What Is Consciousness? (Meditation Teacher Explains)

One of my Youtube viewers recently left me a comment sharing how he was intrigued to hear my thoughts of “quantumness” and “consciousness”.

I’m not a mathematician or a scientist so I’m not going to address the quantum point because it’s never really felt aligned for me to share claims like “quantum leap” like some others do in the mindset / spirituality space.

I looked up the definition of “Quantum” and the main function of the word is to describe a very small measurement.

Again, not my area of expertise but as a Meditation Teacher, I can talk about my experience exploring consciousness so let’s get into that.

When I was 17 years old, I had an existential crisis where I started to ask all the really big questions.

• Why are we here?
• Who am I?
• What am I?
• What does it mean to be a human?
• How am I going to live the rest of my life?
• What’s important?
• What does it all mean?

These questions scared me to be honest.

Because I didn’t have any answers.

My total lack of understanding myself and the world frightened me.

I had this intuition knowing that as a human, I had a lot of potential.

We were meant to be the smartest animals on the planet.

The top of the food chain.

But I didn’t feel very smart back then.

I actually felt very dumb.

I felt like a slave to my own impulses and compulsions.

I thought, “If we’re so smart, why can’t I even control my own mind?”.

This was the beginning of my journey into self exploration and self development;

I was very fortunate to have stumbled upon a blog post on a page called “The Mind Unleashed” which talked about meditation, spirituality and tapping into your super powers.

As a 17 year old kid, that sounded pretty good to me.

So I started meditation. That was back in 2010.

Over the last 15 years I have continued my meditation practice and I have explored various consciousness altering practices to find out what it all means.

In this blog, I’m going to share some of the most profound and transformational experiences I’ve had in my quest to understand my own consciousness.

Let’s start at the start.

Meditation

When I first started meditation, I had no idea what I was doing.

I just went to the beach to sit down, cross my legs, focus on my breathing and try to stay present.

The only instruction I had was from the blog post I mentioned earlier which said to just focus on your thoughts and when you notice yourself thinking, return your attention to the breath.

I practiced every morning and overtime I learned to become present. 

I learned how to use my attention to pierce through the veil of mental illusion.

It wasn’t easy. I was often frustrated with myself. However in time, I started to have these momentary experiences of Oneness.

All of the limitations I thought were in the world, dissolved.

Everything in my awareness became unified.

It’s hard to explain but you probably see yourself as a separate self.

You see yourself as separate from the rest of the world.

“I am me and they are them”

In meditation, I was able to have the experience of being One with everything.

When I was able to hold that level of awareness, there was no separation.

I’ll be honest, those moments didn’t last long.

They lasted a few seconds and on the rare occasion, a few minutes.

But it was enough for me to see through the illusion that most of us are conditioned into believing.

In my experience, being truly conscious and being connected to consciousness is a felt experience of everything being within your awareness and your awareness being within everything.

It’s the experience of being un-limited.

The first time I ever experienced that was when I was still a teenager meditating on the beach.

It was a clean, sober and pure experience of consciousness.

I now think that’s what God is.

I don’t think God is a person or anything like a person.

I think God is more like a state of awareness.

An all-inclusive, limitless awareness or consciousness.

After I started to have those experiences of connecting with that awareness in meditation, my physical world became brighter.

I literally started to see colours more vividly and I was able to experience ecstatic states of prolonged happiness and joy in my life.

What Is Consciousness?

My experience of consciousness is that it’s the foundation of our reality.

Consciousness is primary.

It’s the awareness that precedes anything else in your experience.

If you think about yourself, your thoughts, your emotions, your behaviours, your relationships, your job or anything else in your life.

All of that is secondary.

If you didn’t have your awareness or your consciousness, you wouldn’t be able to experience any of that.

Consciousness is primary.

Everything else is secondary.

I am aware of myself

• “Myself” is secondary
• “I” is primary

When you practice living from this place of awareness, you have the ability to develop mastery over your self.

You become aware of your thoughts.

You become aware of your feelings.

You become aware of your beliefs.

You become aware of your behaviours.

From that place of awareness, you’re able to have choice.

You can start to choose.

This is the gift of God.

To choose.

Remember, if we define God as a state of consciousness.

God as a state of awareness.

When you live with God, you’re really living with a certain state of consciousness.

I’m not out here trying to start any religion but that’s my personal experience.

If you ask me to explain what I think consciousness is, that’s what I think it is... I don’t just think that’s what it is, I know that’s what it is.

You could call it my “belief” but it’s not a belief for me.

It's knowing.

I also know that everyone has the ability to experience that same state of unity consciousness in their life if they choose to seek it out.

That’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about teaching meditation now.

Because it allows you to find your own connection to that blissful state of consciousness.

If you’d like me to help you learn meditation, there’s a couple of ways I can do that...

• I run a community membership called Mind Launch where I help people to master their mind by learning how to meditate properly.
  
  
• I also offer 1:1 mentorship to work with people privately.

If you have any questions about what I’ve discussed in this blog then you can comment below the Youtube video and I’ll answer them there.

With Optimism,

Josh