Science and Spiritualism both grapple with the concept of consciousness, leaving it as one of the most fascinating mysteries. It is the essence of human life, an exquisite phenomenon that enables us to engage with the world. Consciousness makes the human brain awake, active, and alive, emerging only after becoming aware. It is that neural activity in the brain that responds to stimuli.

Neuroscience and cognitive psychology explore consciousness from a scientific perspective. Scientists consider it an emergent property of the brain—a product of intricate neural circuitry and interactions of millions of neurons. According to this perspective, the mind produces consciousness and activates it when it becomes aware of itself. Here, consciousness becomes a result, a spin-off of mentally driven tasks through cognition.

Even though awareness is fundamental and crucial to consciousness, it can also process and experience thoughts from past awareness in the subconscious state through memory or during dream sleep, which occurs without full consciousness. But, despite advances, the mechanism behind decrypting sensory sensations and emotions remains unexplained.

Spiritually speaking, consciousness is the originating source within the mind rather than a derived product. Within spiritual traditions, especially in non-dualism, such as Advaita Vedanta, most teachers assert that pure consciousness is that divine within, equal, non-dual, and at one with awareness. It is called Atman – translated as the soul that is beyond cognition.

Where science attempts to explain the phenomena of consciousness by reducing it to parts, spiritual insight attempts to understand the phenomena by applying the opposite approach: realising the result, or the undivided whole, which is awareness, or Para Brahman – the awakened awareness that creates consciousness.

The primary and most notable difference between them lies in their respective starting points. Science begins with the outer observable and strives to reach the inner, while spirituality starts with the inner observer and expands outward. Science observes and measures the world around it and meditates on unique experiences. Each perspective offers its explanation of consciousness, considering it a function of the brain and nervous system. The different views of the brain and body are instruments through which consciousness plays its confusing, illusory game of duality.

Neither conflict. Science, for example, would ask, How does consciousness operate? Spirituality inquires about the identity of the possessor of consciousness. Only when both domains graciously acknowledge and accept their boundaries can we fully realise a comprehensive theory of consciousness. As mystics understand and modern physicists now suggest, consciousness may not be a part of the universe. Instead, the universe may exist within consciousness.

In phenomenological terms, consciousness—when defined as the awareness of experience—is a function of the mind. It arises from stimuli and exists in the space between dualities. Transcending this relative consciousness requires moving beyond cognition into pure, non-dual consciousness, which we refer to as the soul. But to engage with it meaningfully is to recognise that the mind is its medium.

Consciousness pertains to the experience and its contents. As always, dualism involves a subject-object relationship, as demonstrated in phrases such as “I am conscious of hot” and “I am conscious of pain.” It also processes different stimuli shaped by thoughts, emotions, memories, and even perceptions. Because consciousness flows through the mind, it becomes a part of the mind’s limitations. Like most processes, consciousness fluctuates, such as during dream sleep, anaesthesia, or trauma, or remains absent during the shutdown of the mind in deep sleep.

Focus on neuroscience, quantum physics, and near-death experiences (NDEs) challenge the dead-on materialistic view that consciousness is a byproduct of the brain, purely and solely. It opens space for more “religious” beliefs. For instance, the soul can exist independently after death. I am doubtful about this part, as I do not understand how consciousness can persist even after death when it is absent in deep sleep.

In my assumption, the spirit of awareness is aware of its presence in deep sleep, but not the soul through consciousness. Like I am aware that I slept deeply, but I am not conscious of whether I had any dreams or not. It is that awareness we call a spirit, which is eternal and, above all, knowingness, that which never incarnates, nor can it then reincarnate. There is a possibility that some data may be transferred through DNA during conception, allowing an individual to recollect information about their previous life in a new birth while they are alive.

Consciousness is an aspect of the mind. But psychologically and functionally speaking, the way we experience intimacy daily is best described as an aspect of the mind that is active. The way we function daily conditions a particular type of consciousness, which is dualistic. This type of consciousness operates through perception, memory, and attention, which filter information within the mind’s structure and mechanisms. Hence, consciousness is an aspect of the mind that works in duality.

Despite all its clarifications on consciousness, scientific inquiry has yet to fully unravel the mystery of where consciousness originates. What science does show is that certain brain and mind functions, such as attention, memory, identity, and perception, which are all dualistic, bear a close relationship to waking consciousness. This evidence supports the notion that the “witnessing consciousness” we associate with profound spiritual insights is distinct from the relative thinking and reacting consciousness, which operates on autopilot subconsciously in daily routines.

Life, with all its facets, appears to be an experiential entity, fractured into two perspectives that emerge as subjectivity. Non-dual and formless: It is absolute awareness; unqualified awareness—no further division. It does not need the mind, senses, or body for its existence. It is unchanged whether one is in deep sleep or meditative silence. It cannot be regarded as an object because it remains the silent witness beyond all separation. It is the fundamental attribute of being. It differs from consciousness.

