Raising consciousness

I used to hear people talk about the necessity of us humans 'raising our consciousness' to help deal with the problems of the world and I admit that I found it a bit airy fairy. First of all, what did 'raising consciousness' mean? Secondly, how does one go about doing that? I wasn't sure what it looked like.

Now, however, I have had a bit of a conversion and I do agree that it is absolutely essential if we want to address a lot of the problems we now have to contend with. A lot of the conversion is about understanding. I now, thanks to the Enneagram, know what 'raising consciousness' looks like and really, it is all about understanding the ego - about how it manifests in us individually and then contending with it. And I think there can be no raising of consciousness without an understanding of it. And an understanding of one's own ego is a little bit like looking behind the scenes of a play. The ego is the play - it is our idea of who we are - but looking backstage one sees the mechanisms, the strings being pulled, the effort it all takes - to put, and keep, that show on the road. The ego is a very important part of us but it is not the whole story. It is the idea of who we are and - like all ideas - we tend to become defensive around them, we try to prove or promote them. They also lead us to fear anything that challenges them. The ego is not a happy place. It is forced and reactive.

If we understand our ego then we can regulate it. We know when it is getting the better of us and we can pull back. Many a successful person has been brought down not by others but by their own ego running amok which leads them to behave in ways that alienate people and ultimately bring about their own downfall.