Many others perceive awareness is the ability of a living being to directly know, sense, perceive, to feel, or to be cognizant of facts, subjects, issues, oneself, others, contexts, situations or events.

The interest of the spiritualists is in self-awareness which can be ability of the human beings to be aware of the very potential of the awareness itself. In other words self-awareness is the conscious knowledge of one's own potentials, abilities, possibilities, character, thoughts and feelings in an objective way.

These days, in the conventional knowledge areas related to life skills, multiple intelligences and self-reflective skills; self-awareness is regarded as the key element of emotional intelligence and intra-personal intelligence of a person.

According Daniel Goleman, the proponent of emotional intelligence, self-awareness is the human ability to monitor our emotions and thoughts from moment to moment. It is the mental ability to observe the ways and doings of the mind to understanding ourselves better are and proactively managing our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours.

Thus, self-awareness is the ability to self-observe, self-reflect and introspect for self-development objectively in a detached way by treating oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals.

Spiritualist and wise man Lao Tzu while emphasising self-awareness and self-discovery says,“At the center of your being /you have the answer; /you know who you are / and you know what you want.”

According to J Krishnamurti, awareness is from moment to moment, and therefore it cannot be practiced. “When you practice a thing, it becomes a habit, and awareness is not habit. A mind that is habitual is insensitive, a mind that is functioning within the groove of a particular action is dull, un-pliable; whereas awareness demands constant pliability, alertness,” he states.

Here is my haiku on self-awareness and inset is my non-poem.

For self-awareness
Self-reflect on thoughts, feelings
Self-observe your mind