What is spiritual awakening?

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

Thomas Carlyle

Spiritual awakening means exploring the true qualities of our own spirit or soul & applying those qualities in our journey of life to empower ourselves. It has no connection with the religious customs that are done outwardly. Every soul has the qualities of purity, peace,happiness or bliss & power. But as we start walking on this journey, these qualities take a backseat or these qualities are replaced by the other acquired qualities like anger, jealousy, hatred,resentment,fear,anxiety & soft skills( speaking good & thinking otherwise) etc. which are not conducive for our spiritual growth. 

We say that life is a competition & so we try to give our 100% to remain at the top. First of all we should understand that life is not a competition. It is the journey of each soul. We all carry different 'sanskars' with us which are a result of our past karmic accounts. If the sanskars are so different, how can we compete with the others?  
Even though we possess all materialistic things still we say that we are not happy from inside. One feels that if he buys a new car, he will be happy. The other feels that if he purchases a new property then he will be happy. Parents think that if their child scores so & so marks then they will be happy. One feels that if his boss approves his promotion then he will be happy. So in all these examples our happiness is dependent upon the outer things. If a person buys a new car & by chance it gets damaged then his happiness gets replaced by unhappiness. If the child scores less marks in the exam then it becomes the cause of parent's unhappiness.    

In the journey of life almost everybody has to face some unpleasant situations. For instance if a person is going to office & his car gets stuck in a traffic jam then immidiately he feels helpless & therefore starts cursing the situation. Here he visualizes a picture if he reaches late in the office, what will the office collegues think about him? How his boss will react? What will happen to his reputation? This thought process starts creating a lot of wrong or negative energy in him & his soul power gets depleted.We can never ever control or change the situation arising outside but we can definitely try to control the thoughts which are created by us in the present situation.   
Spirituality helps us to learn to become stable in any situation. People undergo heavy finantial crisis, emotional crisis, health crisis. As their state of mind is very low, they try to seek help from others. The other person suggests some remedies to make the situation favourable. People do all the outer things except changing their own perspective. Spirituality makes us aware of the inner turmoil which makes our life a miserable journey. It helps to create the right thoughts in our mind to face any situation with mental stability. 
Spirituality focuses on preserving the soul power which can be used in the best manner to stand tall in the situation. 
 Only treating the symptoms will not prove beneficial as the root cause needs to be observed carefully. The whole thought process needs to be replaced with right thoughts so that one can deal with the situation with the right perspective. 
Similarly the behaviour of the people coming in our contact is not in our control. There are differnces of opinion even at the domestic fronts also. If somebody doesn't behave according to our norms, we get upset & blame that person very easily. We never try to understand the other person's perspective. We say, because of u I am not happy. Because of u I get irritated. Because of u I get disturbed. So in this way the other person becomes the cause for our unhappiness. Spirituality teaches you to become aware of the fact that nobody in the world can cause unhappiness to you unless you choose the state of unhappiness for you. 

Suppose there are two dishes. One is spicy & full of negative thoughts & the other is sweet & full of positive thoughts. Obviously the ingredients for each dish will differ. We can't prepare the sweet dish using the ingredients that can be used for preparing spicy dish. Right chioce of thoughts in the right proportion will enhance the flavour of sweet dish. But it is up to us to choose between a spicy dish or a sweet dish. Spirituality will teach us to make the right choice of ingredients so that we can preserve the flavour of life even though some ingredients get mixed with each other.