The thing is, everyone’s trying to escape their humanity because they think awakening is rising above the suffering of this world and they think that looks like acquiring spiritual powers, attaining higher levels of consciousness, and being blissed out in ‘oneness’ with ‘all that is.’

With an authentic awakening, you don’t rise above suffering in the sense that it doesn’t affect you anymore. You rise above suffering in the sense that you no longer resist or deny it, and you’re perfectly willing to experience it. You’re willing to have a complete experience in this life. You don’t have a choice, anyway, but you stop resisting reality.

The compulsion to make your life comfortable and the compulsion to “work on yourself” fall away like dead skin. You get that suffering is grace. In the dreamstate, when you got knocked down, you got back up to fight, overcome, and prosper. After awakening, you’ll still get knocked down, but you get back up and continue playing your part.