The Path to Spiritual Enlightenment – Your First Birth: The Original Pure Mind (1 of 7)
The Path to Spiritual Enlightenment – Part 1 of 7
What if everything you think you know about yourself is just a thin layer of programming?
The day you were born, you had a shining pure mind. No thoughts. No worries. Just pure presence and joy.
Then something happened.
Year after year, this clear consciousness was filled with others’ rules, opinions, and expectations. Layer upon layer. Until you forgot who you really were.
Today, most of us live in a zombie state. The hamster wheel spins on autopilot. We do what we “should” do, think what we “should” think – without ever asking ourselves what we actually want.
But there is a way back.
In this article, I explore what happens to us from birth to adulthood – and how you can begin to reverse the process. This is the first part in a series about the path to spiritual awakening and spiritual enlightenment.
In our eternal search for meaning, we often encounter the concept of “spiritual enlightenment” and spiritual awakening”. A goal that seems as elusive as it is sought after. But what does it actually mean? And why do people in all cultures and throughout all ages long for this experience?
These are questions I asked myself at the beginning of my journey. As a civil engineer, I wasn’t exactly predisposed to mystical experiences. Quite the opposite. I was skeptical of anything that couldn’t be measured and weighed. But then came the burnout in 2003 – an experience that turned my life upside down and forced me to explore dimensions of reality I had never taken seriously before.
This article series explores the nature of enlightenment. We look at what it means in different traditions. And we dive into what shamans call “shamanic death” – a concept that at first glance may seem frightening, but which holds a deep wisdom about human transformation.
Shamanic death is not a physical death. It’s something deeper. It’s the end of one way of being. And the beginning of an entirely new one.
Enlightenment is often described as complete insight. Harmony with all that is. A dimension beyond time and space. The paths to get there are as many as the people who seek it. From the deep peace of Buddhist meditation to the ecstatic union with the divine in Sufi traditions. From the Zen Buddhist’s sudden satori to the shaman’s gradual transformation through nature.
Enlightenment has driven people to extraordinary journeys. Toward self-discovery. Toward self-transcendence. Toward an understanding of reality that lies far beyond what everyday consciousness can grasp.
In this series, I invite you on such a journey. A journey that can change how you see the world. And how you live in it. Not because I have all the answers – no one does – but because I have walked this path myself and seen what is possible.
The Original Pure Mind
A deep journey toward your core requires courage. You must be willing to question everything you’ve learned. Everything you think you know about yourself. About the world. About reality. This isn’t easy. It requires you to let go of beliefs you may have held onto your entire life.
But the reward is immeasurable. In this exploration, you find not only your true self. You find a source of unlimited wisdom and joy. A source that has always been there, but has been hidden behind layer upon layer of learned beliefs and limitations.
The day you were born, nature gave you something incredibly valuable. An innocent, pure state. A blank canvas of consciousness. Think about it for a moment. You came into this world without a single idea about who you were, what you would become, or what others expected of you.
A being full of life. Without thoughts. Without conditioning. Only pure joy, vitality, and bliss. Have you ever watched a newborn child? The total presence. The unconditional openness. The natural joy that shines from their eyes.
This is life’s fundamental state. A state of deep joy that is always there. Beneath everything else. Beneath the worries, the planning, the anxiety, and the stress. It’s what remains when all the murkiness is washed away.
Many believe that happiness is something we must achieve. Something we must work for, deserve, win. But in my experience, it’s the opposite. Happiness and joy are our natural state. What we call “unhappiness” is what gets layered on top – layer upon layer of fear, worry, and limiting beliefs.
The day you were born, nature provided you with an innocent, pure state – a blank canvas of consciousness that all babies have when they are born. This is life’s fundamental state – a state of great joy and passion that is what remains when all the other muck we have learned throughout life is removed.
Pål-Esben Wanvig
Your First Birth
The day you were born, you had a shining pure mind. Not empty – pure. Full of consciousness, but without the filters that would later shape how you perceive reality.
This consciousness that lives in you – that gives life to your body – exists in all living things. It IS the essence of life. It’s the same consciousness that pulses in the trees, in the animals, in the ocean, in the stars. We are not separate beings who happen to find ourselves in a universe. We are the universe experiencing itself.
We came into this world without prejudice. Without preconceived opinions. Without the noise of the ego. This state is our natural form. Where life is experienced directly, immediately, without filters. Without all the layers of interpretation that later shape how we perceive reality.
This birth – what I call the first birth – happens for most people in an unconscious state. We don’t consciously choose to be born. We don’t remember the process. We gradually awaken to consciousness without understanding where we came from or why we’re here (For more information on this topic, see the articles “Karma and Karmic Cycles Can Create Suffering and Struggle — Here’s How to Break Them and Step Into a Life of Deep Meaning” and “Learn How to LOVE Your Karma!”.
