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THE
HIERARCHY OF CONSCIOUSNESS & AWARENESS
Beneath the Lion's Language
A slumbering 'Wittgensteinian' Stone
Wittgenstein
famously claimed that if a lion could speak, nobody would
understand it. In the spirit of this Wittgensteinian thought, I
would go one step further: when we speak, no-body truly
understands us either—not even our own body - because the speaking head is firmly rooted
in a body that never learned to speak or understand
language.
Wittgenstein was right, but only within the confines of the
narrow, thinking mind. In this sense his insight also reveals the ultimate hubris
of the ego—a small, chattering entity that has conquered the
realm of human forms through language and cognition, often at
the expense of deeper and older intelligences.
Mystics across cultures have long mastered wordless languages.
The tension between scribes and seers, between intellectuals and
embodied mystics, is not new—it dates back to the time of the
Buddha, of Jesus, and long before.
This chapter, then, is about misunderstanding.
More precisely: about who does not understand whom.
Awareness does not Know Us
Now, let us view ourselves in an evolutionary timeline. What about
the layers of awareness that existed before human consciousness
emerged as described in the chapter
Consciousness & Evolution? Does the heartbeat know it sustains a human? Does
digestion recognize the human it nourishes? Are the countless cells and
bacteria within us aware that they collectively form a living
entity—a human being named Tom or Harry?
The primordial awareness systems within us operate without
recognition of our evolution into highly self-reflective,
conscious beings. Just as fish cannot fathom the vast ocean they
inhabit and ants cannot comprehend a modern highway they are
about to cross, these
ancient biological mechanisms function independently of the
intricate cognitive structures that have emerged above them.
Who or What is in Charge? – The Hierarchy of Consciousness
We like to think of thinking consciousness as the ruler of our
being—rational, self-aware, and in control. But what if it’s not
the master, but the servant?
Consider this: the mitochondria in your cells, the bacteria in
your gut, the viruses silently shaping your immune system. These
ancient biological entities have been running the show for
billions of years—not with malice, but through ancient patterns
of coexistence. Cognitive consciousness, by contrast, is the
'new kid
on the block'—restless, adaptive, and primarily concerned with
external survival. While we ponder philosophy, these microscopic
sovereigns dictate the rhythms of digestion, immunity, and
energy production without so much as a passing thought from us.
In this light, the mind’s loftiest ideals—reason, intellect,
maybe even spirituality—are tireless serfs, laboring in service of
these primordial rulers. We are, in a very real sense, vehicles
for their agenda, blindly ensuring their continued survival
while deluded in believing we are in charge.
It’s a provocative perspective, but one worth considering: Who
is truly ruling whom? And what is concept of free will in this
concept?
We do not know Our(many)selves
It gives here sense to view all these layers of untimely
biological operative systems as different 'personalities' within
ourselves.
G.I.
Gurdjieff,
the Greek-Armenian mystic, argued that ordinary humans live in a
state of hypnotic 'waking sleep'. We are in his perspective not single,
unified beings but rather a collection of a hundred different
personalities—each unaware of the others. These fragmented
selves take turns running the show, often contradicting or even
figting one
another without our recognition.
Imagine a traveler with a clear destination. Along the way, his
‘selves’ hijack the journey—one craving comfort stops for a
drink, another seeking adventure veers off track, a third,
fearful, turns him back. In the end, he never reaches his
goal—not due to external obstacles, but because no single ‘I’
was truly in control.
Gurdjieff’s teaching emphasizes consciously witnessing this fragmentation as
the first step toward self-unification. True inner mastery means
transforming these competing impulses into a singular,
harmonious 'I.'
But why are we not naturally conscious of this inner chorus of
personalities? Why
do these hidden selves continue to shape our actions, thoughts,
and emotions without our recognition—tricking us again and
again?
The answer lies behind the closed doors of perception. And
paradoxically, to open that door, we must first close our eyes.
Consciousness can Self-Transform
Every time we close our eyes while remaining fully awake, we
engage in an act of cultivation. As Robert Ornstein’s
'The Psychology of Consciousness' demonstrates,
consciousness is not only static but also trainable.
