If you’ve been doing spiritual work for a while, you’d have no doubt been exposed to numerous instances when the term “consciousness” was used, by many spiritual blogs.
And whilst, at least for those who choose to be just “normal humans” and stay away from spirituality, understanding consciousness seems to pose no challenges, for those aspiring “to know”, it presents a formidable task indeed.
So, what is the meaning of consciousness from the spiritual viewpoint?
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj offers this explanation: “Consciousness, as it is used here, is this sense of being alive, of being present, the sense of existence.”

Advaita teachings put it even more succinctly: consciousness is a thorn to remove the thorn. Meaning that you first understand consciousness and its true meaning, and then transcend it, realizing your true nature – the Absolute, in the process.
As for myself, having for a while ignored the need to understand what consciousness is, it suddenly dawned on me that it is nothing else but the fabric the world is made off. Yes, your place and participation in the worldly affairs is only possible because of the consciousness providing the common creative energy (shakti) for you and the world.

Consciousness is not your body; neither is it the nature with all its elements: oceans, lands, animals, vegetation and humans. Quite the opposite: your body and the nature in its wholeness IS the consciousness. The same principle is valid for the esoteric sphere, with the mind at its center. Your “I Amness”, despite of all the concepts that you were fed with right from the infancy, is pure consciousness, and it has no form.
You are not the body, you are not the mind!

One could write forever about consciousness. Or, rather, would it be the consciousness writing about itself?
When you are knowledgeable (here meaning the spiritual knowledge only), you’ll understand that nothing exists outside of consciousness.
And whatever is happening is happening completely spontaneously. You’ll also understand that your only purpose in life is merely to understand that what has been manifested and what is functioning is the universal consciousness. Other than understanding, there is nothing to be done.

How then do you measure your “spiritual progress” i.e. how well you understand consciousness? Nisargadatta Maharaj provides this criterion:
“When a stage is reached that one feels deeply that whatever is being done is happening and has not got anything to do with it, then it becomes such a deep conviction that whatever is happening is not happening really. And that whatever seems to be happening is also an illusion.
That may be final.
In other words, totally apart from whatever seems to be happening, when one stops thinking that one is living, and gets the feeling that one is being lived, that whatever one is doing, one is not doing, but one is made to do, then that is sort of a criterion.”

When you realize that in truth: I am you and you are me, and that we all belong to the manifest consciousness, all borders and divisions dissolve.
Carried on the waves of consciousness’ constant flow, with no room for uniqueness and individuality, you lose your personality and all the worries and insecurities that go with it.
Then in the light of the Absolute the Awareness dawns on you, that you are THAT which you are seeking!