In our shamanic tradition, we understand that this birth is governed by soul dispositions and karmic tendencies. We bring something with us from before. Not concrete memories, but patterns, tendencies, unresolved themes seeking their fulfillment in this life.
This isn’t mysticism for mysticism’s sake. It’s a framework that helps us understand why we are the way we are. Why certain challenges appear in our lives. And how we can consciously work with these patterns to free ourselves from them.
How You Were Shaped
Every blade of grass has enough consciousness to follow the sun across the sky. Every leaf on a tree is conscious. Wherever there is life, there is consciousness. And where there is consciousness, there is life. This isn’t poetry – it’s a fundamental truth that modern science is gradually beginning to confirm.
But then something happened to you.
When you were five, six, maybe ten years old, the people around you began to fill that clear consciousness. With words. Rules. Language. Social norms. Culture. Traditions. Religions. Opinions. Prejudices. All of this streamed into you, day after day, year after year.
These are the tools we need to survive in society. Without language, we cannot communicate. Without social norms, society would collapse. Without culture, we have no common frame of reference. All of this is necessary. But it also creates the foundation for the ego.
Over time, an ego is built that claims to be the “self”. An ego that pretends to be you. Not just in some situations, but all the time. For the rest of your life. It becomes so all-encompassing that you forget there is anything else.
Your imprints accumulate over time and build up an ego that claims to be the ‘self’, and that pretends to be you for the rest of your life.
Pål-Esben Wanvig
The ego is created from others’ rules. Others’ opinions. What is right and wrong. How you should behave. What you should think. What you should like and not like. Who you should be and not be.
By the age of twelve, you have no idea where you came from. That you are filled with consciousness. You have no idea about the true, original you. You believe that your thoughts are you. That your feelings are you. That your opinions are you.
Over time, this conditioning completely overshadows the original purity. We begin to identify with a “self” created by experiences, upbringing, and others’ expectations. And we forget who we really are.
This didn’t happen to you because someone wished you harm. Parents, teachers, society – everyone did their best with the tools they had. But the process has a price. And we pay that price every day, often without knowing it.
The Consequences
The consequences are easy to see. You just need to open your eyes.
Chronic illness is exploding. Depression. Anxiety. Burnout. Despair. Chronic stress. Despite the fact that we have more material abundance than any generation before us. We live longer, have better health on paper, more comfort, more entertainment, more of everything. And yet we are more unhappy than ever.
Why? Because we have lost contact with our true nature. We live as strangers in our own lives. We do what we “should” do, think what we “should” think, feel what we “should” feel – without ever asking ourselves what WE actually want.
It’s rare that I meet adults who love their existence. Who have a joyful being. Who wake up in the morning filled with gratitude and joy. Most wake up to the alarm, check their phone, and start another day on autopilot.
Most people live in a zombie state. The hamster wheel runs on autopilot from morning to evening. Tasks. Chores. Stress. Meetings. Deadlines. Obligations. And then a short break in front of a screen in the evening before it all starts again.
When I ask adults to tell me ten things that make them joyful like a child – things that have nothing to do with work, career, productivity, or achievement – few can answer. Most have to think for a long time. Many can’t come up with ten things at all.
This is not normal. This is not how life is supposed to be. We have accepted an existence that would have been unthinkable for our ancestors. An existence where joy is the exception and stress is the rule.
My mission in this life is to help change this.
The Child as Your Teacher
Most adults believe that when a child is born, it’s time to become teachers. We’re supposed to shape this little being. Give it knowledge. Teach it how the world works. Prepare it for life.
But when a child enters your life, it’s not time to teach. It’s time to learn.
Look at yourself and your child. Be honest. Isn’t the child much more filled with joy than you? Isn’t the child much more present in the moment? Isn’t the child much more open to the miracle of life?
Perhaps your life was a zombie state before this little source of joy arrived. Day after day in the same track. The same thoughts. The same worries. The same feeling that something is missing.
When a child enters your life, it is not the time to teach; it is the time to learn.
Pål-Esben Wanvig
Then the child came. And suddenly something happened. Now you laugh. Sing. Play. Crawl around on the floor. Do things you haven’t done in decades. Feel things you had forgotten you could feel.
Life unfolds because of them. Not because of you. They bring something back to you that you had lost. They remind you of who you once were. Who you still are, deep inside.
You can teach the child how to survive in the material world. How to tie their shoes. How to read and write. How to behave in social situations. This is important knowledge.
But the child understands more about life itself through direct experience than you do through all your concepts and theories. The child KNOWS what it feels like to be fully present. You have forgotten.
Perhaps it’s a good idea to learn what life is from them. Not the other way around.
