“Make no mistake about it – enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
– Adyashanti

Spiritual awakening or Enlightenment entails being awake to our true nature. And it is no walk in the park because to be aware of our true nature means we need to let go of all the false identifications and limited beliefs we have.

This process in the spiritual awakening journey is referred to as “Dark night of the soul” or “Spiritual death”.

It is not the death in terms of physicality but death of false identifications we have with our ego, mind; and body.

When we begin to awaken to our infinite nature, our Ego self-faces the threat of death crisis and tries to do everything in its power to maintain the Status Quo.

But when we begin to move forward on this awakening journey and awaken to our true nature of being an infinite and eternal being the Ego gives in and learns to collaborate with our soul.

Ego death is a kind of rite of passage wherein we realize that we are the infinite soul and Ego is just an instrument that we use.

And this is the moment of our Spiritual rebirth, when we step into our Infinite nature and create our reality from a place of love and compassion.

If you are going through the dark night of the soul right now, hang in there, soon you will realize your Infinite nature and the cosmic miracle that you are!

“The phoenix must burn to emerge.” – Janet Fitch

I have compiled a list of 12 signs that you are going through Spiritual Death (and Rebirth) :

1) You feel helpless

When you start on the awakening journey, you may feel extremely lonely and face huge cognitive dissonance.
This is because all the belief systems and conditionings you had will crumble right before your eyes and you would not know whom to discuss these things with.
But hang in there, once the Ego crumbles, you will realize that you are the same essence that is there in everything else and you will feel more interconnected with the entire Cosmos then you ever felt before.

2) You feel as though you are not living to your fullest potential

When you start this process, you will realize that you are not living your life to your highest potential.
Don’t be scared of this feeling of discontent, this is actually the driving force that will guide you on the path that you need to take to become your best possible version.

3) You feel like something is missing in your life

Even though you may have everything in your life that looks good paper:
A good career, relationship, and financial stability, you would still feel like something is missing in your life.
This is because you are not hearing the cries of your soul that is desperately trying to get your attention to wake up to your true nature.
When you realize your real self, you will finally find the missing piece of the puzzle.

4) You are physically, mentally and emotionally drained

The process of spiritual death and rebirth can be extremely draining and exhausting physically, emotionally and mentally.
This is because our body is undergoing a lot of changes on energetic level and we might feel headaches, flu, body ache and other uncomfortable symptoms. But hang in there; this is not an unending process.