a Eckhart Tolle What does it really mean for human beings, at their current evolutionary stage, to “become more conscious” or to “awaken”? If I had to put it in a nutshell, I would define it as “disidentification from thinking.” When you realize that the voice in your head, your incessant compulsive thinking, is not who you are, then you have begun to awaken. A new dimension of consciousness has arisen, which we could call awareness, presence, or wakefulness. You haven't fallen below thought; you have risen above it. Now you can use thought instead of being used by it. Your sense of self shifts from identification with your mental positions and narratives to the alive presence within you, which is consciousness itself. You realize the Being behind the human, so to speak. Something that transcends your conditioned personality begins to emerge. You realize your essential identity as unconditioned consciousness itself, and you can verify within yourself the truth of Jesus’s words: “You are the light of the world.”