Reversal – The Path Back to Yourself
Do you want to walk a genuine spiritual path? Find the way to your true, pure, and timeless nature? Then you must reverse the process that brought you here.
This doesn’t mean you should forget everything you’ve learned. You still need language, social skills, knowledge of how the world works. But you must learn to see the difference between what is a tool and what is you.
Today you experience only the material part of yourself. Through an uncontrollable stream of thoughts and feelings. Thoughts that tell you who you are, what you can and cannot do, what is possible and impossible. Feelings that toss you from one state to another.
This material part can be seen as one small grain of sand in your Sahara desert. A tiny part of your true nature. Think about it. Everything you think you are – your body, your thoughts, your feelings, your history – is just a grain of sand.
Most people believe the grain of sand is all that exists. They live their entire lives in this grain of sand. Worry about it. Defend it. Try to make it bigger, better, more successful. Without realizing they are surrounded by an infinite desert of possibilities.
My experience – and that of many others throughout history – shows something different. The day you touch your full existence, your Sahara, everything changes. Not gradually, but fundamentally. Like waking from a dream you didn’t know you were dreaming.
When you realize that the ego’s “reality” is just a tiny grain of sand – your soul’s straitjacket – you experience a liberation that cannot be described in words. You must experience it yourself to understand.
Suffering, fear, frustration, meaninglessness, and hopelessness dissolve like morning dew in the sun. Not because the problems disappear, but because the perspective changes. What once seemed overwhelming becomes manageable. What once seemed meaningless gains meaning.
You gain new perspectives on what really matters. And you become able to live in a much more loving, constructive, and joyful way. Not because you’re straining for it, but because it becomes natural.
Illness won’t necessarily cease on its own. But the suffering connected to it can cease. The pain may still be there, but your relationship to the pain changes. You are no longer trapped by it.
In such a state, you gain access to the source of knowledge – the knowing. A wisdom that lies deeper than thoughts and words. This knowledge is in the consciousness you were born with. It holds knowledge of everything consciousness has experienced since the universe came into being 14 billion years ago.
This may sound fantastic. Perhaps even unbelievable. I understand that skepticism – I had it myself. But I invite you to keep an open mind. Try. Experience. And judge for yourself.
The day you touch your full existence – your Sahara – the experience of life will change completely. The experience of suffering, fear, frustration, meaninglessness and hopelessness will vanish like dew before the sun.
Pål-Esben Wanvig
The Ego’s Illusion
When you begin to explore the ego, you find that it’s full of opinions and feelings. Layer upon layer of beliefs about who you are and how the world is. Much of this you cannot control. Thoughts come on their own. Feelings come on their own.
Habits become stronger with the years. The ability for self-control deteriorates rapidly. You may notice it yourself. What was easy to change when you were young feels impossible now. The patterns have dug themselves deep.
So the ego takes over. An ego built by other people and society. It is not you. It’s a construction. A role you’ve learned to play for so long that you’ve forgotten it’s a role.
But the ego is not an enemy. This is important to understand. It’s not something you should fight, suppress, or destroy. The ego is a necessary tool that helps us navigate the material world. Without it, you couldn’t function in everyday life.
The problem arises when we become too identified with it. When we believe the ego IS us, instead of being a tool we use. Then it leads to suffering. Because the ego can never give us what we truly seek.
The ego is impatient. It is tied to matter, limited by time and death. It knows, on some level, that it is temporary. That it will one day cease. And this certainty drives it to constantly seek validation. Constant reassurance that it is important, valuable, lasting.
It fears its own dissolution. And this fear colors everything it does. All its projects, all its ambitions, all its worries – at their core, they’re about surviving. About persisting.
When you understand this, you begin to see the ego with new eyes. Not as an enemy, but as a confused child in need of guidance. A child that has taken on a role it isn’t really capable of filling.
The Second Birth
In the next article, we look at shamanic death – also known as ego death.
This is a dramatic shift in consciousness. A turning point that has been described in all the world’s spiritual traditions, though it has different names. In shamanic traditions, it’s a central part of the initiation process. A threshold that must be crossed for true power to awaken.
This “second birth” is not a physical death. The body continues to function. The heart beats. The lungs breathe. But something dies nonetheless. The old identity. The old way of understanding oneself. The old way of being in the world.
It’s a deep, often challenging, conscious transformation. It can feel frightening, confusing, disorienting. Everything you thought you knew about yourself is put to the test. The ground you stood on begins to shake.
But on the other side, something new awaits. A clarity that cannot be imagined before you’ve experienced it. A freedom that transcends anything the ego could ever achieve.
It marks the transition from ignorance to insight. From confusion to clarity. From living in the grain of sand to awakening to the Sahara. This is a prerequisite for spiritual enlightenment.
In the next article, we go deeper into this process. What it involves. How it’s experienced. And how you can prepare for it.
