The Hard Truth About Spiritual Awakening

The hard truth about awakening is that it’s actually hard. But many spiritual teachers don’t like to speak about the dark side of awakening, because they think you’d be discouraged from the path if you knew exactly how difficult it is. But in this episode, I will show you what a spiritual awakening really looks like.

If you start to dig into this topic, you’ll find that the web is plastered with beautiful descriptions of this process, and they all list the amazing benefits of spiritual awakening. The big problem with them however, is that they describe the end result of awakening and not the process itself. Although the destination is beautiful and peaceful, the journey itself is often ugly and arduous.

Most spiritual teachers are guilty of painting an overly rosy picture about the awakening process, and they tend to forget about the thorns along the way. All they speak about is love and light, and you wonder why you experience hatred and darkness. There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s just a natural part of the process that nobody told you before.

Going on the spiritual journey with this overly optimistic attitude is like going to a gunfight with a knife. Sooner or later, you will have to face the harsh reality: that awakening is harder than you thought. If you are not prepared enough mentally and emotionally, if you expect an easy fight, if you think it will be quick and straightforward, you will give up at the first sight of pain or discomfort. This is not a walk in the park, it’s more like a ride through hell.

I often compare the spiritual journey to climbing a dangerous mountain. Although the peak is indeed beautiful and amazing, the climb to the top is often anything but easy. I can only be your guide, I can only prepare you and show you the way, but I can’t take the steps for you. And to be truly prepared, you need a realistic picture of what’s waiting for you.

Now imagine if I was a tour guide taking people to Mount Everest. Imagine if I told you that you don’t need any serious preparation for the journey, it’s enough if you come in a t-shirt and you bring some snacks. That nothing dangerous can happen on the way, and it will last for only a couple of hours before we reach the peak. This would be totally irresponsible of me, and dangerous to you.

Yet this is exactly how most spiritual teachers prepare you for the journey of awakening. They make you believe it’s quick, easy and painless. Otherwise they couldn’t sell you their courses or weekend workshops. But by giving you false hopes, they only set you up for failure. But remember: every frozen body on Mount Everest was once a motivated person.

But don’t worry: enlightenment is not impossible. I don’t want to discourage you from the spiritual journey, I just want to make sure that you actually go through it. No matter how hard it is right now, I want you to persist, because when you look back, you will realize that it was all worth it in the end. With the right attitude, you can reach the high altitude.

And the right attitude is not optimism, positive thinking or childish hopefulness, but authenticity, humility and brutal honesty. I agree when Jung said that one does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. You can only dispel darkness by going into the darkness yourself, by facing your own shadow, by looking behind your own mask.

So, let me be brutally honest with you: spiritual awakening is probably the hardest thing you’ll ever go through in your life. If you’re already in it, there’s no turning back, you have to go through it totally, or you’ll get stuck in the darkness forever. The key is to stop resisting the suffering, the pain, the discomfort, and let your personality, your illusions and your beliefs be destroyed.

If you’re struggling with spiritual awakening, I created many helpful videos in the topics of depression, anxiety, loneliness and meaninglessness. If you feel you hit rock bottom, I want you to watch my episode titled “The dark night of the soul”. And if you want a realistic step-by-step process that leads you to enlightenment, join the Rebirth Academy: my online video course that I created for people just like you.

In this free report, I’ll reveal my number one secret to spiritual enlightenment that almost nobody else speaks about. Download it now below, to find out what it is! I can guarantee you, you’ll be surprised!

Memento Mori!