Waking Awareness Versus Unconscious

Waking consciousness exists as a tiny part of the total being it manifests in. Maybe I am exaggerating, but in its tiny room it has a few buttons it presses and the voluntary muscles move. There are a few screens which, through some of the body senses give a view of a tiny range of the phenomena of the universe. The rest of our being, the remainder of the universe, we give the cover-all name of unconsciousness. It simply means – we are not aware of it. It is a bit like having a web camera stuck in a certain place, and that is all you can see through it – yet there is the whole wide web to explore.

The unconscious is not a thing or a process-it is a mass of functions, processes, actions and reactions of which we are not usually aware. We frequently make the mistake of believing that anything we are not aware of does not have consciousness – in fact does not exist. Because of that we assume that one could never be aware of the intimate details of, for instance, liver func­tions, or brain-cell activity. But we are used to the idea of a part of our body being anaesthetised, or going to sleep because of a circulation block. These areas, which were devoid of awareness, can become conscious again. Could not anything which was entered into with waking awareness be considered conscious?

I do not think, in my experience of bodilessness, that I had ‘left’ my body. Rather, the connections with the sense organs had been switched oft-so that I had no body awareness.

The experience made me certain that waking consciousness could have a completely different experience of itself, other than the ‘normal’ one which is dominated by body sensations, emotions and thoughts. There were, I realised, other dimensions of mind to experience. Being of a practical nature I wondered what could be done from this new platform of experience. However, at that time, despite some months of experiment, I could achieve nothing more than bodiless consciousness. It is a condition most people can reach with a little regular practice.

See Levels of Awareness – You Are a Dual Being – Jesse Watkins