One of the common misconceptions is that your spiritual journey will be filled with angelic experiences. Blissful openings of your heart, quiet epiphanies, and overwhelming moments of unconditional love inspire us to take action steps towards our personal freedom. The assumption is that these experiences will eventually lead to enlightenment where you can sit in the lotus position and magically float three feet above the cushion below you.
Yes these beautiful loving experiences happen. But they are not the only experiences to happen. Very often your spiritual journey will be one humbling experience after another. In those humbling experiences your self importance is exposed for the bloated self image that it is. Then your beliefs about your self and your self images are pierce by awareness and crushed by truth. You are humbled when you realize that you had believed such illusions and lies for so long in your dreaming slumber without awareness.
If you journey further you realize that any early hopes of grandeur at enlightenment and mastery turn about 180 degrees. You discover that humble service to your fellow human being in the manner of love and compassion is the life of the enlightened