Acknowledgements
Editor's Preface

Chapter 1: Life After Awakening
Chapter 2: True Awakening - The Chaos That Follows
Chapter 3: "I Found It, But I Lost It"
Chapter 4: Through Samsara to Nirvana
Chapter 5: Coming out of hiding completely
Chapter 6: Common Misconceptions, Traps, and Stuckness
Chapter 7 Life itself is a mirror that awakens us.
Chapter 8: The Energetic Elements of Awakening
Chapter 9: When Awakening Penetrates the Mind, Heart, and Lower Belly
Chapter 10: Effort or Grace
Chapter 11: The Original State
Chapter 12: The Wedding Story
Chapter 13: Interview with Adyashanti

Spiritual awakening is not a rare phenomenon that occurs only in a select few, such as those who meditate in caves for decades or wear special ascetic robes.
Today, more and more people are experiencing spiritual awakening, and the public is naturally accepting the possibility of spiritual experiences.
However, as public awareness has expanded, it is also true that the potential for confusion, misunderstanding, and distortion surrounding the inner experience or phenomenon of 'awakening' has increased.
A spiritual teacher representing an era in which spiritual discussions are more open than ever, Adityasanti unfolds the essence of 'awakening' and the obstacles that often arise thereafter at the deepest level in a living language that everyone can understand.


Even after awakening, we can be deluded again.

Waking up is like taking your foot off the accelerator.
But the car still has power, the power of karma.
It takes time for it to stop, and we have to learn not to step on the accelerator again before it does.
People seem to believe that once they achieve true awakening, no more painful thoughts will ever arise.
But that is not true.
The truth is, as our spiritual awakening deepens, we see more and more clearly, and the more we are able to be caught up in our thoughts, the less we will be able to do so.

Spiritual experiences should not be used as a means of escaping life.

Spiritual awakening is not a self-development program.
This is not a process of trying to become some perfect being.
Awakening or enlightenment has nothing to do with becoming perfect, sublime, or saintly.
This is a process of realizing what is causing separation within oneself.
Therefore, what is crucial at this critical juncture of the spiritual journey is a sincere decision to be willing and completely honest with oneself.

Don't be confused by the energetic changes before and after awakening.

When we realize the true nature of existence, there is almost always some energetic component involved.
This means that a very profound recalibration is taking place in the way our mind-body system works.
On a mental level, a kind of rewiring takes place in the mind, and on an emotional level, a rewiring takes place in the way we feel and perceive.
This is a phenomenon in which a huge amount of energy is released as the ego structure dissolves, and some people may become obsessed with it, experiencing symptoms such as insomnia, restlessness, and autonomic tremors for a long time.
However, this is a completely natural process, so it is best to just relax and let this readjustment happen on its own.

Awakening is not the end of the journey, but the beginning.

Today, more and more people around the world are experiencing a spiritual 'awakening'.
However, experiencing 'awakening' does not mean that the ego melts away all at once.
Rather, we may become more violently swayed by our ego, intoxicated by a sense of superiority, escaping from everyday life, or sinking into nihilism.
Contrary to the naive expectation that one will be completely happy in a state of ecstasy, life after 'awakening' can be quite chaotic for a while.
By clearly explaining the journey from fleeting awakening to abiding awakening (enlightenment) and the experiential differences between these two states, this book will serve as a valuable guide, guiding seekers along the way to avoid falling into the trap of delusion, misunderstanding, and self-deception and reverting to old, ingrained practices.