SELF-AWARENESS The Individualistic Journey of Consciousness By Robert J. Roy When I accepted to explain and share my thoughts and method of self-awareness with the members of ISPE through the monthly issue of Telicom I was set back a bit.  I realized that I had never before actually put these thoughts to paper.  Until recently starting my web site there was nothing but a few notebooks and odd scraps of paper here and there.  There is a big difference between knowing, living and consulting, and putting to paper and trying to explain and share.  I could write from now until my last breath and never scratch the surface of the abyss that is consciousness. What I have decided to be the best approach is to first explain and show how I think most popular and generally accepted thoughts and methods of improving self-awareness are flawed.  Then, using a diagram of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs I will show how I believe I have corrected that flaw.  After which, I shall use various diagrams, illustrations and examples to show how my method has worked for me and others I have shared it with.  At that point, you folks will have seen enough to understand what my thoughts are, and decide for yourselves.  Having never seen it not work, and having seen the difference in the lives of those who are able to understand it regardless of their level of understanding or the container / person, I look forward to all the good energy that comes from this.  My sincerest best of health happiness and harmony to everyone, right now. Let’s start with definitions. Consciousness From Britannica: Quality or state of being aware.  As applied to the lower animals, consciousness refers to the capacity for sensation and, usually, simple volition.  In higher animals, this capacity may also include thinking and emotion.  In human beings, consciousness is understood to include “meta-awareness,” an awareness that one is aware.  The term also refers broadly to the upper level of mental life of which the person is aware, as contrasted with unconscious processes.  Levels of consciousness (e.g., attention vs. sleep) are correlated with patterns of electrical activity on the brain (brain waves).  See also philosophy of mind. From Merriam-Webster: Function:  Noun 1a:  The quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself. b:  The state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact. c:  AWARENESS; especially: concern for some social or political cause. 2  :  The state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought: MIND 3  :  The totality of conscious states of an individual. 4  :  The normal state of conscious life. <regained consciousness> 5  :  The upper level of mental life of which the person is aware as contrasted with unconscious processes. From Wikipedia: Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise such key features as subjectivity, self- awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one’s environment.   It is a subject of much research in philosophy, psychology, neurology, and cognitive science.  Consciousness differs itself from moral conscience, often designed by the expression of a “voice of conscious” telling the good from the evil. Some philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness, which is experience itself, and access consciousness, which is the processing of the things in experience (Block 2004).  Others consider this distinction to be mistaken (Dennett 1991).  Some philosophers believe that consciousness is part of the physical world whilst others believe it may be separate from the physical world in some sense.  (Descartes, in particular, strongly held this view.)  Many cultures and religious traditions place the seat of consciousness in a soul that is the mind separate from the body.  Some consider consciousness to be intimately linked to the neural functioning of the brain, dictating the way by which the world is experienced.  Marx, Nietzche and Freud all criticized the notion of a conscious subject, sovereign of himself, which forms the groundworks of the liberal tradition of the social contract. Humans (and often animals, as well) are variously said to possess consciousness, self-awareness, and a mind that contains our sensations, perceptions, dreams, lucid dreams, inner speech and imagination etc.  Each of us has a subjective view.  There are many debates about the extent to which the mind constructs or experiences the outer world, the passage of time, and free will. An understanding of necessary preconditions for consciousness in the human brain may allow us to address important ethical questions.  For instance, to what extent are non-human animals conscious?  At what point in human development does consciousness begin?  Can machines ever achieve conscious states?  These issues are of great interest to those concerned with the ethical treatment of other beings, be they animals, fetuses, or in the future, machines.  Panpsychism is the belief that all matter is sentient or conscious. In common parlance, consciousness denotes being awake and responsive to one’s environment; this contrasts with unconsciousness as when asleep or in a coma (distinct from Freud’s unconscious mind).  The term “level of consciousness” denotes how consciousness seems to vary during anesthesia and during various states of mind, such as day dreaming, lucid dreaming, imagining, etc.  