What Is Consciousness and Why Is It so Important?
– The Big Picture

by Søren Lauritzen

In our (goodconsciuoslife.com) opinion, consciousness is one of the most important things there are.

Perhaps even THE most important thing.

But why – what makes consciousness so incredibly important?

To answer that, and several other questions, we must first take a look at this question …

What Is Consciousness?
The Correct Answer Requires the Correct Perspective!

Throughout history, philosophers, religious people, psychologists, and various branches of modern science have sought the answer to that question. Brain researchers, neurologists, biologists, and others hope to find the answer in the brain but have not had much success. Why?

Probably because the answer requires a larger worldview than the old physical-mechanical paradigm (worldview, mindset) allows for.

In the old worldview and paradigm, the physical world is the starting point for everything, so consciousness is supposed to be something that arose from the physical universe. Perhaps by chance, or perhaps consciousness was supposed to arise simply because the complexity of a system (e.g., the human brain) became great enough. But to put it briefly:

Based on the outdated physical-mechanical paradigm, it is actually not possible to understand consciousness.

To understand what consciousness is, we need to move towards a more quantum physics-based or holistic-based paradigm (worldview); in fact, you could call the new paradigm the a quantum physics-based, holistic consciousness paradigm. That’s where we at goodconsciouslife.com are at in terms of understanding.

Here at goodconsciouslife.com we don’t just see consciousness as, for example, “the psyche” or “conscious processes in the brain” or “being aware of oneself,” but rather as something big; something very, very big – grand even …

Consciousness is by far the most comprehensive thing there is. And the most fundamental.

To understand what we mean by this, we can look to a highly respected Nobel laureate for a little help:

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

~ Max Planck ~ (1858-1947), German physicist and Nobel laureate who is considered to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics.

Max Planck was a physicist, and physics is one of the ‘hardest’ sciences there is. And yet he believed that consciousness is fundamental, whereas the physical world is simply a reflection of consciousness. Without consciousness, there will be no physical world, no physical universe. It is consciousness that has created the world we experience with our physical bodies.

Or, in other words …

Consciousness is what is primary (what is creative), the physical world is only secondary (it is created).

Therefore, consciousness should not be understood as a physical phenomenon but rather as “life, the universe, and everything (literally), including ourselves”. Consciousness should be seen as a creative, organizing, and unifying force that also experiences that which it creates.

Many people may find all this rather surprising (and often overwhelming) – and it may take some time to get used to viewing consciousness this way. After all, we need to switch from an old way of thinking and understanding of everything to an entirely new one … from the outdated physical-mechanical paradigm to a new one centered in quantum physics and holistic thinking.

Describing and Defining Consciousness Is a Big Task – It Literally Cannot Get Any Bigger

How do you describe something (consciousness) that is all things, somthing that is everything?

One could of course call consciousness “the totality of everything” or, as we did earlier; ourselves, life, the universe, and everything.

The word “unit”/”unity” is also fine – not least because “unity with everything” or “all is one (one is all)” is often the way that people describe the experience of a very high level of consciousness. So you could say that …

Consciousness is a very large unit.

Or it would be equally true to say that:

Consciousness is UNITY.

It’s no wonder that people who experience consciousness at a very high level (for example on inner journeys, in deep meditation, in near-death experiences, or through spontaneous spiritual enlightenment) describe it as an experience of unity. Because that’s exactly what it is.

But even though “unity” is a good word, we here at goodconsciouslife.com prefer to describe life, the universe, ourselves, and everything as “wholeness”:

Wholeness is perhaps the very best description of consciousness:
-Consciousness is a very large wholeness
-Consciousness IS wholeness.

But what does it mean for consciousness to be a (very large) wholeness?

What Is Wholeness?

First, we must clarify what wholeness is. Wholeness is unity (!) – nothing is missing. Wholeness is something that can stand on its own because it is as it should be.

