Knowledge is a translation of an experience, a symbolization on another level. It is a recording of a thing that has happened and hence is always of the past. Awarenss is of the present. It is not a translation, but reather an experiencing.
Knowledge about something involves naming it and classifying it according to some prearranged categories in our mind, based on a set of information about it. It is automatic and happens so fast that we don't take note of its dynamics anymore.
This faculty of the mind is extremely useful. But it is also this same faculty that eventually becomes a barrier to our capacity to experience things in the present moment. We now confuse knowing and experiencing.
When I'm angry, I'll recognize its symptoms in me, like shouting at people. I know I'm angry, but I'm not necessarily aware of my state of anger. This awareness brings back to us the mastery over conditioned reaction patterns in our psyche that cause conflicts and problems.
Awareness has degrees. Its scope varies, depending on the extent to which the consciousness encompassess aspects of an experience. For example, in anger, I may be aware of my feelings towards an email, cursing its sender, reasoning how stupidity that person is but I may not be aware of the mental-emotional prejudice or prejudgment that has arisen in my mind and which has triggered the anger. The larger the field of peripheral awarness, the more we are aware of. This peripheral wareness, is not something that we can easily expand at will. It is a quality of our consciousness, brought about by nurture and paractice. Conscious breathing, self-awareness processing and meditation are practices that help expand peripheral awareness.
Awareness is an experience of a phenomenon that is direct and is not interpreted by the mind. In its raw form, the experience is just that- a sensation that emanates from a certain location in the body. It is neither bad or good. Awareness brings us to a first level of experience rather than to a second or third level of experience or to a mere knowledge about the experience.
When we practice meditation, these observations are important. Awarness of thoughts is different from thinking about thoughts. The latter involves recognition, naming and classifying. But this nonjudgmental awareness is an experience is absorbed by an inner level of the consciousness that is nonlogical but more intuitive. It has a wisdom of its own that transcends the discursive and anlytical mind. It has a noetic vlue that is different from intellectual knowing. It is the devine wisdom we receive from our inner-most being.
What we are aware of, we transcend. True awareness, is the key to freedom. It frees us from spheres of experience or structures of consiousness that imprison us. When you are upset about others' doing or saying, you just have not realized the unpleasant experience is caused by the different level of consciousness among people. Everyone has tried her/his best at her/his current consciousness level- no more and no less. Therefore, Aristotle values happiness most and declares virtue is the foundation of happiness. Virtue is the true awareness. Think aobut it and be aware that we are different, but only in the level of consciousness. It can change over time. Be patient with yourself and every else in the planet.