In one experiment, an ordinary person quickly lost conscious
awareness of a ticking clock as the brain filtered out the
repetitive sound. A Zen monk, however, could sustain conscious awareness
of the ticking indefinitely, demonstrating that consciousness,
though naturally restless, can be cultivated into deep,
sustained presence.
Unlike the older, more rigid, automated awareness systems that sustain life,
consciousness possesses a fluid, self-transforming capacity—it
can reshape itself through itself.
Know Thyself
This ability to reprogram consciousness echoes the ancient
inscription at the
Temple of Apollo: Know thyself.
Through conscious self-awareness, we cultivate what I call
liquid inner adaptation—a flexible responsiveness that allows us
to integrate the deeper, more instinctual layers of our being.
The beauty of consciousness lies in its potential to bridge this
inner divide. With training, it can illuminate and embrace these
unconscious patterns, gradually transforming them into embodied
wisdom.
As demonstrated by the Zen monk, the most recently evolved
layers of consciousness—though young and fragile—hold the
remarkable capacity to observe, understand, and begin
integrating the older, more primal systems within us. This
integration is what turns reactivity into insight, and instinct
into presence.
Yet without introspection, we remain blind to what defines us
most:
the silent, repetitive rhythms that animate life from within.
And in this subtle, fleeting trainability, consciousness may
hint at a purpose beyond mere survival. This is the quiet,
radical promise at the heart of spiritual evolution:
That consciousness might become an inner parliament—a forum
where competing voices within us engage in dialogue,
negotiation, and mutual understanding.
But how does something as deceptively simple as maintaining
conscious awareness of a ticking clock lead to deeper
self-knowledge? And even more importantly: what kind of language
is spoken in this parliament? What is the lingua franca
that could help us understand our own inner lion’s roar—or the
quiet protest of mitochondria that feel underpaid for their
tireless labor?
To approach these questions, we must dive deeper—beyond the
mammalian-based personalities described by Gurdjieff and into
the very watery fabric of awareness itself.
Here, in the layered currents beneath a calm sea, evolutionary
strata of the brain conceal ancient tides.
BEYOND GURDIJEFF - MIRABAI'S WATERY WISDOM
The Indian Saint Mirabai says:
'Oh Friend!
Understand
The body is like the ocean
Rich with hidden treasures.'
As explored in the chapter
Consciousness and
Evolution, our
bodies bear deep imprints of our aquatic origins—stretching back
through more than 90% of evolutionary history, when life moved
and morphed in the ocean’s embrace.
While Gurdjieff’s notion of fragmented inner
personalities—impulse-driven children, ancestral voices,
reactive monkeys—offers a sharp insight into the dissonance of
our mammalian inheritance, it remains anchored in the relatively
recent terrain of land-bound consciousness. These voices, loud
as they may be, are newcomers on the evolutionary stage.
Mirabai’s vision reaches deeper. Her oceanic metaphor calls us
to dive below the noisy surface of the mind, beyond the
mammalian theater of fragmented drives, into
the
ancient, fluid intelligence that still pulses within us. The
body as ocean—a living reservoir of hidden rhythms, pre-verbal
memory, and liquid knowing—resonates viscerally for those who
dare to turn inward and listen.
In my own experience, introspection carries a distinctly watery,
oceanic quality. This perception aligns with the Tibetan
understanding of humans as flowing water-bodies—fluid beings
whose inner rhythms echo the primordial tides we once swam
through. The currents within us carry evolutionary wisdom,
emotional memory, and a subtle
language of sensation and energy.
Both the Tibetan masters and Mirabai call us to explore this
language—to consciously attune to the ancient, fluid codes
embedded in the body’s biomass—or more precisely, its bio-water.
Mirabai’s ocean is not merely a poetic flourish; it is a living
truth. Her call is an invitation to reconnect with the deep,
liquid intelligence of our being—where the treasures of life’s
ancient memory continue to shimmer and flow.
From there, the journey inward unfolds not like walking,
but—more accurately—like swimming blindfolded through inner
rivers, guided not by intellect, but by what I call 'conscious
innerstanding'. This term, coined by the Danish mystic
Emanuel Sørensen,
refers to an intuitive, embodied knowing that transcends
conceptual thought. It is a wisdom born of direct,
consciously aware a-ha
moments, where the mind becomes an intimate witness to the
ever-shifting tides of life within.
