Prior to Spiritual Awakening we are living as 'self' - the person we think we are - our thoughts, feelings, relationships, beliefs, desires, fears etc. ...Separate. ...Alone in a vast universe.
But our view is severely limited by the 'fog of energies of past experiences' (discussed earlier in this series).
When the 'light' of our consciousness can penetrate the first layers of this fog, it illuminates some aspects of previously hidden realities, and we gain our first insights.
These experiences naturally take our interest in the direction of spiritual and mystical teachings and information.
Gradually we realise that what we had previously believed about our 'self' and life, is only on the surface - a bit like the tip of an iceberg above the water line.
With this deepening of perception come feelings of unity, love and joy, that sometimes spontaneously arise within us.
How our Spiritual Awakening then unfolds is unique to each of us. But we all continue to have more experiences that expand our view further.
Some may have sudden revelations of infinite silence, or vast new expanses of profound insight will come, and these may temporarily feel like an 'arrival'. It can easily be believed that this is 'Enlightenment' or 'Self Realisation'. But it is incredibly rare that this is true. For almost all, when the fog eventually thins out a little more, it is realised that the journey is nowhere near over!
For almost all, Spiritual Awakening proceeds in subtle, imperceptible shifts as consciousness is gradually expanding outwards from the limited view of the apparently separate self - and with this, new understandings keep coming into view.
Spiritual Awakening is therefore a journey of discovery - but of what? We all find more peace, removal of unwanted causes of suffering, but what lies beyond all this we cannot know. Yet somehow we must continue. We are drawn forward, always looking for paths, maps, companions and guides - but ultimately we discover that we are travelling to somewhere or something that is unknowable through the mind!
The irony is, according to the most revered spiritual insights, the journey is actually from Oneness, to a belief that we are separate - and finally back to Oneness.
Spiritual Awakening is the mystical return journey - the Journey Home.