What is consciousness vs awareness? Consciousness is a term that has been used a lot. The concept has integrated to our mundane level life. We hear it all the time. But what does it mean? What does it truly represent? How can we get to those higher states of consciousness and live from that with ease? How can awareness be used to bring us into a higher state of consciousness?
Consciousness vs Awareness
These two terms get used pretty interchangeably: Awareness and consciousness. People often use one over the other to mean the same thing. Sometimes what is meant is clear . Other times the distinction blurs, leaving us in a convoluted state, not really understanding what we need to.
Awareness
Let’s look at awareness within the context of awakening. Here’s an example to help define awareness. You go spend time with a friend. Walking around town, something feels out of sync. At the end of the afternoon, sharing a drink at the café, you find out they have a knee injury making it difficult walk. It comes to your mind how they have been walking slower and taking more time in front of store windows than you. You have become aware of what was going on. You now have more details about how the afternoon was unfolding and likely why it was feeling out of sync.
In awakening, awareness is about having a deeper sense of your state of being, your life, your programs and patterning, etc. Developing your awareness is about noticing details. It’s about getting to the deeper reasons behind those details and what’s causing things to be as they are. In the awakening process, you use your awareness to develop a full of picture of how you are operating, as well as of what creates existence. For some people that awareness may only be at the thought and idea level, as in becoming more aware of what created that thought, where it comes from. For others, awareness will take them into perceiving levels of existence that are beyond the physical. For many it includes both. Awareness becomes deeply connected to your awakening process, as you notice the details and the reasons behind those details and the why’s of your life.
Developing Your Awareness
Developing your awareness will help you advance in your awakening process, so let’s take a look at that. It’s quite simple to do. It just takes asking questions and paying attention to what you notice. In the context of the basics of awakening, the questions are centered around the state of being. Why do I believe that? Where does that come from? Who do I think I really am? Where is this coming from? It’s sort of like looking at what makes you and reality tick and especially why.
Try this exercise out for yourself and see where it takes you. Take a situation. It can be a good one or a negative one. It’s actually good to evaluate both types. In any situation that you wish to be more aware of, ask yourself how and why this is happening to you. For ease, allow me to take you through an example. In this process, you want to do your best to get as objective as you can about yourself. Just play around and see where it takes you.
Let’s say the situation is feeling really attracted to particular guy. You can start asking questions about the attraction. What is it that attracts me to Mo Joe? Well, there’s the way he smiles. It makes me feel comfortable with him. Who or what does that remind me of? Oh, I remember being at the fair grounds and I was six. I was lost and afraid and couldn’t see my daddy. A big man came over, smiled at me and told me he would help me find my daddy. And he did. I felt relieved and safe. I felt taken care of.
Now you’re aware of something deeper within you that is influencing the present circumstance. It may not feel very romantic to look at it this way, but it is making you more aware of what is influencing you. With that awareness you can start to make better choices for yourself and potentially keep yourself from repeating the same circumstance over and over again.
About consciousness
Consciousness is a very different thing. I’m not talking about ‘being conscious’ which is the same thing as ‘being aware of’. Consciousness is like the joke about asking the fish “How’s the water?”, and the fish replies, “what water?”. Consciousness has to do with the context within which you are operating in. It is like the form within which your beliefs, actions, way of being are held. It is the lense through which you see and understand reality. This is much harder to understand and grasp. It is also more difficult to shift than your awareness. This is because it is about stepping into seeing all of life in such a radically different and new way, that you basically can’t refer back to the old. The old is no longer conceivable.
The consciousness you are operating from is so ingrained in your state of being and mind, that it’s like asking the fish about the water. We can liken consciousness to the operating system of a computer. The OS of the computer dictates how the computer operates and functions. It makes the computer run on its own and do what it supposed to do. Expanding your awareness is like updating an app on your computer. Expanding your consciousness, on the other hand, is like upgrading to a new operating system. At the level of a consciousness, or OS shift, everything continues working until it doesn’t anymore.
Here’s another way to understand how consciousness influences you: Imagine that you live in the Sahara dessert and that is all you know about life and existence. Everything you know, everything you do, create, want, think about, etc. is guided by and governed by what it is like to be in the Sahara. That kind of explains it all, doesn’t it!
From awareness to consciousness
As you grow in that awareness of yourself you realize more of what makes you tick. This opens you up to the how’s and why’s, not just of you, but of all life, and sometimes that can feel like you’ve opened Pandora’s Box. Even if it’s a good thing, it can make you feel overwhelmed and wishing you could go back to how things were. Which basically means wishing you could be unconscious again. But if you really think about it, you’d likely find that back then, there was a lack. You were wanting more, wanting to be more fulfilled, more free, more something. And now that you have opened up the box, you might as well keep going, because you just can’t go back to how things were before. It’s too late, you’ve already started awakening!
The global picture of consciousness
Existence is in a state of shifting right now. Everything feels lacking. Everybody is wanting more of something. And they want more because what they already have still feels lacking. Go back to the ‘Sahara Desert’ consciousness explanation and consider this picture of lack consciousness. How can you create something that is full and vibrant in a consciousness governed by lack?
This lack consciousness that humanity has been operating under is not holding any longer. It’s beyond the point of cracking at the seams. This isn’t just for humans or life on earth, it’s for the whole of existence. Either we sink or we swim with the tide. Swimming with the tide is going to be difficult, especially for those holding onto the old operating system, the old consciousness. But it’s worth it. Here’s why.
As challenging as it can be to change, to go to a death space around what was, a new form is taking shape. This new form is about being better. It is about living more fully and stepping into the fullness of the potential you are here to express. This is not just about you as an individual, but also about you as a human being. This new form is about greater efficiency and greater expression. It’s about having greater radiance and greater fullness. You just have to be willing to give up the old.
For More
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