Your True Self - Spiritual Awakening: What Are We Trying So Hard to Become?

Your True Self – Spiritual Awakening

Most of us seem to spend a surprising amount of our lives trying to become somebody.

A little more successful.

A little more confident.

A little more disciplined.

A little more peaceful.

A little more enlightened.

Apparently even spiritual awakening can become another item on the to-do list.

Meditate. Exercise. Drink more water. Become one with the universe. Pick up groceries.

It’s exhausting.

And underneath all this striving is a question we don’t often stop long enough to ask:

What Are We Trying So Hard to Become?

There’s nothing wrong with growing.

Hopefully, as the years go by, we become a little kinder, a little wiser, perhaps slightly less likely to lose our minds because somebody is driving twelve miles per hour under the speed limit.

We learn.

We mature.

We screw things up.

We apologize.

We try again.

That’s life.

But there’s another kind of striving that feels different.

It comes from the quiet assumption that who I am right now is somehow not enough.

If I could just become more spiritual…

If I could quiet my mind…

If I could get rid of my ego…

If I could finally figure myself out…

Then I would arrive.

Then I would be okay.

Then, presumably, dramatic music would play and somebody would hand me a certificate confirming my enlightenment.

But what if there is nowhere to arrive?

Finding Your True Self May Not Be About Becoming Anything

One of the ideas I find most beautiful in Vedanta is also one of the simplest.

What we truly are is already here.

Not the personality.

Not the résumé.

Not the collection of opinions, memories, successes, failures, worries, preferences and stories we’ve accumulated over the years.

Vedanta uses the word Atman for the true Self—the awareness beneath all of those changing things.

And in Advaita Vedanta, Atman is not ultimately separate from Brahman, the underlying reality of everything.

That’s a very big philosophical idea.

But you don’t necessarily need to make it big.

You can simply notice:

Your thoughts change.

Your moods change.

Your body changes.

Your circumstances change.

Even your ideas about who you are have changed many times.

And yet somehow, through all of it, there has always been this simple sense of being here.

Something has been aware of all the changes.

Maybe finding your true self isn’t about constructing a better identity.

Maybe it’s about noticing what has been here before all the identities.

The Sky Doesn’t Need to Get Rid of the Clouds

I like thinking about it as the sky and the clouds.

Clouds come.

Clouds go.

Some are light and beautiful.

Some are dark and dramatic.

Some hang around much longer than we’d like.

The sky doesn’t argue with them.

It doesn’t wake up in the morning and think:

I’ve really got to work on myself. Way too cloudy lately.

The clouds appear within the sky, but they don’t change what the sky is.

Our thoughts and emotions can be something like that.

Fear appears.

Joy appears.

Anger appears.

Confidence appears.

Self-doubt appears.

The mind gets busy.

The mind gets quiet.

All of it moves.

And yet awareness itself is simply here, noticing.

We spend an enormous amount of energy rearranging the clouds.

Maybe occasionally it would be helpful to remember the sky.

Spiritual Awakening Isn’t Becoming More Spiritual

This is where spiritual seeking can become wonderfully ironic.

We begin looking for our true nature…

…and then create an entire new identity around being someone who is looking for their true nature.

We buy the books.

Learn the Sanskrit words.

Try to meditate correctly.

Wonder whether we’re making enough spiritual progress.

Maybe get slightly annoyed with people who aren’t making as much spiritual progress as we are.

And there it is.

The ego has discovered incense.

I don’t say that critically. I recognize the tendency because I’m human too.

The mind can turn almost anything into another identity.

Even awakening.

But perhaps spiritual awakening isn’t about becoming a more spiritual version of ourselves.

Perhaps it is more about seeing through the need to keep manufacturing versions of ourselves in the first place.

Stop Striving and Start Remembering

There’s a difference between learning something and remembering something.

Learning says:

I don’t have this yet.

Remembering says:

Oh…there it is.

That’s how I increasingly think about the spiritual path.

Less like climbing a mountain toward some future enlightened version of myself.

More like remembering.

Remembering what was here before I started defining myself.

Before the accomplishments.

Before the disappointments.

Before the labels.

Before I decided who I needed to become.

The true Self isn’t standing at the finish line shouting encouragement.

It’s the one who’s been here the whole time.

Letting Go Doesn’t Mean Giving Up

This doesn’t mean we stop growing.

We still practice.

We still create.

We still learn.

We still try to become better at loving the people in our lives.

Hopefully we continue becoming a little less ridiculous as human beings, although results may vary.

But the motivation can change.

We no longer have to improve ourselves in order to become worthy of being ourselves.

Growth can happen without that underlying desperation.

We can learn without trying to complete ourselves.

We can meditate without trying to manufacture enlightenment.

We can create without needing the creation to tell us who we are.

We can allow life to unfold without constantly asking it to turn us into somebody.

There’s something wonderfully relaxing about that.

You Are Already What You’re Looking For

Maybe that’s one of the deepest invitations in Vedanta.

Stop looking out there for what is already here.

Atman isn’t some improved version of you waiting in the future.

Brahman isn’t a destination.

The true Self doesn’t appear after you’ve finally gotten everything right.

It’s here in the middle of the mess.

Here while the mind is noisy.

Here while you’re confused.

Here while you’re searching for it.

The wave doesn’t have to become the ocean.

It only has to recognize what it’s made of.

And maybe we don’t need to force ourselves toward some better, more spiritual version of who we are.

Maybe we can loosen our grip a little.