Each of us intuitively knows what consciousness is, but it is challenging to logically encapsulate it in a fitting concept. Do we really have consciousness? What if we are the consciousness possessing a human body?
Everything that exists in the Universe originates from and emerges from the sea of information. Evolution (personal development, spiritual growth) involves acquiring information from experiences that we do not yet possess. Evolution is the development of consciousness through the assimilation of truths that have been experienced, verified, understood, and accepted.
Example:
A person repeats a certain pattern – attracts similar people into their life. They don't understand why they encounter individuals who use their resources, exploit them excessively, and leave them feeling exhausted. They start blaming these people, portraying themselves as victims, and seeking rescue. Perhaps a sense of injustice arises. This continues until the person takes responsibility for themselves. When this happens, they begin to seek the true cause of the situation. They formulate various hypotheses and test them in practice, considering that perhaps it's because of their childhood, zodiac sign, destiny, and many other factors. However, none of these answers is correct because the person still doesn't feel spiritually at peace; something is still missing, something still doesn't fit. All of this is a manifestation of ignorance (lack of information). Time passes, and eventually, the person comes across information suggesting that they may be responsible for all the situations that arise – not expressing their needs, not setting boundaries, allowing themselves to be used, and thereby subconsciously attracting more people who sense this vulnerability. In the moment when they fully realize this and take appropriate action – eureka – that was it. Now they understand, have verified the correct hypothesis, and, thanks to the results, have accepted that life was trying to teach them something. In this way, they have expanded their consciousness and will no longer make the same mistakes.
The key thing in expanding consciousness is wisdom. Wisdom is each lesson we have learned. Wisdom is information assimilated by consciousness. We gain wisdom with destiny - it is a cluster of situations and life events that constitute 20-30% of our life and cannot be avoided. These situations involve various levels of difficulty and are opportunities to learn and assimilate the wisdom that is hidden in them. At the stages leading up to wisdom, the most common appearances are beliefs, knowledge, theories, tests and trials, decisions and mistakes. Contrary to wisdom - knowledge - requires only memory and is stored by personality. Knowledge does not expand consciousness, but true understanding and testing it in practice makes it possible. Knowledge can be an inspiration, a signpost, or a hint, but it will not pass the life lesson for us. I emphasize once again - no matter how many books you read; you will not expand your consciousness that way! At most, you will make a lot of theses, beliefs, and conclusions and only a part of them will be correct.
Consciousness is an information archive that stores universal, tested, verified, understood, and accepted truths. It does not accept beliefs (beliefs do not expand consciousness) or theories (knowledge). Instead, it requires experiences and tangible conclusions that free one from a given life process. If someone claims to have gained awareness in a particular subject, yet the life circumstances of that person have not changed, it means there is still further ignorance – some information is still missing, and wisdom is still hidden in that lesson. The entire process of evolution occurs through consciousness. It evolves and exchanges information among itself, the environment, and other sources of consciousness. The entire process of expanding consciousness takes place in contact with matter and is possible only with the participation of a conscious being and matter. Sometimes it may seem that the external world (matter) undergoes intense transformations, but in reality, it is our consciousness that evolves internally and, as a result, changes the external world. I will write more about this in an article on spiritual development.
Finally, it should be mentioned that consciousness undergoes development through the cycle of life and death. The first part of the cycle – life – is an active process where wisdom is gained. It always begins from a lack of information (innocence – "I don't know"), transforms into partial or erroneous information (ignorance – "I think I know"), and ultimately grows into wisdom (complete information expanding consciousness – "I am fully aware, understand, and accept this"). For wisdom to be acquired from experience, consciousness must accept it – confirm that it is a universal truth. This cannot be done using free will – it can, at most, disagree, agree, or resign from it. Acceptance is the feeling of completeness of experience, peace of mind, and liberation from the lesson. I will write about it someday as well!
The second stage of the cycle of consciousness development is death (the passive part of the cycle). We are beings of consciousness, not beings of matter, and therefore, we only assimilate wisdom. That's why when we die, we don't take all beliefs and knowledge with us, only the consciousness enriched with the wisdom from this life. Death is the passive part of the cycle where there is arranging, assimilating, and reviewing the assimilated wisdom.
Very often, individuals who have experienced NDEs (near-death experiences) talk about watching a "film of their life," "reviewing various memories," etc. You can find many such stories. It is a crucial element of the death process, where energy for the next life is restored, and wisdom is assimilated by the soul.