悟る vs 気づく vs 分かる Satoru vs Kizuku vs Wakaru


From my understanding, 気づく is more "to realise" and 分かる is more to
"understand" right?

Where does 悟る fall in comparison to these 2? Is it more towards "realising" or
"understanding"? Or is it completely different with some nuance I'm missing?




悟る is much more nuanced and much less common than 気づく/分かる, but it still can be
used safely in day-to-day conversations of ordinary people. Outside
religious/philosophical contexts, 悟る is basically closer to "to realize (some
important fact/truth)". Its object is usually something out of control of the
speaker, something that initially seemed vague or hidden. The realized fact is
often (but not always) unpleasant to the speaker. 悟る usually involves a
certain amount of reasoning process (in this sense, "to understand" is not too
far, either).

>   * その写真を見て夫が浮気していると悟った。  
>  I saw the photo and realized my husband was cheating.
>   * 彼の死期が近いと悟った。  
>  I realized he was close to death.
>   * そのスピーチを聞いて、もう故郷には帰れないことを悟った。  
>  After listening to the speech, I realized we could never return to our home
> town.
>

気づく can mean "to realize", but its basic meaning is more like "to notice." The
object of 気づく can be any (unimportant) event which is directly perceivable and
does not require reasoning (e.g., 床にごみが落ちているのに気づいた).

As l'électeur said, 悟る also has a religious/spiritual meaning, "to be
enlightened/awakened". Check the actual usages of this verb in a corpus and
[all these entries on ALC](https://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E6%82%9F%E3%82%8B).
Note that [悟り](https://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E6%82%9F%E3%82%8A) is an
established religious concept which almost always means enlightenment (and
[that's how masu-stem
works](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/32311/5010)).