What do I mean by 'a-ha'? I mean taking notice in childlike
innocence.
Let us now dive deeper into the unconscious nature of this inner
ocean. As previously noted, the key to understanding it lies in
the evolutionary development of the neocortex—a relatively new,
still largely untrained region of awareness, finely tuned to
external changing stimuli.
Its primary evolutionary role has been to ensure survival
through cognition, continuously scanning for threats and
opportunities that demand longer-term responses.
But there was little evolutionary advantage in tuning into the
slow, subtle tides of what appeared to be a stable inner world.
Nor were the quick, instinctive reactions of the older mammalian
brain always enough. In this evolutionary balancing act, the
neocortex emerged as a kind of middle path—capable of pausing,
pondering, and projecting into the future.
It was no longer just about reacting. It became about thinking
ahead—asking questions like: 'What should I do if the
saber-toothed tiger comes back to the cave next week?'
From Ocean to Cortex
Evolution layered a new structure atop that ancient tide:
the neocortex. Tuned to volatile environments, it scans for
threats and long-range opportunities alike. Yet what evolves
last remains fragile; it has had the least time to stabilise.
Hence the neocortex, for all its brilliance, faces two core
challenges: it is buffeted on one side by mammalian surges of
fear and rage, and on the other by the barely perceptible swell
of slow but intense interoceptive tides…
The first is well known: the emotional surges of the mammalian
brain—fear, rage, panic. We’ve all experienced moments where
we’ve lost our reason to this inner animal, hijacked by
instinct.
But the second challenge is more insidious:
It comes not from explosive emotion, but from the slow,
internal tides that move beneath our field of consciousness.
Consider the familiar metaphor of
the frog in
slowly heating water. The danger rises steadily, but the
frog fails to react—because the change is too gradual, too
subtle to register as a threat. In much the same way, our
consciousness often overlooks the soft, continuous rhythms of
our inner life. These currents carry no alarm bells for the
cortex. They don’t trigger urgency. And so, we ignore them.
This, incidentally, is precisely how stress accumulates—quietly,
invisibly—until it becomes embedded in our physiology without
ever having announced its arrival.
Yet it is within these silent undercurrents that some of the
deepest truths of our being reside.
To perceive them requires a different kind of attention. A
refined and magnified
conscious awareness - a larger mirror or
systems of mirrors.
A Zen-trained mind that can rest on something as seemingly
trivial as the ticking of a clock—or the hum of a
refrigerator—for minutes, hours, even days.
This deeper level of
cultivated conscious perception allows us to
become consciously aware of the ever-present, roaring, yet silent flow within our inner
body-ocean.
Through the cultivation of introspection, we allow conscious
awareness to engage with these layered dormant and slow moving
awareness systems, fostering an integrated innerstanding where
broader awareness can become conscious of itself in an
ever-deepening dialogue between our watery existence and the
mirror of conscious awareness.
The Medium Is the Message: To Consciously Aware Something Is
Communication
So what is the lingua franca in this inner parliament of
selves and systems?
It must be a language simple enough to be innerstood even by the
most ancient, watery life-forms within us. It cannot be verbal.
It cannot be intellectual. It must bypass cognition altogether.
My claim—based not on science but on nearly fifty years of daily
meditation—is that this 'language' is embedded in conscious
awareness itself. In this sense, conscious awareness is a
harmonizing force between fragmented inner systems. The very a-ha moment of becoming
consciously aware of a
stomach full of butterflies is already a bridge across the
communication gap. It is not analysis that connects us to our
inner life, but innocent, sustained conscious attention.
To be silently, consciously aware of another human being is
already a form of communication.
The same is true within ourselves: when we raise the level of
conscious attention, we begin to 'speak' with the full range of
inner personalities, land mammals, and sea creatures that make
up our biology.
Raise awareness—and a symphony of innerstanding begins to
unfold.
Not through words, but through presence.
Not through thinking, but through attunement.
To be consciously aware of something is already to be in silent
dialogue with it.
