AWARENESS & CONSCIOUSNESS

In Spiritualism, awareness and consciousness constitute the former as the subject and the latter as its object, context, and content. Meaning awareness is that quality, and consciousness is its quanta. Both have a force-field relationship and are the essence of the perception of all living creatures. They are responsible for creating all the concepts devised by the human mind to decipher and determine, through evolution, the tangible, and the intangible in totality—the whole universe. Awareness is that sole unchanging existence, which is primordial and eternal and is the highest attribute of energy, which precedes all we perceive and conceive. It is that transcendental state of?non-duality.?The rest, meaning, whatever we see and observe in the entire universe, unfolds all because of this?supreme ability?of energy, which we refer to as awareness, for they exist to introduce, over time, one concept after another.

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Besides the above mentioned, Hindu scriptures elaborate further: ‘Reality is one without a second - changeless, spaceless, timeless, and limitless.’ That which changes cannot be real; reality is absolute, non-dual, and independent, not requiring any support. Meaning there cannot be two realities at any one moment. One is real, and the other, whatever we observe and perceive, is an illusion. Therefore, the conclusion is what exists is only the highest attribute of energy, which is awareness, the substratum of all that exists. The remaining existences in matter and consciousness are a temporary play of waves and energy particles superimposed on the real by our consciousness. In contrast, they appear and disappear in space, time, and causation.

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Therefore, awareness is the ultimate source or determinant factor regarding spiritual knowledge. Since consciousness arises after the mind becomes aware, it allows the mind to be conscious of what it observes. I repeat, all objects in the universe exist merely because of this highest attribute of energy manifesting as absolute awareness in mind, which—after extending into thoughts—become conscious to experience and infer upon what we perceive, consciously or subconsciously.

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Consciousness is being individually, uniquely aware, and responsive to the mind's feelings in the duality of this or that. It is that centralized thought of what we are without which we have no other way of knowing that we exist. In other words, it is my wakefulness that culminates into my individuality. The moment I wake up, I am already aware; after that, I become conscious of who, what, and where I am. From the subatomic to the stars, probability waves of aware energy vibrate and reverberate around the universe. These waves remain intangible unless we observe them through our eyes as particles of light energy popping in and out of existence. They ripple and reverberate like waves of water in a pond. From amoeba, algae, and apes to humans, all have gone through stages of awareness through billions of years of evolution.

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According to spiritualism, these possible waves of energy collapsing into particles seem to possess a fundamental characteristic of being aware, for they undergo a sea change of evolving and transforming through an evolution as we see them today. Therefore, I repeat, the intensity (-ness) of aware energy, signifying awareness, is the cause and the substance for this metamorphosis, and this spiritual feature of energy of being aware is the highest attribute of the all-encompassing energy of the universe. Aware energy enables us to observe, measure, and determine all we know of the universe.

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Consciousness, on the other hand, is the greatest mystery of human life. Science is confused when it comes to an understanding of our abstract conscious entity. It agrees but does not know how this conscious principle awakens the brain-body connection. There is no uniformity even today among philosophers and scientists on the nature of our actual reality—whether it is awareness or in the form of our consciousness. Also, whether it is a construct of the mind or a state of paranormal and supernatural. The confusion continues from belief to faith, and verifiable evidence has yet to materialize. Unfortunately, instead of probing that potential force of spontaneous aware energy, which triggers the mind to become conscious, science is more concerned with its resultant field of consciousness.

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This confusion probably arose from varied interpretations of our ancient philosophical scriptures, considering the soul to be the eternal and final attribute of energy in the form of universal consciousness. Meaning presuming its continuity or eternity from one life into another remains a mystery, a matter of blind faith. However, one thing is sure, if subatomic waves and particles can become aware and consequently conscious in living entities, we can safely presume that the intensity of individual consciousness exists while we are awake and alive.

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We need to be sure in mind when we discuss consciousness. First, it is local to the object, meaning it requires a thing to be conscious about and attach to one out of the dual factors that occur in the mind. Only after that the mind rationalizes and chooses one out of the two for its likes and dislikes. Second, it is entirely dependent upon awareness. You can be conscious of something only after you are aware of the same.

