Consciousness Cannot Be Captured
The elusiveness of consciousness is a natural consequence of its fundamental nature: consciousness is not an object; it is the reality in which objects appear.
Our minds excel at categorizing, labeling, and creating theories about the universe. We turn phenomena into objects and ideas. Yet, when we attempt to do this with consciousness itself, we are presented with a dilemma. If consciousness is the ultimate subject, the fundamental awareness that illuminates all experience, how can it simultaneously become an object of its own knowing in the same way it knows a tree or a thought. The eye, for example, cannot see itself directly.
When we try to make a word or a theory about consciousness, we are in the realm of the mind. The theory becomes a thought about consciousness, not consciousness itself. The words we use, “awareness,” “the Absolute,” “the Self,” “God,” are pointers, analogies, metaphors. They are like fingers pointing to the ocean; helpful for direction, but never to be mistaken for the ocean itself. The moment we cling to the word or the theory, we risk creating a new conceptual barrier, imagining consciousness as a separate entity that can be understood.
Yet, consciousness is our most undeniable and intimate experience. We don’t infer its existence; we are it. It is that which knows the experience of the world.
This direct, felt knowing precedes analysis. It is the simple fact of “I am,” the pure presence of awareness that remains when all thoughts subside. It is the unchanging background against which the content of mind arises and dissolves.
The goal of nondual understanding is not to define consciousness, but to recognize it directly, to be it. The realization is not about acquiring new knowledge, but about dropping conceptualizations and identifications that obscure what is already present. The “I” that seeks to understand consciousness is consciousness itself, seemingly separated from itself by its mistaken belief.
The elusiveness of consciousness to conceptual understanding is, therefore, its very perfection. It cannot be fragmented, categorized, or reduced. Why? Because consciousness is the totality of reality. Consciousness is the seamless whole in which the content of experience unfolds.