Eleven years after my first awakening, my answer is this: some things have ended for me, and others are still unfolding.
I'm no longer chasing the next realization. Less and less comes up to be seen, and when something does, there's much more room for it. The biggest difference is that awakening no longer feels like a process I need to manage every day. There is so much more room to enjoy life.
It definitely wasn't always like that.
The first five years: trying to get it right
For roughly the first five years, I went into this very intensely. A lot of searching, meditating, watching videos, self-inquiry and trying different healing techniques. I wanted to understand what was happening and dissolve all my conditioning.
I was trying to get awakening right in every way. If something difficult came up, I wanted to understand it, work through it and release it immediately. If I heard about a certain realization, I wanted to get there and find out how.
There was a lot of effort around something that was supposed to bring freedom. And eventually I became very tired. There was a period, when my wife was pregnant, when even going to the supermarket felt like too much. I wrote about that period here. At times I questioned whether this whole awakening was worth it.
Today, life feels more joyful and easier than it ever did before. So what changed?
Two different things: the shift and the conditioning
It helps to separate two things: a change in how you experience yourself, and the conditioning that starts to show up afterwards.
With my first awakening, the feeling of being only this person began to loosen. Only this body, only this mind, only this personal history. There was a knowing that I am part of something larger. You could call it life, nature or the universe. Those are words for something that was experiential for me.
I also started to notice my thoughts much more clearly, because there was more distance between me and my thoughts. Before, a thought could feel so much like reality that I barely noticed I was thinking.
That shift stayed. So did a deep peace. Whatever happened, a part of me knew, when I sat still in a chair and relaxed, that everything was okay and that I was carried. That didn't depend on my mood.
But seeing that didn't mean every old pattern had disappeared. I could have that opening and still feel pressure to prove myself, still resist an uncomfortable feeling, still react from a familiar belief.
Deconditioning: one layer of the onion at a time
That second part is what I call deconditioning. Something comes up so it can be seen and released. After a spiritual awakening, many people go through these cycles, with things coming up very frequently to be seen and dissolved. For some it's right in their face. Others ride emotional or energetic waves.
One pattern becomes clear, and then another surfaces. It doesn't have to be the whole pattern. One layer of the onion is peeled, and then the next one can come up.
If you watch all of this closely, it can feel like there's always something to work on. That was part of why it was so exhausting for me. The other part was that I felt I had to do it all myself. I took everything to the mind and made a project out of it. I was working on my process, instead of letting the process work on me.
A part of me that always wanted to improve and prove itself, and felt not good enough, had found a very interesting new project: spiritual awakening. That's one way a spiritual ego can creep in, and it certainly happened in my case.
What helped
What started to become clear was a simple question. Is this something I'm mentally constructing, or is it actually here? Do I feel a sensation of it?
The whole orientation toward the body and toward feeling was something I really had to learn. For me, the key was surrender, feeling the body, grounding, and letting go of the need to take everything to the mind.
The quality of my practice changed. I saw how much extra effort I had been adding: trying to force an experience to change, trying to figure everything out myself, trying to move myself forward. My main practice became surrender. In my own kundalini process, it was very important to give myself enough rest, and to meditate without forcing a technique: just sitting, and grounding to stabilize the energy.
I'm not a big retreat person. I've done a couple, but I enjoy practicing in my chair at home, with my family and ordinary life around me. An hour of practice, sometimes more, has suited me much better than building my whole life around retreats.
That's what I mean by finding your blueprint. Not a perfect routine you discover once and then execute forever. A growing understanding of what helps you, what overwhelms you, what stabilizes you, and what makes you feel good in your daily life.
Daily life is the feedback
I think it's very important to function in daily life and to be stable. That's also where you get the most honest feedback: from your friends and family, your co-workers, the people you talk to at the supermarket.
That doesn't mean everyone has to like you. It means that when you function well in daily life, you cause less suffering for the people around you, and you suffer less from your interactions with them. Then you're doing well.
So, does it end?
It depends on what you mean.
Does the initial recognition disappear? In my experience, no.
Can the constant chasing of the next realization stop? In my experience, yes. At some point insight reaches a natural end. For me, that was the no-self realization. Words like nondual realization and no-self can sound like achievements. What matters to me more is living from the heart, and allowing life to move through you.
Do you reach a point where nothing new ever comes up and there's no more growth? That isn't what I'm describing. Life keeps expanding. But much less comes up than it used to, and when something does, there's so much more room to see it and let it unfold. I no longer feel like my life is on hold until I finish the process.
A better question than "how far along am I?"
If you're in a difficult part of your awakening, I'd invite you to go beyond the question of how far along you are. Look at how you're relating to what's happening.
Are you allowing yourself to fully feel it?
Are you turning every experience into something you need to solve?
Does the way you practice support your daily life and the role you play in the world?
You don't have to answer them all at once. And sometimes it helps to ask what wants to be seen right now, what you're still avoiding, and what life is asking of you today.
Frequently asked questions
Does spiritual awakening ever end? The initial recognition usually doesn't disappear. The chasing of the next realization can stop. Deconditioning, old patterns coming up to be seen, can continue for a long time, but it tends to come up less and becomes much easier to meet.
Why does spiritual awakening feel so exhausting? Often because it becomes a project. You watch everything closely, there's always something to work on, and you feel you have to do it all yourself. Feeling the body, grounding and surrender take a lot of that effort away.
How long does a spiritual awakening last? There's no fixed timeline. For me, the first five years were the most intense. What made the biggest difference wasn't time, but finding a way of working with the process that suited me.
Want help finding what works for you?
Finding what helps, meeting the conditioning that comes up and finding stability after awakening is a large part of the work I do with people. If you'd like support with that, you can book a free call.