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The subject of spiritualism fundamentally relates to two specific words, independent yet closely associated as one—awareness and consciousness. As the sun and the light or the ocean and its waves associate as one in a force-field relationship, the former in both examples is independent, and the latter is dependent. They may be synonymous with each other, even if we assume everything; all that exists is a bunch of quantum waves of energy in unity and continuity, though representation and performance differ. A seeker surely needs to understand the difference between the two, that is, if one wishes to apprehend the subject of life correctly.

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Spiritual awareness is untainted non-dual energy, which makes the mind spontaneously aware of kick-starting its aliveness. It is that immediate knowledge of any situation or fact. It is that force of energy which radiates its field of illumination in the form of consciousness. Awareness prevails before the ‘I am’ appears and sustains and after consciousness disappears. Awareness is without consciousness, but consciousness consists only of awareness. Only after the mind is aware does it become conscious, not otherwise. Consciousness symbolizes the limited body-mind self, whereas awareness is that absolute non-dual energy—the spirit—which permits the soul to play its role in making the mind aware. Thus, awareness is that force that radiates through its field of consciousness. All that we perceive exists because we are aware; without awareness, we can’t become conscious of all that exists in this universe.

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Consciousness is being aware of and responding to one’s surroundings. It constitutes everything that we perceive and experience, providing meaning to our life of all that exists. It is the after-effect of awareness, making the mind attentive and conscious, and is dual by nature. It needs to attach to something for the mind to be mindful. Consciousness is a mental process of experiencing life, whereas spiritual awareness is the spontaneous and choiceless presence of aware energy in any individual, with or without thoughts.

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Hence, consciousness is not an ingredient or a thing as presumed, which supposedly travels from one life into another. It is that content or the totality of your conscious and subconscious experiences while you exist, settled in the memory. It forms your unique individuality from all that you experience in life. Consciousness is a construct of the mind, whereas awareness is not. Both awareness and consciousness combine to create your observable (through awareness) and understandable (through consciousness) reality as real.

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Every form of energy has a potent force with a respective kinetic field. Regarding our subject, energy on visual stimulation in higher frequencies creates visual awareness. After obtaining information, it radiates a field that communicates synchronously throughout the brain’s network of neural pathways. This force of aware energy radiates a field of consciousness—lowest, say, in the case of a rock and highest in the case of a human mind. Therefore, awareness is the ultimate primordial constituent of everything because being absolute is ascribed as the one and the only unchanging, permanent existent—that which is ultimately real.

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Consciousness, on the other hand, dissipates with the death of a living object. It is like those clouds that appear and disappear, losing their quality and consequently dispersing in the infinite space of the universe. However, the?force of awareness retains its identity like the eternal sky. The essential difference between awareness and consciousness is that the former is the?force of energy, like the sun, and the latter is its?field of radiance, the sunshine that it emits. Both are inherent and intrinsic to each other, like the sun and its rays of light or, say, also like the manner sparks that emerge from the flames of any inflammable source.

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When the mind initially becomes aware, it is thoughtless and spontaneous; it proactively starts to experience without thinking. However, when awareness enters the brain, a particular field of operation emerges, and a certain aware feeling arises—thinking begins, a thinker appears, and the mind becomes objectively conscious or subconscious (not fully aware) of what it chooses, experiences, infers, and realizes.

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Primordial awareness is the original purest state of the aware spirit. The moment the brain takes over, it splits the same energy into two, relating in duality to discriminate and infer with opposites, consciously or otherwise. However, awareness and consciousness relate to each other as one, like any flame of fire and the spark it emits. The potential force retains its identity, but the field it radiates has a particular qualitative limitation as it spreads. Like the sun remains potential as the force, but its field of light energy reduces in quality as it extends into the infinite dark energy, only to dissipate and disappear in the infinitude of our universe. Even though they are intrinsic to each other as one, once the force releases its field of power—say, light energy—it can never return to its potential energy source.

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Let us go through this thesis again for better clarification. Consciousness operates in a state of duality and depends on a subject-object relationship. It needs to attach to something or any relative factor to be conscious. However, without awareness, there can be no consciousness. Aware energy is that link between the subject and the object. It is that transcendent state of non-duality, which we call the spirit. It is there before and after consciousness appears and disappears, meaning before birth and after death.

