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Sounds a lot like the Mormons who tell me I am going to hell for not believing in their dogma. Just sayin.

I don't think you understood what I was asking. I am saying, who cares? If someone is not seeking a deeper spiritual connection or understanding because they simply aren't interested in doing so, why is it anyone else's concern? Isn't it a person's choice to make on their own as a human, trying to determine their best path in life?

What about all the humans who aren't spiritual seekers because they are either comfortable with their own spiritual understanding or simply disinterested in it entirely?

I don't understand what you mean by the question or what the purpose would be. Why bother predicting what everybody values the most? It is merely a decision they make and continue to make as they go through life. Why not just ask them if you want to know? And what does it matter what the end goal of spiritual practice is in relation to what a person chooses as being important to them in life? On a separate note, I would love to know what you like, dislike, agree with, or disagree with about my paradigm that I presented above?

Just trying to understand. It seems that even though everybody on this forum is talking about "being conscious" there isn't an agreed upon general meaning of the phrase. This is very annoying to someone who thirsts for clear communication. Because when I see someone mention it, I think to myself - WTF is this person even talking about. Then when I ask them, all I get are parables or beat around the bush ideas or half answers. Not one person here can define it? I just want to understand what a person is actually saying when they are speaking. I think humans have brains. If you are telling me that "being conscious" or "consciousness itself" (two different things I presume) have nothing to do with humans or the existence of the human body, that's cool. Then what are they? Just a spiritual sensation? Some imaginary thing that people can sense but can't even define, but they are convinced it exists anyway?

It depends on the person. Not everyone believes in God or a God. If they don't believe in God, then obviously they would choose something else as their highest achievement, no?

I’d love to share my views. Forgive me for the length. I will try to make it short yet comprehensive enough to get my points across. My view is a modified version of Abraham Maslow's theory. It is important to note that Maslow did not present his theory of needs as a pyramid. The pyramid was added later by other people. Maslow believed that there was some hierarchy to needs, but that they all exist simultaneously, with a person working to satisfy different needs at different locations in the hierarchy at all times. Shaping them as a pyramid tends to distort their meaning somewhat in an unintended way. (This is the same beef I have with Spiral Dynamics because I don’t think they are stages that progress in a specific order, but rather they all exist simultaneously as choices a person can make for their own logically explicable reasons.) I believe the first three categories of human needs are in fact strictly hierarchical with the lower needs demanding satisfaction before a person will care about anything else above them. Because of this, I would display them as a pyramid. The base category of my pyramid would be ”immediate physical safety from any life-threatening situations”. The second brick would be “minimally acceptable levels of physical and mental health”. Third would be “a source of enough stable basic income” to provide for other survival needs such as food, clothing, shelter, transportation, etc. Those are all survival needs of any person living in a first-world country. (I would reword it, removing “basic income” if we are talking about people outside of a first-world country, because they might provide their survival needs through methods other than buying them with money.) After a person’s survival needs are met, come desires. It is better to call them desires rather than needs because a person doesn’t need them to live. They desire them because each of us has a fundamental motivation to thrive in life. We try to satisfy all these additional desires in an effort to thrive more (meaning to avoid immediate pain or suffering, enjoy life more, and derive satisfaction from it) I think of these other desires as existing on a priority list rather than a pyramid because some of them will carry equal weight to others. Above survival needs, the next on a typical person’s priority list would be a toss-up between self-esteem and love, depending on the person and whether they are lacking a significant amount of either. After that, the choices of what comes next on the priority list depends entirely on the person, their personality, their beliefs, their upbringing, their decisions, etc. There are many other things that could appear higher on a person’s list including, sexual gratification, career goals, educational goals, family goals, spiritual aspirations, seeking autonomy, financial safety, financial prosperity, relationship goals, health goals, etc. In my paradigm, seeking spirituality is nothing more than a personal decision. It ranks at a different spot on everyone’s priority list according to their own personality, beliefs, and desires. I don’t believe it is fundamental to humanity at all. In fact, I believe there are numerous people who would not place it anywhere on their priority list at all because it completely lacks any meaning in their lives whatsoever. Yet you will not find a single human who does not need food, water, shelter, safety from immediate physical harm, etc. Those are fundamental human needs that apply across the globe to every single human. Once we get past those “survival” needs, everything else is up for question and debate about where it ranks on a person’s priority list and why it ranks there if it even appears there at all. Spirituality and what I think people on this website are referring to as “being conscious” is merely another possible choice of aspirations someone may or may not choose in life at all. And the reasons for that are mostly due to things such as the circumstances the person was born into, who his parents were, what his family was like, what beliefs his family had, what his friends and other influencers believed, how he was raised, who he chose to befriend, as well as a million other variables based on the individual choices this person has made in life about what matters to him and what doesn’t.

