Consciousness in the Face of Unconsciousness Part 1
July 13, 2025
Consciousness in the Face of Unconsciousness Part 1
Welcome to this week’s Daily Reflections on Consciousness in the Face of Unconsciousness.
What is our response to the unconsciousness of others? What about when we ourselves lapse into unconsciousness? Dare we call it out, challenge it, or do something proactive, or is it better to ignore it?
Women were victims of the unconsciousness by the US government’s fixed policy of denying them the right to vote. Due to initiators such as Elizabeth C. Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, and Henry Blackwell, the Women’s Suffrage Movement convinced a critical mass of minds in this country that women deserved the right to vote. Enough grassroots supporters put pressure on lawmakers to extend to women right to vote as members of the democracy.
Thanks to the few people who began the movement, all women in the United States were legally granted the right to vote through the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified on August 18, 1920. Sadly, also due to unconsciousness, even after women won the right to vote, black women’s right to vote was ignored in the south and other regions of the United States. Among the unconscious Jim Crow Laws was the restriction of African American women and men from voter registration.
The women’s suffrage movement is an example of how a few conscious people slowly raised the consciousness of enough citizens, so that the entire democracy was transformed. Our culture and government have made many such strides because enough people became aware of the greater good. For example, the light consciousness turned the tide for people of color in the United States by the passage of Civil Rights legislation in 1965. However, spreading the light of consciousness is difficult because when the unconscious individual ego and unconscious collective egos do not understand or want the benefits of the greater good, they fight hard against it, even if that means oppressing others.
This week, we will reflect on the timbers of consciousness and unconsciousness and how both these domains and the gray areas in between affect our lives. We will also reflect on a deeper question: How does the conscious person best respond to unconsciousness?
Spiritual practice: An honest self-appraisal: Why would you have been on the side of those who were for women’s right to vote? Would you have expressed your feelings then? How would you have reacted if, in expressing your feelings, you were shunned by many others?
Self-inquiry: Why would you describe yourself as a conscious person?
Dear God,
Wake me up on all the things I have fallen asleep to, and the thing to which I’ve never awakened. Amen
