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A brief summary of some Theosophical ideas -
Our essence is beyond space and time, aware of itself as a part of infinity. I'll call this Spirit
This essence puts a very small part of itself - the soul - into the world of space and time, incarnation, and so develops its consciousness through experiencing duality.
After hundreds or even thousands of incarnations, the soul is ready to merge into its spirit and continue its evolution in worlds beyond our imagination.
The soul itself creates another layer - the personality or ego - which is the vehicle of consciousness for the soul in one particular life time.
In Western culture the soul is strongly encouraged to forget its own identity, and to identify itself solely with its personality. This makes for a cheap, obedient workforce.
Spiritual emergence in this model occurs when identification with the personality/ego is broken, even for only a moment. The personality/ego has to come to terms with the realisation that there is much more to life than it had realised (made real).
Once this limited identification is broken, the ego will desire to return to its old way of life, yet usually has to concede it has a bigger purpose than it wants. Consensual reality no longer works for it, so it must experiment and create a larger map of reality.
Often ego inflation occurs at this stage. The ego has a strong sense of separation, yet has had a glimpse of the immensity of the universal mind. It may then decide it is the messiah or God or a chosen saviour. As a spirit, it is indeed God, however as a soul and ego, it is still evolving to become God incarnate.
A spiritual emergence is a part of the evolutionary process when awareness shifts from ego to soul. With mindfulness, we can observe if our thoughts, emotions and actions arise from our ego - that strong sense of a separate me - or from the soul.
Eventually, the ego has had enough of suffering, and is ready to accept it is a part of a much greater being than it believed itself to be, and to be grateful for that.
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