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The highest attribute of energy, the spirit, has been accredited to be awakened awareness (Chaitanya), referred to as?Parabrahman?or supreme power. It is also called the?Param-atma,?the abstract, formless God or supreme energy, the eternal, ultimate reality comprising the universe, which the Hindus relate to. After the universal spirit manifests in an individual mind, it enters a subject-object relationship with consciousness. It ascribes the soul responsible for making the mind aware and conscious to experience life.?The individual soul (pure consciousness) is a notch less than the spirit, though in total awareness, attributes as the?Antaratma. It becomes the sole benefactor to developing and evolving the knowledge stored in the memory and the intellect within the mind. Consciousness further reduces in its intensity, which we refer to as?Jivatma?in the capacity of ego or self-consciousness.

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Let us now probe how the mind becomes aware.

The awakening of the soul takes place if the mind is?alert. When an?alert?mind initiates the action of observance, the soul becomes the observer—observing through the mind, making it aware of the object being observed and, after that, if the mind is?attentive, conscious. Further, in whichever direction the mind is alert and attentive, the universal energy responds in the same frequency, and the aware energy manifests and materializes. The degree of its attentiveness determines the level of self-consciousness.

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The mind functions independently, on autopilot, from its memory and intellect. However, since energy tends to flow in entropy, awareness emerges to check this disorderly flow of thoughts through its degree of self-consciousness. Commonly, the psychic flow bypasses alert-aware-conscious energy. As a result, the subconscious mind takes over and excessively rules in auto-mode, randomly and recklessly, into this or that from its past awareness, multitasking unless it is checked and countered by the aware-conscious section. In due course, the culmination of all experiences—subconscious and the conscious—form an individual level of self-consciousness.

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The subject prescribes the soul as the final indicator towards the ultimate cosmic energy. Still, after the death of the body and mind, the individual witness-er?must contract, dissolve, and vaporize into that raw cosmic energy from where they originated. You-the witness/awareness, become one with the universe from where you parted. Since you are not that body-mind construct of?what you are, but the highest attribute of raw energy, something the ancient sages referred to as awareness, which we now refer to as the spirit signifying?who you are.

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The mind, as we know, is majorly designed to function independently through its memory and intellect from its sub or lower/past conscious thoughts. It gets conditioned with beliefs in identifications and attachments of this and that forming its illusory ‘me and mine’. Such a prejudiced mind functioning on autopilot takes you on a roller-coaster ride in duality into pairs of opposites to determine and choose for its self-interest, relying basically on beliefs. For this reason, since most opinions differ from one mind to another, conflicts arise, becoming the cause of mess and misery.?An ego-self, a thinker emerges in self-consciousness, presuming one’s beliefs are superior to others.

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In this manner, on one end, the human mind represents the psychological self, randomly working from its subconscious section in ego-consciousness. And on the other, we have the witnessing consciousness (soul) as the saviour, subtly checking upon that ego-self whenever it crosses any limits. The witnessing self never realizes its full potentiality because the mind predominantly works from its subconscious section operating under desirous beliefs, further increasing its recklessness. The essential character of any energy flow is to expand in disorder unless checked to evolve into its absoluteness, wholesomeness, or oneness from where it parted to experience something.

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Therefore, despite being that potential divine, the witnessing self in a human mind remains imprisoned, never realizing its full potentiality of absoluteness in total awareness. There remains a clash between the desirous ego-consciousness and the witnessing self, and, as evident today, the former seems to have a decisive edge over the latter. Only when your true self (absolute-aware energy) is not attached or identified to any thoughts of me, and mine do you become free from that dual living in pleasure and pain to celebrate life in its wholesomeness with the body, mind, and spirit functioning in unity. In such moments of now, you are not only fully aware and conscious but spontaneously proactive to experience and realize without any selfish thoughts, which are typically reactive under emotional desires.

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Spirituality is awakening the true self and the effortless liberation from desires and attachments to usher in that peace of mind instead of happiness. Only when your mind habitually witnesses its thoughts, feelings, and actions independently, impartially, and impersonally without any past beliefs and in the spontaneity of now the presence of your ego (thinking self) is not attached. You are then one with the universe, which, in turn, reveals you are fundamentally none other than the whole of the universe.