This is super interesting because …

If something – here consciousness – is entirely as it should be, then ALL PARTS of this wholeness are also entirely as they should be … the parts in themselves are also whole.

In other words:

That-which-is, the great wholeness (consciousness), lacks nothing, and all the smaller parts that the great wholeness consists of (e.g. us humans) do not lack anything either. Everything is entirely as it should be.

Or, put another way:

All is well.

What Is ‘That-Which-Is’?

If anyone should be in doubt as to what we mean when we say ‘that-which-is’, then ‘that-which-is’ is the same as everything, which is the same as reality as it ACTUALLY is. (As opposed to how we may delude ourselves into thinking what reality is).

‘That-which-is’ = life, the universe, and everything (including us humans) = reality in a more absolute form = the truth about how things actually are = wholeness = unity = consciousness.

Comprehensive? Yep. It’s hard to grasp. But it can be done with a little training. Perhaps the most important thing to understand is that life, the universe, consciousness, and we humans are one and the same thing: Wholeness.

Consciousness Is Wholeness Consisting of Smaller Parts (That Are also Whole), Which Consist of Even Smaller Parts (Which Are Also Whole) … and on It Goes

Wholeness can very well consist of several smaller parts (that are whole in themselves). Think of a puzzle. It consists of whole pieces (small parts that are whole) that fit perfectly together and which together form a larger wholeness.

One could even imagine that each piece of the puzzle consisted of even smaller pieces that had to be put together first, right? That is, small pieces that should first be assembled into larger pieces, which should then be assembled into the finished puzzle.

One could also think of Chinese boxes (boxes inside boxes, inside boxes) or Russian matryoshka dolls (a doll inside a doll, inside a doll, etc.).

This is exactly how consciousness (and life, the universe, and everything) is organized:

Consciousness (life) is one big wholeness which contains smaller parts (that are also whole), which in turn contain even smaller parts (which are – yes – also whole), which in turn contain even smaller whole parts … and so on.

Example: Our Physical Bodies

We can view our physical bodies in exactly the same way: As a wholeness (the body), consists of smaller whole-in-themselves parts (organs), which consist of even smaller whole-in-themselves parts (cells), which consist of even smaller whole-in-themselves parts (molecules) … and molecules consist of atoms and electrons, which in turn consist of various subatomic particles, which in some way constitute or are part of a quantum field.

Analogy: A Hologram

A perhaps more traditional image of the nature of consciousness is a hologram. Consciousness is like a hologram.

A hologram is a kind of photograph that exists in three dimensions. You can walk around it and view the image from all angles. So if the hologram shows a mouse, you can view the mouse from the front, back, top, bottom, and from the side. Almost as if the mouse itself were cast into the lump of transparent plastic that the hologram is made of.

Perhaps the most intersting thing about a hologram is that you can ‘cut’ it into pieces, and then each piece will have the WHOLE image (of e.g. the mouse) in it. If the pieces are very small, the image will be unclear, however, you can still see the mouse (from the example above) from the front, back, top, bottom, and from the side – in every single piece.

In other words:

Wholeness IS all the parts and each part IS wholeness. That’s how consciousness is.

The Point: Everything Is as It Should Be

THE POINT is that everything is whole, and there is nothing wrong with anything. Not even with us humans. No matter what we may feel and think and believe. Low self-esteem is a basic misunderstanding at a fundamental level, and so are all the beliefs that we may have about ourselves, others, or of life being “bad”, “wrong”, or “deficient”.

(Yes, in fact, NEARLY ALL beliefs about EVERYTHING are misunderstandings, but that is a discussion we’ll save for another another time).

We’re just about to end this article on “What is consciousness?”, so let’s just take a brief look at what all of the above may mean for us.

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe”, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”

~ Albert Einstein ~ (1879-1955), theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate, creator of the theory of relativity, one of the founders of quantum physics, and one of the most famous and respected scientists of our time.

