is not really a common word at least in modern Japanese, but in my previous answer, I translated as "the sense of guilt". This is "awareness", "feeling" or "sense" rather than "consciousness" in the sense of "state of being awake and alert".
Similar expressions include:
* : national consciousness (although is not exactly the same as )
* : sense of belonging; belongingness
* : sense of guilt ( and are much more common than in modern Japanese)