I’m going to tell you right off the bat that if your mind is expecting the “right” answer to this question, you’re probably not going to find it here!
Sorry not sorry!
Consciousness is one of those words people throw around in spiritual conversations a whole lot. It is often spoken about in terms of having levels or states, and every speaker/teacher seems to have their own nuanced definition or description of it.
My intention here is to give you a smattering of explanations of what Consciousness means (in the spiritual sense), and let you play around with them.
❓Does one definition or description resonate more clearly than another? Do you have to pick one?
❓How solid and accurate are any of these definitions and descriptions?
❓What (if anything) is missing from these explanations?
What Is Consciousness?
“Consciousness is that in which experience occurs, with which it is known, and of which it is made.”
–Rupert Spira
“A conscious person…refers to someone who is mentally aware of and responsive to their surroundings in an objective way. A conscious person can see the world for what it is, not what they think it is, or think it should be, or want it to be, or have been told it is. It is about considering different perspectives and views and a range of information and taking the objective, higher view that considers all aspects together.”
–Liz Watt
“Consciousness doesn’t have a border. It doesn’t have a form. If it had a form, you’d be able to see consciousness, but you can’t see it, because it is what is doing the seeing… It has no border, which means it’s infinite, which means it’s spaceless, timeless, incomprehensible beyond anything that we can conceive or imagine… ”
– Deepak Chopra
“Consciousness is not something you have to find. You’re experiencing it right now. It’s the most basic thing you’re experiencing right now. It’s the most simple aspect of your experience right now. It’s the space of you. It might feel like an internal space, maybe even a hidden space, but it’s an intimate space. It’s the closest you can get to who and what you are. So it’s right there where you are…”
—Angelo Dilullo
“...Consciousness, which means the way you think, the way you live, the way you believe, the way you react, your behavior, your thinking, all that, is your consciousness. Which is your life. That consciousness is YOU….”
—J. Krishnamurti
“Consciousness can spin out the fantasy of a self. Reality can spin out that the self has certain qualities, and then reality can spin out fantasies of identifying itself as a self and criticizing itself for having those qualities… [This is] inherent in the nature of Consciousness that it can do this. Consciousness is infinite. Consciousness is mobile. Consciousness is not stuck or locked in. Consciousness has nameless and unfathomable powers and abilities. I mean, it’s doing all THIS!”
—Peter Brown
“Consciousness is fundamental to the universe. I think that it’s not a product of space and time or anything inside space and time. I think that efforts to derive consciousness from space-time either by identity theories or by causal theories have proven ineffective. And I’ve been forced to take the view that Consciousness is actually fundamental in the universe…”
—Donald Hoffman
“Consciousness is awareness, and awareness is paying attention and noticing… 95% of who we are by the time we’re 35 years old, is a set of unconscious automatic programs that we’ve just practiced so many times that we’re not consciously thinking about those. So in order for you to change, the first step is to become conscious of your unconscious thoughts. You’ve got to start looking at those hard-wired thoughts that you think every day that are just circuits, that have been fired and wired together. You’ve got to begin to observe you’re not longer the program now. You’ve got to become aware of how you speak, how you act. Become so conscious… that you won’t go unconscious and let that thought of that behavior run you…”
—Joe Dispenza
“...Consciousness, you see, is a radar that is scanning the environment to look out for trouble, just in the same way as a ship’s radar is looking for rocks or other ships. And the radar, therefore, does not notice the vast areas of space where there are no rocks, no other ships. So in the same way, our eyes, or rather the selective consciousness behind the eyes, only pays attention to what we think is important…”
—Alan Watts
“...You are that unseen force of contentless consciousness that gives life to the body and also to the world that is apparently the body’s environment…”
–Ramana Maharshi
Is your head spinning yet?!?!
Feel free to add any other description/definition of consciousness in the comments!