Awareness and Consciousness: The Two Foundations of Spiritual Evolution

----------------- The question about the essence of awareness and consciousness represents a fundamental moment in the spiritual quest of the human being, one of those existential-flavored queries destined to be left without a definitive answer. These two concepts, rooted in the human soul, ethics and the ethereal component of being, concern the way we perceive and elaborate the reality around us, while at the same time providing energy to the process of spiritual evolution. Their understanding and distinction are crucial for those who aspire toward harmonious integration of body, mind, soul and spirit, since only by becoming aware of our complexity can we eventually rediscover the simplicity underlying our spiritual essence. We will therefore explore the fundamental differences between consciousness and awareness, analyzing how each of them manifests in the individual’s inner journey, and then attempt to reunite them and make them one. We will delve into the nature of consciousness through a reflection on how it makes use of duality to experience and evolve, and discuss the process through which awareness develops, emphasizing the inherent significance of doubt and philosophical inquiry. Finally, we will provide some simple practical insights aimed at facilitating the integration of consciousness and awareness into the fabric of daily life, emphasizing their decisive role in personal growth and in gaining a better understanding of the unity between the individual, society and the whole universe. The concepts of Consciousness and Awareness Individual Consciousness Consciousness, a complex and fascinating concept, is often described as an intrinsic property of human beings, which allows us to establish the boundaries of the self versus the non-self. In psychology, it is regarded as that which is accessible to conscious processing, clearly distinguished from the unconscious, which remains hidden and inaccessible to our awareness. This distinction between consciousness and the unconscious is necessary to understand the workings of the human mind. However, conscience is not limited only to the psychological sphere. It also plays an important role in the moral realm, enabling us to create and distinguish moral categories such as good and evil. Conscience guides us in interpreting the world around us by detecting differences and similarities between one thing and another, thus highlighting its deep connection with knowledge and cognition. Consciousness work is primarily based on available information, so it is influenced by the place and time in which we find ourselves. It is through consciousness that we are able to reflect on our actions and take responsibility for them. Zeitgeist (the spirit of time) and Individual Consciousness To sum up, individual consciousness is a mental function that processes information by assigning it a dual and often moral connotation. People who do not distinguish right from wrong are commonly defined as lacking a conscience. Moral references are by no means innate, which explains why each culture produces different values. Individual conscience is heavily influenced by so-called common sense, which has the characteristic of varying according to place, historical era and predominant culture. What is considered right today may be forbidden tomorrow; similarly, individual consciousness does not possess absolute and universal properties. Universal Consciousness Then there is another, more subtle yet more important aspect of human consciousness: its connection with universal consciousness. Each of us possesses, or at least should possess, an individual consciousness influenced by social and cultural factors. However, there is a higher, non-individualized consciousness of which each of us is an expression. We can imagine this universal consciousness as a large sphere, capable, however, of subdividing into numerous micro-spheres, each of which has its own individuality while remaining connected to the mother sphere. Is Universal Consciousness also constantly evolving? Why does the universal consciousness feel the need to divide itself into so many small individual consciousnesses? Answering this question is not straightforward, as it is like trying to understand the operation of complex machinery by examining a single cog. The universal consciousness is the machinery, while we are the individual cogs. We are part of the whole, but unaware that we are so in most cases, therefore our perspective is very limited. The hypothesis we feel like proposing, is that the universal consciousness is also constantly evolving and that, in experiencing, it needs to manifest itself into many small consciousnesses in order to experience every tiny detail of creation. A kind...... ------------------- Test della consapevolezz