Awareness- Mistaken due to a mindset that fails to distinguish from consciousness

"The value our global capitalist culture places on activity, speed and busy-ness denies the time needed for meditative and aware decision-making – but in this way also slows down or entirely blocks truly aware, thoughtful and effective action. Behind this culture is a deep-seated fear of awareness, not least awareness of all the ways in which – lacking awareness – human beings are destroying each other and the earth.

The resulting global crisis and turning point in time that we now face tells us that it is high time for humanity to become more aware, high time for a cultural revolution in awareness – one based not just on ‘slowing down’ but on cultivating a whole new way of aware experiencing and action, living and relating, thinking and feeling. This in turn requires new forms of education in awareness in all areas of life and knowledge – and not just education in facts or skills. Above all it requires a new understanding of awareness as something essentially distinct from mere consciousness ‘of’ things.

There is all that we experience, all that occurs or goes on in ourselves and the world. And there is the awareness of all that occurs or goes on – the awareness of all we experience. That awareness – awareness ‘as such’ or ‘pure awareness’ – is what alone can free human beings from bondage to anything they are conscious or aware of.

Awareness as such is a not a product of the brain, bounded by our bodies, or the mere private property of individuals or groups. Instead it has an essentially unbounded and universal character. As such, awareness also transcends all identities and all identifications – whether personal or group identities, social and economic identities, ethnic, cultural and religious identities etc. That is why anyone who cultivate awareness works not only for their own well-being but for that of the world – a world whose ills all result from a lack of awareness, and thus can never be healed through either the politics of identity or identification with particular spiritual or religious traditions and their symbols".

~ ESSAYS BY PETER WILBERG