The goal of the spiritual journey is to realize and be your true self.

Spiritual enlightenment. Freedom from suffering. Emptiness. Fullness. The awakened state.

There are many words for the goal of the spiritual journey: the state where we are free from worldly suffering, the suffering of our minds, emotions, and our old programming that come from thousands of years of human conditioning.

But to be free, all you have to do is be who you are.

That realization is so close and yet far away – because we humans have been guided so far away from who we are that it’s easy to believe that even on the spiritual path, freedom is still something outside of us or something other than being who we are.

If we use the word enlightenment, it’s easy to see it as a high, unreachable state. Maybe a state where we walk around without any sense of ourselves, being everything and everyone without limit.

But those are spiritual experiences. We can experience that oneness with all in certain states of consciousness. They are beautiful experiences, and those heightened states of consciousness can lead to a realization of the true self.

The moments of stillness and clarity that we sometimes experience in meditation or in our daily lives when we have practiced being present for a while can also lead to the realization.

But the true self is closer than all those experiences. It is who you are, your true nature.

When you are yourself, you experience oneness with all, and you are still you.

We are individuals within the whole. So, we are one, and yet ourselves. But it’s not our separate ego identities. The true self is not an object in our minds. The true self is closer; it is you.

So, on the spiritual path, we recognize the ego and begin to free ourselves from old conditioning that has been part of that identity.

But what’s even more important on the path than clearing the old mind patterns, and finding clarity and inner stillness, is realizing who we are beyond it all.

When we do, the old conditioning falls away almost automatically because we have experienced a shift in consciousness. When we have realized who we are, we can’t go back and take on an old perception of ourselves again. We have seen through the illusion.

It may take a while to adjust to our new reality and to release what’s left of the old identity, but we will not become that identity again.

So, the goal of the spiritual path is realizing and being who you are.

Being awake is being you.