DR SANJAY TEOTIA explains what consciousness is and how it applies to our daily life
Consciousness is our own unique way of processing information, rather than merely imbibing it in a way that won’t be meaningful or individuated for us. It helps us to process information on the basis of our personal needs and ever-changing interactions with our environment.
Three main basic cognitive processes contribute together to this unique way of information processing — namely the self, our own attention span and working memory. Consciousness increases the likelihood that we will direct their attention and movements to whatever is most important for survival and reproduction.
Stream of consciousness is a metaphor describing how thoughts seem to flow through the conscious mind. The full range of thoughts that one can be aware of forms the content of this stream. Consciousness is an intrinsic property of all thoughts (even of infants) by which the subject becomes aware of the thought itself.
Our experience of consciousness is functional because we use it to guide and control our behaviour and to think logically about problems. Consciousness is about everything you experience; even about the tune stuck in one’s head. The origin and nature of these experiences have been a mystery from the earliest days of antiquity up to the present. Consciousness and well-being offers a unique window into the science and art of our understanding of the mind and applying it to cultivating well-being in our personal lives and professional work. Well-being includes psychological wellness and there are a number of totally different methods by which this can be achieved. Well-being is not only about an absence of sickness or illness, but also includes the absence of psychological sickness.
How can one describe psychological well-being? It occurs when an individual can develop his or her abilities, as well as take care of the basic pressures of life on a regular basis. It means that such an individual can work properly and contribute to the group he or she is a part of at work or at home.
Consciousness is a natural and integral part of all humans and is at the core of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual functions that we perform throughout our lives. We also tend to be too occupied with and are always distracted by the daily business of living to be fully aware of our own consciousness. More often than not, we are so involved in our materialistic world or in our own emotional realm that we are not too deeply involved with our own level of consciousness.
The more grateful we are for our existence, the better we will be in gratitude and have reverence for our life. Consciousness and well-being teaches us to tap into hope, gratitude, joy, beauty and other nourishing energies of our life.
If we achieve wisdom and develop our mind skills with meaningful and regular meditation sessions and yoga practice, we will also be able to achieve mind and body wellness of the highest possible level. In short, consciousness enhances our capacity for perception and understanding and is the basis of our existence.
Dr. Sanjay Teotia is Joint Director, Medical & Health, Lucknow. He is a prolific spiritual writer and his articles appear regularly in Navbharat Times and in Times of India, apart from YoursPositively
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Consciousness is indeed the sum, substance and essence of us, consciousness is indeed the vibe of the creative principle of the entire universe embedded into us.
Our body as such is nothing in comparison to consciousness and is subservient to its immense power if we can genuinely harness.
To be more specific, we are not our body, we are our Consciousness. But, we fail to realise its potential in great subtlety by getting immersed in the materialistic world and enjoying life by merely gratifying our senses. It would not be an overstatement to say that we go through life like sleepwalkers and hence remain in a state of amnesia clouding our own consciousness and get estranged of actualising our highest possibilities, lying untapped in ourselves.
Teotia Ji, you have very succinctly said, it is our consciousness alone which enhances our perception and understanding which is the basis of our existence. This as such lies at the heart of Spirituality as well as management ethic to make our life productive as well as fulfilling, there is no doubt about that.