4 - How to recognize revelation?

Recap!

Here is what we got so far:

 1 - What is Revelation
Revelation is first and foremost a daily communion with your higher power, hopefully resulting in acute experiences.
2- How to Get Revelation
Live your life with consistent practices and walk the path of faith.
3 - Rolling Back the Distractions
Get rid of the things (6 are highlighted) that keep you from receiving revelation.

 In other words, find your target, aim for your target, get rid of blockers between you and your target. As peachy as those peaches in blog post 2.

The Greatest Misconception of Recognizing Revelation

Attention all passengers! Please hold on to your horses! I believe I have found the greatest misconception of recognizing revelation. Ever.

 The greatest misconception of recognizing revelation is to think that what you are seeking for are simply feelings. 

 Stay with me here.

 When I seek for revelation, I am asking the highest power I know to become part of my life. Feelings are important in the process, don't get me wrong, but if you are simply searching for feelings, you are only skin deep. Revelation is not the feelings, it is the cause of the feelings.

 Remember in Man of Steel when the priest asks Super Man 'What does your gut tell you?' I always cringe just a little bit at the conversation for a number of reasons, but first and foremost because the priest, if he knows what he is talking about, isn't actually talking about a 'gut' feeling. He's talking about a deeper process that manifests itself as a deep down conviction in a truth that hopefully Super Man is in tune with.

This is the thing. Feelings and emotions are part of our physical experience. But there are a lot of sources of feelings. good sources can produce feelings. So can bad sources. So can the pizza you ate last night. So whenever we have feelings, we are really wise to ask 'where did these feelings come from?' and if they came from a good source, let's seek the source.

Some Ways to Recognize your Feelings are Revelation

Now that we've talked about seeking the source, we should be prepared to examine the types of feelings we may have that will help us seek the source. Here are a few I have had.

Light of Christ

Everyone has felt this at least some time in their lives. I feel this whenever I do something good. Sometimes I think we call it our conscience.

Comforter

This is the manifestation most confused with feelings because it speaks so directly to our feelings. I feel very warm inside like I am loved or sometimes my worries feel like the evaporate into the air and I am filled with an excited joy. My current understanding is that although it is tempting when we feel this to close the line, and not seek more revelation, we should instead push forward all the more to seek greater light and truth... which is conveniently my next type!

Spirit of Truth

This is a much sharper feeling, like a fire that cuts and burns without heat. It is highly energizing and sometimes makes me feel light. I can feel this a little whenever I read something that is really true. In rarer moments, when I say something that I know is true, and it has a truth beyond what we daily would say is true, I feel this very sharply.

Clarity of Understanding

I like to compare this to someone striking one of those Tibetan bowls and, like that clear ringing note, it feels like the world gets silent and I feel at once connected and intense and incredibly focused and aware. I can think of this happening twice in my life. The first time, I was listening to a practiced spiritual teacher show how he answers questions and I remember commenting to him afterward that as he answered the demonstrator's question, that it felt like everything in the room became very clear. The second time was last year when I had a specific question I was seeking an answer to and in one of my holy places, I felt a feeling of ultra awareness of everything and a quiet, and I took that as an affirmative response to my question.

Calm reminder

This feeling is a lot like the comforter I described, but while the comforter usually happens alone in peaceful circumstances and makes it feel like you have shields of protection, the calm reminder is more of a flowing assurance that you are doing the right thing and have no need of shields. It is like knowing you are in the right place at the right time saying the right thing to the right people.

Love of God

This feeling is really difficult to describe. This is another one where I highly caution against analyzing it as a surface level feeling because it is so deep and vast and overflowing. I think that we have all felt this before too, but we don't reach down to understand the depth and breadth of it. I felt this intensely during perhaps a one year period of my life, which was also, uncoincidentally, the period where I was most dedicated to helping others. There was a prophet called Nephi in ancient times that said once that God had filled him with His love, even unto the consuming of his flesh. It is a strange description, but that is the closest I would describe my experience as well.

Wrap-up

Well, those are some of the ways I have received inspiration and revelation over the years and I hope they help you to understand experiences in your own life. If you have other ways of identifying a spiritual manifestation, please let me know! Remember that this is not a complete list, and also that it is just the beginning. Hopefully as you progress, you get better guidance and stronger revelation!

Here is a quote from Paul's letter to the early Christian church in Rome (Romans 8:38 NLT) to ponder:
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.





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