There are days on this journey when I feel like I’m dissolving. Not in some poetic, blissed-out, rainbow-unicorn kind of way—but in a raw, aching, existential unraveling. Meditation, fasting, journaling, prayer—I’ve done all of it. I've cried so deeply it felt like I was weeping from lifetimes. And still, sometimes I feel like screaming, “I can’t do this anymore.”
And yet… I remain. Because something within me—something deeper than my mind, older than my body—knows this pain isn’t punishment. It’s purification.
Dr. Gillian Ross’s recent video, “Why Spiritual Awakening is Not the End”, speaks to this exact place in the soul’s evolution. She reminds us that the moment we want to quit may be the moment we’re evolving the most.
“What if this breaking point is actually the moment you're evolving the most?”
Those words hit me like a lightning bolt—because they’re not theoretical. They describe my life.
I came into this life already on the cusp of remembrance. I’ve always known that this—the body, the story, the drama—is not the whole truth. My heart has always burned with a longing to dissolve the veil between science and spirit, to bring together the microscope and the mantra, the telescope and the temple.
But nobody told me how much the ego would resist its own death.
I remember what Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj said:
“The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Once you know this, all fear goes.”
Yet knowing this and embodying it are different. When old dreams fade, when identities crumble, when even sacred ideas like “progress” and “awakening” feel like burdens, there is nothing left to hold onto. That nothingness feels like death. But it is precisely in that ego-death that the Self, the formless witness, begins to shine.
As Adi Shankara taught:
“You are not the body, nor is the body yours. You are not the doer, nor the enjoyer. You are pure Awareness, the eternal witness, free and unattached—so live in joy.”
That’s easy to say on paper. Much harder when your life feels like a controlled demolition.
What Dr. Ross calls “the void”—that strange place between who you were and who you are becoming—has been a recurring visitor in my life. I know it well. It’s not depression. It’s not apathy. It’s the space between stories. It’s the pause between inhale and exhale where identity loses form, and pure being peeks through.
Ramana Maharshi faced this void as a teenager, confronting death itself until what remained was the pure “I-I,” untouched by form or function. I feel his silent gaze even now in the stillness of my breath.
“That which is not present in deep dreamless sleep is not real.” — Ramana Maharshi
And yet, my conditioned mind still sometimes demands clarity, wants results, clings to the myth that awakening means permanent peace and polished perfection.
But peace is not perfection—it is surrender.
One of the most liberating insights from the video was this:
“What if you quit the idea that there’s a path at all?”
That shattered something in me—in the best way. Because maybe all this striving is the very thing keeping me from simply resting in what I already am. The more I chase the goal of “awakening,” the more I reinforce the illusion that I am a someone who must awaken.
But as Rumi reminds us:
“You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck.”
Yogananda said the same thing in a more cosmic way:
“You do not have to struggle to reach God, but you do have to struggle to tear away the self-created veil that hides Him from you.”
It’s not about becoming spiritual. It’s about remembering that I am spirit, here and now. Not in some future attainment—but in this broken moment, this tear-streaked breath, this very act of choosing presence over despair.
If you, dear reader, find yourself at that edge—burnt out, numb, doubting your path—please know that you are not alone. I’ve been there. I’m still there sometimes. And yet I’ve discovered that these dark nights are not detours. They are initiations.
Don’t try so hard. Don’t force yourself to evolve. As the video says: the ocean doesn’t try to be wet. It just is. So rest. Laugh. Nap. Cry. Surrender not in defeat but in deep trust.
You are not the storm. You are the sky it passes through.
If you’re feeling like giving up, pause instead. Cry if you need to. Rage if you must. But don’t abandon the part of you that still believes in truth, beauty, and love.
“Because once you've tasted it, you'll never be satisfied with anything less.” — Dr. Gillian Ross
Spend some time with the full video
here:
📺 Watch on YouTube
And if this resonates, leave a comment below, or share how you’ve made it through your own spiritual breaking points. Let’s walk each other home, as Ram Dass said.
This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning.
ॐ With love and stillness, a fellow
traveler.
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