A paradigm is a basic structure of belief or value which is used as a pattern for or measure of reality; a paradigm is normative for the events which are related to it. There are many paradigms occurring in society today and an individual may organize his or her own experience by primarily single or multiple paradigms, which may relate to different times or different sets of events. Some individuals are conscious of holding a primary dominant paradigm to which they hold allegiance. Other people may shift from one pattern to another, perhaps with conscious intent and perhaps in a more drifting unaware manner. It is difficult to know what other people of different minds think or do not think; it is possible, perhaps, to describe what they might think.
Because we are introducing a fundamental paradigm it is of value to mention some of the more common or dominant paradigms as they appear in our society. There are two, science and religion which each hold broad and public sway in our time. There are people who believe the world is made out of matter organized by mathematical principles and knowable through experiment. We might call this a bottom-up paradigm. There are also people who measure life in comparison with writings or sayings which they believe to be the words of God intentionally revealed to guide mankind. We might call the theological paradigm top-down. Many people claim to hold both of these paradigms but I suspect that when they may seem to come into contradiction some of these people are, in their true hearts, committed to one side or the other.
There are also value structures which, while currently less extensive than science or religion as general organizing principles, nevertheless cast a strong glow of attraction for many people in our society. One example of growing popularity is a sense of environmental responsibility whereby humans are considered to be, or ought to be, caretakers rather than exploiters of the natural environment. Another collection of belief structures are those which we might say are determined by conscious intent toward society, a few of the foci toward which these ideas gravitate might be named as liberalism, conservatism and the once powerful but now apparently declining dialectical materialism. People also have more private, sometimes more self oriented, internal paradigms or value centers, or maybe what we would better call vocations, professions, hobbies, desires or aversions, sometimes as simple as money or ego but also more complex forms such as mathematics, art and philosophy.
We introduce a right-here paradigm. Awareness is a fundamental paradigm, a world view, a knowledge and format of perception, which places itself beyond, above and below, that is, prior, to all currently extant paradigms. It envelopes the physical world, the bioworlds, the worlds of religion, the realms of self, love and society. All of these and any others we might name appear in and as part of the content of awareness. Without awareness, none of them would be or, if in existence, of no value.