The article presents a concept of consciousness, which is the development of both classical approaches to the consciousness of European philosophers (German classical philosophy, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, etc.), as well as the Buddhist understanding of consciousness. The author proposes to consider the thought (a unit of consciousness) as a thing of consciousness. The thought itself is presented as a unity of heterogeneous entities: spiritual-emotional state and attitude-orientation. The idea of a layered structure of the organization of consciousness is introduced; this structure contains four layers: a semiotic-semantic layer, a mirror-reflecting layer, a continual-dynamic (procedural) one and a layer-unity of opposing movements. Four levels of the organization of consciousness are considered: the level at which things of consciousness exist; the level of attained deliberate absence of thought; the level of interaction (including struggle) with the dominant forms of consciousness-understanding; and the level of consciousness of a civilization community (a superethnos) and of self-consciousness of such a community. A new understanding of consciousness is necessary for the formation of mass practices of anthropological development as one of the key factors in changing the overall vector of social development.