What you are describing here is, in my paradigm, nothing more than a human accessing their prefrontal cortex (short-term working memory) instead of relying on their long-term implicit memory. Here is what I mean. Humans are fundamentally decision-making machines. Everything you do in life, every action you take, is either a decision you are making right now because you are thinking about it and choosing to do that, or it is a decision you have previously made that you are repeating. For example, you get out of bed. You have a routine that you do pretty much on autopilot without giving it any meaningful thought. Every step you take in your morning routine is you repeating a decision that you made earlier in life. Those decisions are embedded in what people refer to as the subconscious or what scientists might refer to as long-term implicit memory. Things that exist in long-term memory do not require much brain energy at all to access. The reason you can drive a car to work everyday without thinking about "how" to get there is because the trip and even alternate routes for the trip are deeply engrained in your long-term memory. So your brain can easily recall them with very little stimulus at all. This allows you to focus your attention on something else "to actively think about something else" even while you are driving from point A to B. The act of "thinking" of "focusing your attention on something" is nothing more than you activating your brain's prefrontal cortex (working memory) to analyze complex data in order to make a new decision about something, anything. Once a decision has been made with conviction, that decision gets moved through a chain of steps, eventually residing in your long-term memory. Now, it can be accessed using very little brain power (energy) to recall it for use at any point in life from then forward. Humans are not designed to make every decision moment to moment using their prefrontal cortex. They are designed to use their prefrontal cortex to do heavy lifting for short bursts in order to make decisions. Then those decisions (just the ones in which we have convictions) get moved into long term memory (what you would call subconscious) where the brain no longer needs high energy demands to access them. Humans are fundamentally designed to go through their day mostly on mental autopilot just as a way to conserve precious energy. Throughout most of humanity's existence, energy (calories) was scarce. Calories aren't scarce anymore. But throughout humanity's existence until agriculture was systematized, calories were scarce. So based on what you said I would interpret it as meaning - A person who is being more "conscious" than another is simply one person using their prefrontal cortex (actively and intentionally thinking about whatever they are doing at that moment) rather than a person who is currently allowing their long-term memory autopilot to keep repeating old decisions. Is this accurate?

Interesting. I suspect many here see it the same way as you. Thank you for the direct answers.

What is this "hard" thing you speak of that is hard for 99.9 percent of people?

Thank you master Yoda.

I get this sense that many people on this forum (perhaps all - I don't know) possess a mental paradigm of believing that achieving a higher level of being conscious is ultimately the highest possible achievement in life- Kind of like it sits at the top of Maslow's Pyramid if Maslow had included it in his theory of human needs. I am interested in a few questions: 1) Is that what you believe? 2) Do you think that is what every human's same highest brick is on their pyramid whether they realize it or not? 3) Do you believe something entirely different and if so, please explain.

Aware of what? So a human is more aware than a dog and a dog more aware than an ant? Are they really more aware or do you mean one is more intelligent than the other? What do you mean when you say that your experience of life goes beyond that of most humans?

Interesting. So in your paradigm, would you say a more conscious person accepts and focuses on things like beauty, love, joy, and peace while rejecting or ignoring anxiety, frustration, suffering and doubt? Or would you explain it some other way?

Perhaps there are or should be better words to describe what people mean when they use the words "conscious" or "consciousness"?