Can I find higher consciousness within myself as an individual?
My short answer is no. But, hang on, let me explain.
To start with, let’s talk about levels of consciousness. As we discussed in last week's session at The School of Philosophy in Cape Town, we generally live in 5 levels of consciousness:
- Higher consciousness
- Fully awake
- Waking sleep
- Dreaming
- Deep sleep
If you’re anything like me, you’re spending a large portion of your day in a ‘waking sleep’ state - in traffic or at work. In this state, we are living in our heads and are out of touch with our senses and reality. When we move into a ‘fully awake’ state, we are usually doing something we enjoy or are engaging with others/an activity. While I strive to limit the time I spend in ‘waking sleep’ and rather live life fully awake, I hope to also spend more and more moments in a state of higher consciousness.
There are a couple of characteristics which separate higher consciousness from a fully awake state: a sense of unity with all and everything, peacefulness and stillness. Now, tell me how often do you feel these three elements collectively in one moment? If your life is busy, I’m assuming it’s not too often. When I do focus on getting myself into this state, I have felt an overwhelming sense of empathy with the world. And after slipping back into a fully an awake state, I have felt a great sense of sadness about the chaos and suffering in our world.
Therefore, I want to say that the way in which we are going to find value and answers, whether this is focused towards our social issues, the animal cruelty on many of our farms or the issue of deforestation, is through higher consciousness and the fully awake state - both of which we rarely live in. I can’t speak for you, but I certainly get on with my day, doing and being things that if I think back on, I’m not particularly proud of. So, I’m making a point of encouraging more stillness, awareness and empathy in my daily life.
Back to my original question: Can I find higher consciousness within myself as an individual? My answer is no, since a characteristic of higher consciousness is the feeling of unity with all. All people, all animals and all of nature.
Let me know if you agree with me. And I’ll ask you this: how would you see our world changing if more people were able to and were choosing to live in a state of higher consciousness?