Where Is Our Consciousness Located?

Previously, we learned that during our lifetime we are meant to shift from focusing on our ego needs (survival, safety and security) to soul activation, connection and contribution, as described by Richard Barrett (“A New Psychology of Human Well-Being”). This is a multistep process that requires us to develop conscious awareness of ourselves and others. This brings up the question: Where is our consciousness located?

What is consciousness?

Barrett said it’s important to link science and spirituality with psychology. This is especially true when talking about “consciousness” (i.e. our sentience). It’s like the story about six blind men describing an elephant, which demonstrates the limits of individual perception.

Each blind man touches a different part of the animal claiming that to be all there is. They get into a conflict, because each man believes in their own story. Similarly, with consciousness:

Scientists think of consciousness in terms of the brain (reptilian, limbic, and neocortex).
Psychologists think of it in terms of the mind (unconscious, subconscious, and conscious).
Spiritual people think of it in terms of the soul or spirit consciousness. They say the mind is the operating system of the ego, while the heart is the operating system of the soul.

Is there a way to combine these different views into an understanding that links them all???

How many brains and minds do we have?

Barrett observed that we have three brains and four minds, which he described in this way:

Body-mind (reptilian mind/brain) = unconscious of the rational mind
Emotional-mind (limbic mind/brain) = subconscious of the rational mind
Rational-mind (neocortex mind/brain) = conscious of the rational mind
Soul-mind (humanity/species mind) = superunconscious of the rational mind

He used the term “mind/brain” to show that the mind and the brain are not the same. The mind is part of our energetic existence, while the brain is part of our physical existence.

The “ego-mind” is dominant during the first half of our lives. It is the decision-making unit made of the emotional and rational minds. We let our beliefs guide our decisions.
If we activate the soul (during stage of transformation), we use the “soul-mind” in the second half of our lives. We let our values guide our decision-making. But if we fail to activate the soul, we tend to use our beliefs to make decisions throughout our lifetime.

How do these minds operate?

Barrett stated that each part of the human mind has its own operating system. As we develop from embryos to adults, one mind will operate as the dominant interface with our world, while the other minds are growing and developing in the background. He explained:

The soul-mind is present from the start and continues to operate in the background. It provides the energetic template (species blueprint) for the physical body, and the soul’s character template for the personality that develops through the fetal stage until age 24.
The body-mind is the first one to develop. It operates from the end of the first trimester until age two. Its purpose is to take care of the biological functions of the body. It uses species-wide instincts and personal memory imprints to keep the body alive.
The next one to develop is the emotional–mind, which is dominant from about 1.5 to 7 years of age. Its purpose is to keep the body physically and emotionally safe. It houses our instincts to nurture, protect and teach the young, and to preserve the family/tribal unit.
The rational–mind becomes dominant from age 8 until the rest of our life, unless the soul mind is activated later. Once the rational-mind becomes the conscious mind (10% of our brain capacity), the emotional-mind becomes the subconscious (50-60%), and the body-mind becomes the unconscious (30-40%) of the dominant rational-mind.

Image: A computer analogy of the human mind (based on Source)

The ego-mind begins to develop around age 2, when the emotional mind becomes dominant, but continues to develop until our early 20s, when the ego’s personality is fully formed. The soul’s true personality or character is hidden in the background until it becomes activated.

Is our consciousness in our head?

Guy Needler said no, that is a human misunderstanding. We think of ourselves as sitting in our head, because we look through our eyes, speak through our mouth, breathe through our nose, and listen through our ears. Four of the five senses that we use are in the head, so we think of ourselves, our intelligence, our sentience (consciousness) as being in the head, and it’s NOT.

Needler said the ego is a transient local personality created because of the soul’s near total separation from its True Energetic Self (TES/Oversoul/Higher Self). The TES (true self) projects the soul to incarnate in human form to experience low frequency existence. He added:

In the human vehicle, the ego exists in the same place as our sentience (“consciousness”), which is in the soul seat in the midpoint between the front and rear heart chakras (about 3 inches behind the front aspect of the heart chakra at the sternum).
It is our sentience that is the driver of the energies that animate the human vehicle. We use our sentience to drive our intention, which produces thought, which is the energy that precedes action that facilitates a response (see What Is the Law Of Perpetual Transmutation Of Energy? – Big Picture Questions.com).

The ego is a localized personality that over time starts to believe that the human body is what it is. It starts to fear death, because it retains only a residual level of self-awareness, memory or communication with its true self. It starts to think of itself as an individualized being. The ultimate ego is both the personality that you see and work with and the subconscious mind.

The ego’s function is limited to the first 7 energy layers of the human form, i.e. the gross physical (frequency bands, FB 1-3) and spirituo-physical (FB 4-7) energies that animate it.
The higher three energies at FB 8-9-10 are simply a step-down function that allows the soul’s energies to move down through the frequencies into the vehicle in a coherent way.

This maintains some level of connectivity, but not enough to create the communication between the projected soul and its TES. That’s why it takes inner work to shift from ego to soul activation, and to communicate with our TES and become self-realized in human form.

Final Thoughts

I hope this gives you a clearer view of what most people call “consciousness,” which is better termed sentience, a much higher function than mere consciousness or self-awareness (see What Is Self-Awareness versus Sentience? – Big Picture Questions.com & Are We Energetic Or Sentient Beings? – Big Picture Questions.com).

I have tried to link science and spirituality with psychology, when it comes to understanding sentience from the human perspective. It becomes a no brainer once you understand that we are purely sentient beings who live in a sea of energy. Then spirituality is no longer a mystery, just higher frequencies holding higher states of energy, or various states of beingness that sentient entities (like us) like to explore in all their awe and wonder.

“Ego is simply an idea of who you are that you carry around with you. The problem is that we have allowed our egos, the part of us which believes that we are separate from God and separate from each other, to dominate our lives.” – Wayne Dyer

“You and God are creating all the time – you on the micro level, God on the macro.” – Neale Donald Walsch (image and quote)

NOTE: According to Guy Needler, the soul does not permanently enter the body at conception or at the embryonal, fetal, or birth state, because it can move in and out of that body up until the age of 4. Then the soul starts to become more and more attached and connected to the body. But it’s only around the age of 7, that the soul is fully integrated with its incarnate vehicle (see What Is the Zika Virus Pandemic About? – Big Picture Questions.com).