Nonconsciousness exists when consciousness is not present.   There is speculation, especially among religious groups, that consciousness may exist after death or before birth. Self-awareness From Merriam-Webster: Function:  Noun An awareness of one’s own personality or individuality. Definitions are always good when you go to first start looking into something, but as you can see as shown by those above, when it comes to consciousness and self-awareness, there are very few answers and many, many questions.    After many years of doing what I do and always questioning it, always looking for more self-awareness, ways to improve myself internally, I started looking at what was out there for self help to the masses, figuring there must be stuff out there I could learn a thing or two from that could help me on my journey.  What I found available through government, education or religion, seemed to all be fundamentally flawed, coming at the situation from an after the fact kind of angle, to me anyways.  I didn’t see the proper decision making capabilities and control of the situation that comes with the separation of the consciousness from the person, or vehicle, container, temple; whatever you wish to call it. They seemed to all address the situation from the point of view of the person as relative to the world around them, whether to quit smoking, read faster, lose weight, be a better person or get to heaven.  Even those that did attempt some internal work were all either situation specific or too general and far reaching.  Most were either tinkering at best, and ignoring so much, or claiming a catch-all and defending it with the operator error excuse, which really only makes things worse internally for anyone buying into their ideas. When I first had trouble thinking of my consciousness as separate from myself I would research Mozart or any other child prodigy.  I would research autistics and savants, rain man folks and others.  To me, they were irrefutable evidence of facts, and led me to the knowing of a truth.  The thoughts that one has relative to one’s person are distinct and separate, although relative to, the thoughts one has relative to one’s consciousness.  To me this was the fundamental flaw and acknowledgement that government, education and religion lacked in their teachings. They all seemed to skip over the consciousness and deal with the person.  Some even attempted to affect the person by working on the subconscious, a small part of consciousness, like hypnotism and listening to tapes while you sleep. Next month I shall continue, and using a diagram of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs plus a few additions I have made, I will explain how I have corrected the flaw of not considering the consciousness and show how once you have a strong base of understanding one’s consciousness and person under Maslow’s triangle shaped hierarchy of needs, one is able to traverse the trials and tribulations of Maslow’s hierarchy with much better decision making capabilities and guaranteed results. Basically, by understanding the separation of consciousness and the person or container, one is able to start by knowing who they are, absolutely.  So instead of bouncing around in Maslow’s triangle of hierarchy of needs making blurry and distorted decisions that are based on trial and error and subject to change with one’s level of self- awareness, with little or no results for most, one can take on the trials and tribulations of Maslow’s triangle calmly, and sure of the clearness of their decisions, and constantly see the positive results.   If asked what I wish for you to think about until next month’s issue of Telicom, it would be the understanding of the separation of the consciousness from the person.  It would also be that in order to be the best you you can possibly be, you have to know who you are, absolutely.  In order to do this you have to be brutally honest with yourself without judging yourself, and accepting who you are.  This will build your base that we will discuss.  The more you know yourself, the bigger the base you have and the clearer your decision making capabilities are throughout Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.  Why anyone wouldn’t want their decision making capabilities to be as clear as possible is beyond me, and I have no idea why folks skip right over knowing who they are before they go looking for the path of their true awesome and wonderful self.  Seems like a whole lot of fruitless guessing, hunting and pecking for happiness that they could walk right up to. Those who wish are welcome to check out some of my writings and postings on self awareness from some of the HIQ forums, at my web site.  There are also a few self-awareness essays posted from our weekly contest.  See you next month.
		Here is the link to Wikipedia's page for Maslow's hierarchy of needs. As I have said, I strongly recommend it in general, as well as how it applies to what I have written.  I personally had not seen any of Maslow's stuff except the triangle itself, and am quite intrigued with the possible relationship of his peak experiences with what I call rushes of TRUTH.
				Click here to go on to Part II from here...
			Click here to skip right to Part III which is way better than parts I or II because I was in a much better "place" as I have learned and grown, gathered consciousness...