Being free means making no personal demands of life, no emotional upheavals, no old personality traps to fall into. It means one lives spontaneously with recognition that there is nothing other than god, that all of us are the play of consciousness. They make no personal demands of life. Many people have gradual awakenings which bring a slowly expanding capacity to experience altered states of being, greater compassion, a tendency to service in the world, a sense of peace, the loss of the fear of death and other benefits. Some yogic and Buddhist systems provide an awakening so gradual it has no difficulties.
Some people have dramatic awakenings through all the chakras at once and feel blown out into space.
Generally the energy settles back down, with a continual hum remaining in the body, and months and years of personal work are needed to find the natural peace and completion of this experience. They are not fully awakened. They have activated a powerful connection with the life-force but they have not completed the transformative potential of this experience, which is basically union with all that is and the dissolution of personal attachments. People who are fully transformed by the process are kind, present, exude a dispassionate love, and seem to be empty of all conflict. This completion is a major step for the ego, because it is ultimately dissolved, so it is not surprising or wrong that anyone takes a lifetime or more to get through it, with much backsliding and distraction.