Consciousness and Us Humans
– The Shoes We Wear Are Typically Way Too Small When It Comes to Our View of Ourselves

As we have just found out, we humans are consciousness – however, typically we understand ourselves as smaller parts of life, the universe, and everything (i.e. of consciousness).

So …

As we humans are consciousness, we are whole. We are as we should be.

But even if we understand ourselves as smaller parts of consciousness, we are still whole. Why?

Because all parts of a wholeness must necessarily also be whole … it cannot be otherwise. If even the tiniest part of a wholeness was not whole, then the big wholeness would not be whole either. But it is. Consciousness is whole. So we are whole.

That’s why spiritual teachers, mystics, and people who enjoy going on deep inner journeys (“psychonauts”) always emphasize that everything is as it should be.

However, just because these people (and this text) say so, it doesn’t have to be true. Fortunately, each of us can test it for ourselves. For example, by embarking on a deep inner journey and having our own experience of unity and wholeness.

As Parts of a Wholeness, We Can Experience … Everything

It is because of the omnipresent state of wholeness that we humans, who both have and are consciousness, can use our consciousness to experience both wholeness (i.e. total consciousness, i.e. a unity experience) and any other part of consciousness (life) than the one we are.

For example, when using our consciousness, we can experience what it is like to be another human being, a dolphin, a tree, or a mountain (not in an “ordinary” state of consciousness, but in an “expanded” one). It is actually quite common to experience that kind of thing on inner journeys and when having intense sex. It is also described at great lengths in books on consciousness by, for example, Stanislav Grof.

We Can Also Create Things

Since we are consciousness, and consciousness is creative in nature, we humans can also create our own experiences, our own lives, and even our own reality. What we create may well include the idea that we ourselves are NOT okay, that there is something wrong with us, that we are not whole and so on. Which is of course unnecessary and gives us an unpleasant experience.

Fortunately, the truth is still that everything is wholeness. That is why our physical bodies heal themselves. Our emotions, psyche, and energies would do so too – if only we could figure out how – and had the ‘balls’ – to allow it.

This is, however, a story for another time.

The Qualities of Consciousness – and Thus of Us
– We have Forgotten that We Are All Creative, Manifesting Magicians

In the new quantum-physics-based, holistic consciousness paradigm, it is, as mentioned, consciousness that creates and organizes the world – at the same time it is also consciousness that experiences the world. It does this, among other things, through us humans.

We humans ARE the same as the thing that has created the physical universe, namely consciousness. So we all have the same qualities.

And what are those qualities?

Power, energy, creativity, love and the ability to manifest are obvious, but actually the most correct answer is: ALL QUALITIES. All those qualities we think of as positive, all those traits we count as neutral, and all those aspects we consider negative.

Consciousness has them all, and so do we humans. This is a good thing to remember.

Various ideas and theories that humans are fundamentally “good” or “evil” (or even “sinful” or something else just as strange) we can very well put to rest.

Humans are consciousness, and consciousness is EVERYTHING – consciousness is all conceivable qualities.

The trick is of course that we can use our free will to choose which qualities we want to focus on, strengthen within ourselves, and identify with.

We can even choose to let go of all manner of identification and just be pure consciousness, which is extremely pleasant and effective.

Our choices control our experience – both of ourselves and of life. So there is good reason to make well-considered, conscious choices, and good reason to be as conscious as possible.

It also makes really good sense to have a strong focus on our own experience. Because ultimately our experience is one that IS our life, isn’t it?

The End, but …

As far as we (here at goodconsciouslife.com) are able to understand and communicate it (based on our own experiences with consciousness), all of the above is a fairly accurate description of … everything.

Other Pages Related to This Topic

Consciousness Revolution

The Programming of Consciousness Controls Us! (Through Beliefs, Norms, and the Like). Fortunately, We Control It …

We Suffer from a Constriction of Consciousness! (What It Is, What It Does, and How We Get Past It)

Go to the article library: Articles on Personal Development – An Online Library on Consciousness and Personal development

Read this page in Danish 🇩🇰

Go to the homepage