For our purposes, our definition of consciousness is:

 

The capacity to be aware. In this context, it includes all the interior dimensions of the soul and capacities of life that can -- among other things -- help us deal successfully with our changing world by sensing, understanding, and relating to the entities, interactions, and conditions in and around us.

 

The varieties, dimensions, manifestations, and elements to which we refer when we use the term "consciousness" includes the following:

• hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, pleasure, pain attention, presence, perceptiveness, experience, memory intuition, responsiveness, sensing the grain and flow of things.

• self/reflexive awareness, self-sense/identity, proprioception/body-sense, authenticity

• interest, openness, curiosity, passion, purpose, intention, desire, will, engagement, courage, commitment

• attitude, bias, perspective, worldview/paradigm, assumption, belief

• feeling, emotion, reaction, sentiment, bliss, joy, misery, suffering, hope, and others…

• care, compassion, empathy, mutuality, resonance, appreciation, loving-kindness, friendship

• intelligence, learning, reflection, analysis, synthesis, pattern-seeking, information processing, understanding

• knowledge, information, ideas, understandings, models, designs

• concepts, language, names, articulation, metaphors

• certainty, arrogance, uncertainty, doubt, confusion, humility, agreement, dissent

• ethics, morality, integrity, principles

• choice, values, decision-making, judgment, evaluation

• imagination, aesthetic sensibility, vision, story, ingenuity, inspiration

• wisdom, spirit, enlightenment, transcendence, a sense of the sacred, awe, wonder

• humor, amusement, enjoyment, playfulness

• mystery, ambiguity, nuance, sense of paradox

• forethought, anticipation, worry, plans, strategy, tactics, guidance, predictions, scenarios (future-sensing)

• management, direction, governance, leadership (bridging between decision, will, and plans with real action in the world, supporting the ability to act).

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Questions:

Sometimes we hear a three-part explanation of the self: body, soul and spirt. Is this so?