><<Who decided what exactly is "the necessary awareness"? Humans of course.
>>We decided that no being can be spiritual unless it is a human being>>.
>
>Yes, I always thought that at least self-awareness and free will was
>necessary, because without them you would be governed by instinct only

And what if "self-awareness and free will" is just an imagination,
something to explain our instincts and the automatic cognition
abilities of our brain?
When You speak, You "decide" what to say, but not which words You are going
to use (that would be painfully slow). And the decision of what to say
is in fact made up before Your consciousness knows about it.
The consciousness is just a kind of rationalization that takes place
due to the fact that we have lost our "paleominds".
A person with a "paleomind" usually finds spirituality in everything.

Sorry for this off-topic posting, this is my favorites subject.

- Hans