks like she’s bowing to my hand. Then she makes a squeak. She wants me to scratch her head. But sometimes, I don’t scratch her head. She gets irritated by this. And she bites one of my fingers. But her bite tickles me because she has a weak bite. I still don’t scratch her head. So, she continues squeaking and biting my fingers for a while. Finally, I scratch her head. I can tell she enjoys it because she closes her eyes and makes a quiet noise.

When Serena wants a bath, she flies to the sink, and she repeatedly screams. I know what she’s saying. She’s saying: I want to take a warm bath! Bring me my bathtub human! I take a bowl and put some warm water inside, and I put it near the sink. She gets inside the bowl, and she makes happy noises. It sounds like she’s singing in the bathtub.

I could not keep Serena in a cage. She went insane in the cage. She kept screaming and screaming and running around and flapping her wings. She did this for hours. She hated the cage. So, I stopped putting her in a cage. However, Teddy and Harp lived in a cage together when it was nighttime. But when it was daytime, I had to open their cage, or else they went crazy.

Sometimes Teddy and Harp sat on my shoulder, while Serena sat on my other shoulder. Because Serena didn’t like Teddy, and vice versa, when Serena saw Teddy on my other shoulder, she screamed and bit my ear. I knew what she was saying. She was yelling: Get him off your shoulder now!

Teddy and Harp were in love with one another. They always wanted to