Spiritual jargon, when talking to a group of people of various religions and lack thereof, isn't understood by all people. So when understanding words like higher consciousness and god its foreign or others have a negative history behind it. So, a state of mind without ego is much clearer from the get-go. Unless you're asking believers and not people in general?
It's always a bit of a conundrum. There are 'higher states pf consciousness', for sure. But are they necessarily better states of consciousness? That question brings up criteria, which is a gumbo of subjective relativism.
Also, what is the relationship between higher states of consciousness and lower states of consciousness? Because it seems to me those lower states of consciousness will resist acknowledging any other states but those considered to be lower, still. Everyone thinks everyone else knows less than they do about the truth of what is. And so will tend to resit any implication to the contrary.
I am smarter than a lot of the people posting here. I know this. But not one of the people I am smarter than, here, is going to acknowledge this. And if I dare to suggest to them that I am smarter than they are (about anything), and I try to show them why, they will stoop to any and every idiotic means they can muster to reject learning anything from me. Which is why they are not very smart in the first place. And this makes me question the value of being smarter than most people around us. The world we live in is not much interested in how smart we are because it's populated by people that tend to reject intelligence for comfort, and out of an unfettered ego, when they should be embracing it out of humility and curiosity.
I see the term "higher consciousness" as an expression of expanded awareness. Of gaining a broader and more expansive view of 'what is'. And the greatest impediment to attaining this higher consciousness is assuming that, when we encounter it, it's false, because our ego is pricked by any implication that our current state of consciousness is in any way inadequate. Which places all our various states of conscious awareness at enmity with each other, foolishly and unnecessarily.
The idiot insists that for you to be right, you must prove him wrong, even as he fights tooth and nail, and quite irrationally, to stop you from doing so. It's exhausting, and nearly always pointless. Like banging one's head against a brick wall hoping it will somehow cease to be made of brick. So what is the superior advantage of obtaining this higher state of consciousness? Is it really a higher state of consciousness if it only brings added difficulty? "Superior", compared to what?
"Compared to what?" is a very important question to ask when we're presuming value, I think. Unfortunately, it always seems to bring us back to that gumbo of relative and subjective criteria.