THE CONSCIOUS CHOISE
How, then, do we practice this? It begins with the simple
yet profound act of closing our eyes while fully awake. This act
is not passive but in most cases a conscious choice—a deliberate decision to
turn inward. In this context, it doesn’t matter whether free
will is an illusion or not. The French existentialist Sartre
says: 'Even if free will is an illusion, we are still
responsible for our choices because we experience them as such'.
Embedded within the operative fabric
of consciousness is the subjective experience of free will.
Within that experience, it makes perfect sense to say: "I
chose to close my eyes. I did it."
Where the Attention Goes, the Prana Flows
Within
this same realm of choice, we can consciously direct the
spotlight of our awareness—to our hands, our breath, or any
other part of our inner world. Whether or not free will is
ultimately an illusion… isn’t the experience of being able to
choose where we place our attention a miracle in itself?
Like nested Chinese boxes, this small miracle of directional
consciousness reveals yet another hidden within it. Both the
ancient Indian Tantric and later Chinese Taoist traditions
recognized this mystery in a shared principle:
'Where the
attention goes, the prana (life-energy) flows.'
Translated through
the lens of our earlier insights, this prana is not just
energy—it is also a kind of subtle language, a living form of
communication capable of harmonizing the untimely, often
discordant voices in the inner zoo of our being.
So perhaps the old saying deserves a small, contemporary
flourish:
'Where the attention goes, the prana
flows... and knows.'
Consciousness adds
Direction to our Life-Force.
A transformative
innerstanding power seems to follow the path set by our conscious choice to
direct awareness in a certain direction. Consciousness adds
direction to our life-force. In your daily life,
practice directing your awareness to different parts of your
body. Notice how this simple act can invigorate and calm you.
Conscious Attention is Love
Now consider this example:
offer another human being your undivided and nonjudgmental
conscious attention. Almost without fail, this person will feel
uplifted.
The same principle applies to our own body. In fact, it is vital
to put this 'oxygen mask' on ourself first. Simple, focused,
high-quality awareness directed inward enlivens the body and
even holds the potential to heal. This act of consciously
choosing where to direct attention unveils the profound
interconnectedness between awareness and the 'pranic' life-force—a little miracle
hidden in plain sight.
The first human being we must befriend in vitality is our own
body, and that friendship begins with conscious awareness
directed inwards. You, as 'I'
must
befriend 'me.’ And the path to this connection starts
with the simplest act: closing your eyes. It’s that simple. Just
close your eyes and—'BOOM'—you’re already on the path of a
friendship that will, from there, flow outward, rippling into
ever-expanding circles.
Strength and Quality of Conscious Awareness
The inner energetic life of the body is profoundly shaped by
the strength and quality of our conscious attention. The more
awareness we direct inward, the more this inner life responds,
growing increasingly dynamic and vibrant. This creates a
feedback loop: as awareness fuels inner energy, this awakened
flow, in turn, nourishes and strengthens conscious awareness,
reinforcing the cycle of deepening presence.
The Value of Countless Repetitions
As an electric solo guitarist, I know from experience that
behind every fluid riff lie countless repetitions—slow,
deliberate, almost meditative. And yet the intellect, in its
illusion of superiority, tends to believe that once something
has been said, it need not be said again. Repetition is
dismissed as redundancy—its subtle, transformative power
overlooked.
That is why I repeat again and again:
redundancy is a
virtue when it comes to lived conscios spirituality. The deeper layers of human innerstanding are like tense
muscles: they don’t release on command. They need repeated,
gentle pressure—like massage—to soften, loosen, and eventually
dissolve their hidden knots. The same is true when trying to
shift stubborn habits or emotional patterns; transformation
requires continuous, compassionate nudging.
However, let me clarify that this is different from rumination
where you run around in a circle or a downward spiral. Add
conscious awareness and we enter an upward spiral of clarity and
flow.
Translated into Mirabai’s oceanic language, wisdom is like a
stone slowly polished by the sea. It is not force, but time,
contact, and repetition that round its edges and reveal its
shape.
This is in fact the true meaning
behind the use of a mantra. This mantra is worth repeating as a
self-reminder. Gurdjieff referred to it as the practice of 'constant
self-remembrance'.
