Many sages tell us we can achieve a higher level of consciousness if we use the right tools with the proper focus. Would you like to know what these tools are and how to use them?
It’s important to distinguish awareness from consciousness. Awareness is the knowledge about something, whereas consciousness is the bandwidth on which awareness resides. Some early developers of psychology saw them as names for the same thing. So, it is helpful to define how we use these terms.
A Higher Spiritual Level of Awareness
Sigmund Freud equates “awareness” as consciousness and divides consciousness or awareness into three levels: the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. Consciousness is the quality of thinking and perceiving thoughts and the environment. (1) The preconscious is a memory’s latent, repressed, or dormant aspects. They are available when we recall things. The unconscious contains all subconscious activities of the brain, regulating the mind and body. Here, we think Freud describes the bandwidth on which these levels of awareness or knowing exist.
We have different kinds of knowledge associated with awareness. (2) You can be socially aware, self-aware, results, task-oriented or aware. There is also something known as spiritual awareness. Some refer to this as “being awake.” It describes someone who has high cognitive and perceptual abilities. Here, spirituality refers to perceiving beyond the normal boundaries of the default settings of awareness.
So, what is and how do you achieve a higher level of consciousness? (3) These are the partitions of awareness beyond the default settings of dreaming, sleeping, and waking awareness. We know they exist because we can measure some with our current medical technology. The fourth state of pure awareness can produce measurable changes in heart rate, respiration, and brainwave coherence different from the default states. Similar differences are found with those who practice the Shamanic Journey.
“Awareness is the level of wakefulness and bandwidth of perception provided by consciousness. Without consciousness, you cannot have awareness. The conduit of consciousness is the vehicle, which provides all levels of awareness. You increase these by using tools and techniques that expand awareness, not by becoming a follower of religion.” — Guru Tua
Why Achieve A Higher Level of Consciousness?
Our focus is on the spiritual aspect of consciousness and awareness because these components govern perception, and so it controls others. If you are spiritually blind, it affects all levels of knowledge and thinking. It is how religious acolytes can ignore the science and facts that contradict their beliefs. It’s also how they can commit violence in the name of the love of their God.
Awareness is the conduit that governs our capacity for perception. It affects our ability to think and reason. So, expanding awareness is vital to our overall health and wellness.
Being awake is a function of awareness; it has nothing to do with intelligence. Awareness is the capacity of our cognitive function. Some people have a more extraordinary ability to perceive, observe, and understand.
Many people live their lives with a narrow bandwidth of awareness. Others awaken. Some people awaken a little at a time. Others awaken in great leaps and bounds. The measure of wakefulness is the degree to which we are awake. We can determine the degree to which we are awake by “how we perceive” ourselves and the world.
How to Achieve a Higher Level of Consciousness
There are several things you can do to raise your consciousness. It starts with repairing and healing the body, mind, and soul. It will help you return to a positive path of self-development. To achieve the best results, we recommend the following progression. There are specific tools that can help you with each step:
1) Identify the negative programming and the source
2) Remove the source of harmful programming
3) Repair the damage and replace it with positive thought scripts
After you have identified, repaired, and healed the harmful programming, you’ll have room to add positive things.
4) Enhance your critical thinking skills
5) Practice technologies that expand awareness
6) Engage in consciousness exploration activities
How to Raise Your Consciousness
Removing and eliminating the source of harmful programming is the start. Next, you’ll need to repair the damage it has caused. Almost any method that expands awareness and consciousness will help to heal and return your mind to its original state of innocence.
After you remove the source, it’s time for research. Find one or more of the methods that will help you heal the damage. Many awareness technologies are safe and effective. They are a part of an integrated blended learning approach. They include:
— Automatic writing
— Emotional Check Process
— Process for Delving into Memories
— Holotropic Breathing
— Learning How to Learn
— Lucid Dreaming Technique
— Self-Observation Tools
— The Shamanic Journey
— Using a Spiritual Journal
— Third-Eye Awakening Process
Here’s a link to these tools to get more details. These are the building blocks. They help you achieve a higher level of consciousness.
What Affects Our Higher Spiritual Level of Awareness?
Our perception determines our reality. Everything we experience happens within our minds. What we perceive reflects the health of our awareness. Awareness is on a continuum, a bandwidth of perception. On one end are people who are asleep. They live controlled by the dominant cultural narrative. On the other end of the continuum are those we call enlightened. They live in their original state of being: happiness and joy.
