Though necessary and celebratory, consciousness is patently superficial. Like the skin of any animal, consciousness is an interface and a protective layer. It is a conditioned state of Awareness that is made inevitable and necessary by the vicissitudes of existence, and the Awareness of any organism is generally found wholly identified with its animal consciousness.
But animal existence is the garden in which the Awareness of the Universe distills and refines itself to the state of Self Recognition. When the Universe awakens to Self Recognition in its progeny this is called Enlightenment. Awakened Awareness clearly recognizes consciousness as superficial and consciousness becomes more or less subsumed by an Awareness that transcends what is normally considered consciousness.
One side affect of this is that we find individuals with abundant potential who are hypnotized by consciousness and who therefore never become properly Aware.
Consciousness is individual.
Awareness is Universal