Awareness provides a basis. Consciousness moves through it. Awareness attends to, engages with, and processes through the framework of the mind until consciousness arises. Only then is awareness free from the boundaries of consciousness. The mind, to generate consciousness, must first be aware, and only then can it become conscious.

This view suggests that consciousness is not a fundamental field or the substratum but a byproduct of the functionalist approach to the mind. It comes forth only after the mind applies focus, attention, comparison, and discrimination. The mind sits in a state of dormancy and passivity. Neutral raw awareness before it goes through the workings of the mind. Only thereafter does raw awareness give rise to “consciousness.” It assigns meaning, creates subject-object relations, and provides the context for the content to experience its attentiveness.

Thus, while awareness may be the first step, it cannot exist in isolation—action follows awareness. The integrated and organised information, referred to as “conscious experience,” is created by the interpretation of “awareness.” It means awareness is before consciousness, so it must come first. The mind must work through neural activity on processed awareness by engaging with it through comparison via exercising its choice. After that, the mind helps give rise to consciousness. It means to be conscious is to be aware of something and not the other way around.

The above narration on the theory of consciousness is what I have spiritually understood, and I have observed how well it connects to the Laws of thermodynamics in quantum physics. However, each of us has our own understanding of the same, which may differ from the exposition and illustration given below. It’s challenging to distinguish the specific roles of awareness, consciousness, and the human mind in our lives because they are intertwined, interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent.

As proclaimed by Advaita Vedanta and now supported by Quantum Mechanics at the most fundamental level, including physical entities, everything in the universe is composed of energy or its equivalent, Brahman, also known as the universal energy. It possesses multiple qualities that appear to disappear eventually, only to return to its spaceless, timeless nothingness, vibrating cyclically to create, sustain, destroy, and recreate.

Now, Advaita Vedanta goes further, stating that out of all its abilities, the supreme is that of Universal Awareness (Para Brahman), which is not aware of itself. However, when this sovereign cosmic energy settles in the superconscious section of the mind, where no thoughts prevail, we call it the soul. It makes the mind aware and, subsequently, with pure conscious energy in the soul, permits the cognitive mind to function, becoming mindful of one out of the two in duality to exercise its choice for its personal needs. Implies awareness, which is not aware of itself in the universe, becomes aware after entering the mind. The answer to all that we have discovered about the universe is primarily because of this awakened awareness within the mind.

If and when the mind is alert, aware energy enters, and after that, if the mind is attentive, it becomes conscious. Further, awareness is primary, and consciousness is secondary. Awareness is that subject, and consciousness is its objective. It is not dependent on consciousness, but consciousness depends entirely on awareness.

Individual awareness is the qualitative essence of being, and consciousness is its quantitative resultant. Awareness is independent of thoughts, senses, or the body. It is ever-present, both in deep sleep and during meditative awareness, whereas consciousness is not. It is that silent witness, the presence behind all-knowing, a part of the universal awareness, eternal, timeless, changeless, in which all changes occur. Awareness is the basis; consciousness is the movement within it. It is the presence of the pre-conscious watching from which we know all that we know.

Consciousness, on the other hand, is divided into three sections in the mind – soul, as in non-dual pure consciousness playing the role of a witness-er watching its thoughts to check and guide the mind. It enters into duality when the mind is attentively conscious-centred and focused. After that, the mind enters a lower or subconscious state, deriving data from its past awareness through memory and intellect to choose between dualities, thereby experiencing and realising the life it wishes for its material growth.

The mind creates consciousness after it becomes aware of itself. It is above cognition but below the level of awareness. In pure consciousness, or soul, it is at par with awareness, yet a notch less since it is dependent on aware energy. In deep sleep, awareness remains in the mind, but there is no consciousness. It activates only when the mind is awake and engaged with the senses, perception, memory, and processing of its data collected consciously or subconsciously.

Consciousness is a neural activity of the brain and is not eternal. Advaita Vedanta considers awareness or the witness as ‘who you are’ and body, mind, and soul as the witness-er – ‘what you are’ in a quantitative sense because only the mind, after it becomes aware, can create the experience of consciousness. Also, it is for this reason that we narrate the body, mind, and soul as ‘me and mine.’

This view challenges mystical and non-dual interpretations, reinstating the primacy of the mind in the evolution of consciousness. However, it also provides that bridge between neuroscience, psychology, and practical spirituality, grounded in the principle that only a mind, which you claim is yours, can create consciousness after it becomes aware. Witnessing or observation on its own has no value unless the mind processes and measures. It may not align with the metaphysical mystery. Still, it offers a concrete framework for understanding rational spirituality, which posits that awareness is supreme – That art Thou – Para Brahman, which is capable of creating the experience of consciousness.

NAMASTE