Awareness expands or contracts depending on the clarity of your mind. We can develop it so that we can perceive more. For example, when most people dream, they do not realize they are dreaming. But people who learn lucid dreaming perceive that they are dreaming. Their perception expands the act of dreaming and their ability to see and control the dream. It is why awareness is such a precious commodity. Expanding our perception increases our measure of wakefulness.
How Culture Affects Awareness and Consciousness
The mind is like a wilderness. It stays in balance if you leave it alone in its natural state. If you damage it by introducing pollution, then it becomes toxic. You return the balance you need to clean up the pollution first. You can’t plant seedlings in a polluted environment and expect them to live.
In our analogy of the wilderness and the mind, nature cannot recover if we keep polluting the environment—the same with the mind and our awareness. The pollution of an unhealthy culture distorts the bandwidth of perception and cognition. We cannot repair this harmful mindset if we keep polluting it.
It is unhealthy if a worldview uses groupthink manipulation tactics to install bias and prejudice. Almost everyone is subject to massive amounts of this negative cultural programming. Most of this harmful programming comes under the guise of religion. It keeps us from expanding our range of perception. We cannot achieve a higher level of consciousness when religious mythology and superstition pollute thinking.
Many people do not have the choice of what they believe. Our family and culture often indoctrinate children and those who are vulnerable. But we are responsible for fixing this programming if it contains bias and prejudice.
Determining Wakefulness
The cultural narrative plays a considerable role in the health of thinking and values. If it supports freethinking, it can contribute to our growth and expansion of awareness. But, if the cultural narrative promotes negative bias and prejudiced thinking, it will reduce our awareness bandwidth. You can tell where you are on this continuum by asking yourself questions.
— Does the belief structure promote or cause you fear or anger?—Do you feel you need to defend your beliefs about spiritual reality?
— Do your beliefs contain elements harmful to you, others, or the environment?
— Do your beliefs include justification for harming or discriminating against others?
— If your belief system has a hierarchy, does this promote more value or human rights for specific classes, ethnicity, or gender? In short, does it value some people more than others?
— Do your beliefs place boundaries on what you can think, what you value, and what you can do? If so, are these boundaries applicable to everyone, or are some exempt?
If there are boundaries, are they around what you can believe about physical or spiritual reality?
— Are there boundaries for what is an acceptable spiritual practice? Are you permitted to create your path of spiritual exploration?
An affirmative answer to any of these questions means you are subject to structures harmful to your awareness’s health. You have two choices.
Vital Choices Are The Next Steps
You have two choices.
1) Ignore your conscience. Ignore the evidence that exposes the cultural narrative’s truth and then go back to sleep.
2) the second choice is to push back and expand your awareness. Use any of the awareness technologies that your situation allows.
Suppose you want to be more awake. That’s a great goal; good for you! However, you need to be prudent. Many cultures do not accept people who are awake and aware.
Working on expanding awareness may need to be a private endeavor. Sadly, there are societies where it is unsafe to be a freethinker. Oppressive cultures exist around the globe. People think the West is a bastion of freedom and tolerance for all backgrounds. Perhaps this was the case long ago. However, even in North America, one must be cautious and prudent.
Promote the Expansion of Awareness
Here are some practical things you can do to increase the bandwidth of perception. Raising your consciousness is easier than you think.
1) Eliminate or at least minimize your contact with mainstream news media. If you have a habit of watching the news, use independent and unbiased sources. Stay away from biased TV programming, such as Fox News.
2) Study and use the analytical tools of logical reasoning, which will help you spot the misuse of arguments.
In Conclusion
The goal of raising your consciousness is to be a better human being. These mind hacks may not make you richer, but they will make your life valuable. These mind hacks are safe and effective. All it takes is a little time and attention. Ask yourself the hard questions. Then, decide if you are willing to change your thinking. It starts with eliminating negative programming. Then, find other people who want to develop and expand their awareness. Be mindful of those who only want to hold you back.
If we nurture our ability to perceive correctly, we can increase it. Practice any form of seated or moving meditation that expands awareness. If we want to see ourselves and the world more clearly, we must increase our perception bandwidth.
References
(1) Sigmund Freud. Wikipedia
(2) Awareness. Wikipedia
(3) Higher Level of Consciousness. Wikipedia