Let me now consciously repeat: Consciousness is drawn to change,
while much of our ancient awareness systems are rooted in
continuity and repetition. Consider a few examples of such
natural repetitions—more accurately, pulsations: the heartbeat,
the morning shit, the breath. These rhythms have accompanied
life since the time of stardust, endlessly cycling through
existence. In meditation, the deliberate use of repetition acts
as a bridge, allowing us to become consciously aware of these
primal rhythms that have quietly sustained us through the ages
below the radar of intellect.
The Danish existentialist philosopher Kierkegaard struggled with
the eternal repetition of mundane life cycles—waking up, eating,
going to bed, over and over again. His frustration was,
however, not with the repetition itself, but with the
unreflective, mechanical repetition of life without conscious
engagement. He found it absurd and draining, a never-ending loop
that weighs down the human spirit. Although I’m not a general
fan of Kierkegaard’s existential labyrinth, I
still find a lot of gold in his works. Here’s a poignant insight:
"Of all ridiculous
things, the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a
man who is brisk about his food and his work. What, I wonder, do
these busy folks get done?" (Either/Or, Part I)
Are you and I among
the busy people Kierkegaard ridicules here? The ones briskly
rushing from task to task, never pausing to reflect? I must
admit that, despite all my spiritual work, I too occasionally
fall into this trap. In modern terms, we call it stress.
While sitting in meditation or during a psychedelic session, you might suddenly realize that
you’ve been in a state of constant stress without even
recognizing it. This insight can feel deeply unsettling. And
that’s one reason why meditation often feels uncomfortable. The
discomfort doesn’t come from the practice itself, but from its
remarkable ability to reveal an uncomfortable truth—the frog
sitting in heating water is, in fact, you and me.
Let me repeat our new mantra: Ordinary consciousness,
preoccupied with change, often fails to notice ongoing states of
being because it struggles to detect continuity. In contrast, a
Zen-trained consciousness, attuned to the steady rhythm of
awareness, can perceive persistent malaise and respond to it
with clarity and deliberate action.
By incorporating deliberate repetition in meditation, you
gradually cultivate the ability to consciously detect repetitive
patterns within yourself—particularly the insidious rhythm of
chronic stress. These subtle patterns, unnoticed by the
untrained mind, operate in the background like a continuous hum
or rather pressure.
Meditation trains consciousness to recognize these hidden loops,
breaking the cycle of unconscious tension and bringing them into
the light of conscious awareness.
When you become conciously aware of the repetitive undercurrent of stress,
you gain the power to disrupt it—not by force, but by simply
noticing its presence. Through this conscious awareness, the cycle starts
to loosen, and what was once an unconscious burden becomes a
conscious choice to release.
The Cleansing of Mental Debris in Consciousness
The next step—repeated a million times—is to consciously engage
with all bodily sensations in a state of innocent yet deliberate
'a-ha-conscious' awareness.
Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to capture a natural
photo of someone who is self-conscious about being photographed?
The moment we know the camera is on us, we perform. We tense up,
adjust our posture, and adopt what could metaphorically be
called "botox lips"—a subtle, forced attempt to control how we
are perceived.
French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre famously remarked that
humans are 'condemned to self-consciousness.' His observation
captures the existential burden of constant self-evaluation—an
internal performance in which we are both actor and audience.
This self-awareness is not inherently negative, but it becomes
burdensome when it spirals into compulsive self-evaluation,
trapping us in performance rather than presence.
In this context, I reinterpret Sartre’s notion of
self-consciousness as the 'botox lip' moment—a modern echo of
the biblical story of Adam and Eve. When they became ashamed of
their nakedness, they realized their vulnerability after they
became conscious of their bodies. This marked the birth of
self-reflection, but also of shame. Shame, at its core, is
thinking about oneself from the outside in.
Achieving innocence within consciousness is profoundly
difficult. In modern culture, the performative selfie-era
attempts to overcome this challenge by postulating that the
false smile is real, negating the very notion of a true essence.
Yet, in my view, the absence of essence is not natural—it is a
byproduct of unresolved conflicts between operative systems
within us.
The 'Botoxifying' Thinking Process
Embedded within consciousness, there seems to be a faculty
designed to analyze and manipulate the external world, and for
this reason, it inherently lacks innocence. Awareness-systems,
by contrast, operate instinctively, without intellectual
understanding, and in this sense, they remain innocent.
The thought process, residing within the realm of consciousness,
seeks to take a dictatorial lead over the inner world of
awareness, always striving to achieve something in the outer
world. But when it commands us to smile, the smile becomes 'botoxified,'
stripped of its original, effortless beauty.
The pure mirror of consciousness, the latest blooming flower of
evolution, has unfolded so closely alongside the evaluating,
thought-based system that it has formed a near-symbiotic
relationship. This entanglement causes us to mistakenly equate
the thinking process with consciousness itself. But they are not
the same.
It is the thinking machine, embedded within consciousness, that
has lost innocence.
Consciousness, in its essence, is like a mirror—untainted by
what it reflects. In its pure form, it is as innocent as the
awareness-systems, even though it embodies a different kind of
innocence.
This innerstanding carries countless implications, but the key
takeaway is this: for consciousness to merge with awareness, it
must be cleansed of concepts, words, and understanding. It must
return to its 'aha-state.'
In meditation, our aim is to transcend the judgmental
consciousness and return to innocence. And in that innocence,
consciousness and awareness will spontaneously merge—like
knights gathered around the round table. This is, in fact, what
I mean by conscious awareness. It is a deeply symbiotic
partnership.
The path of inner cleansing is not about adopting another layer
of performance but about removing the layers
altogether—returning to a state where 'aha' awareness arises
naturally, within the mirror of pure consciousness, free from
force or pretense.
How to Arrest the Thief?
You might now rightly ask: Is this cleansing project itself not a
consequence of a thought process? Does it not embody the
very paradox illustrated by Ramana
Maharshi’s analogy of a
policeman trying to arrest a thief, aware that he is the thief
himself?
Here, I draw inspiration from a powerful insight shared by
Nisargadatta Maharaj: Conscious, thought-based insights cannot
create anything primordial. They can only produce symbolic
representations within the mind. However, while thoughts cannot
reveal our true nature, they hold immense power over what we
mistakenly identify as "self"—that is, everything we are not.
This is the essence of
neti neti—"not
this, not that."
When, on a cognitive level, we grasp that we are not confined to
thoughts, something remarkable happens: thoughts lose their
grip. They begin to fade, starved of the attention that once fed
them. And in their gradual dissolution, a deeper reality
emerges—what was always present but hidden, much like a
coastline revealing itself as the fog lifts.
This process is not about forcing thoughts into silence. It is
about recognizing that they are not who we are. The silence
comes not through suppression, but through 'innerstanding'. In
that innerstanding, we rediscover what Ramana Maharshi referred
to as the eternal, unshaken self—clear, vast, and untouched by
the waves of thought.
In summary, we purify consciousness not by silencing thoughts,
but by gently and deliberately choosing to place our awareness
elsewhere. In doing so, we allow consciousness to return to its
natural mirror-state of innocence—clear, reflective, and
untainted by the noise of mental narratives.
In fact, I would go so far as to suggest—perhaps
provocatively—that one fundamental difference between a meditator and a narcissist lies in the ability to see through
the web of thought, resisting the urge to weave self-reinforcing
narratives designed to control perception and dominate a
situation. In this sense, the modern performative selfie culture
can be seen as a natural offspring of narcissism, where identity
is curated for external validation. Unconditional self-love is
here the only anti-dote.
The Lion's Roar
In the end, conscious awareness is not merely a function of
the mind—it is a living, even speaking mirror, capable of
reflecting the silent symphony of our inner life. Through
simple, repeated acts of conscious attention, we begin to
reestablish dialogue with the many selves, systems, and
sensations that inhabit us.
This is not a return to naïveté, but to a higher innocence—a
lucid clarity that arises when we transcend performance and rest
in a dynamic synthesis of doing and non-doing. In this state,
awareness and consciousness are no longer separate forces. They
become allies, weaving a deeper form of presence—one that
listens while it speaks, feels while it sees, and integrates
insight through embodied action.
Such presence is not the end of the path but its
constant ouroboic
re-beginning. To close one’s eyes, then, is not to
retreat—but to enter remembrance. And through this remembrance,
we may finally innerstand the
lion’s roar within—the ancient, wordless call to truly know
ourselves.
With warm regards,
Gunnar Mühlmann
gunnars@mail.com
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