What is Consciousness?

Introduction

In this article, we examine what consciousness is through the combined perspectives of modern science and Advaita Vedanta. The post is one among three parts. This first part offers a general and foundational inquiry into the nature of consciousness.

At present, there is no universally accepted or conclusive scientific definition of consciousness. Despite remarkable advances in neuroscience and cognitive science, consciousness remains one of the most profound and unresolved mysteries. However, when insights from Eastern philosophy, ancient Indian wisdom, and contemporary scientific inquiry are brought together, consciousness can be approached in a broader, deeper, and more inclusive manner.

According to Advaita Vedanta, the ultimate Reality is Brahman — singular, non-dual, and identical with the Self. Brahman is described as Pure Being (Sat), Awareness (Chit), and Bliss (Ananda). The phenomenal world — the world of names and forms, including matter — is described as Maya or Mithya, meaning it has dependent and transient reality, not absolute existence.

The Bhagavad Gita declares that consciousness is one and indivisible in all beings, though it appears divided when it shines through many bodies and minds (Chapter 13, verses 16–18).

---

What Is Consciousness?

Consciousness is that in which all experiences appear, that by which all experiences are known, and that out of which all experiences arise.

Thoughts, memories, ideas, emotions, sensations, smells, sights, and sounds — every objective experience — arises within something. That ever-present background is commonly referred to as Awareness or Consciousness.

In everyday language, this is often called the “I” or the Self. According to the Vedas, Brahman is infinite Being. All descriptions ultimately point to That — the substratum in which experience appears, through which it is known, and from which it arises.

Conventionally, we assume that thoughts and feelings appear within us, and that bodily sensations are experienced by us. Yet upon deeper inquiry, it becomes evident that thoughts, sensations, and perceptions all arise within the same field of consciousness. In that single, indivisible awareness, the entire panorama of experience unfolds.

This understanding of consciousness as the ever-present background of experience is explored further in the article Awareness – The Ultimate Truth, where awareness is examined not as a mental state, but as the fundamental reality in which all states arise and dissolve. Together, these inquiries point toward awareness as the immutable ground of all experience, rather than a product of thought or perception.

---

An Experiential Inquiry into Consciousness

Please read the following paragraph carefully. With sincere attention, it may offer direct intuitive insight.

If we observe carefully, we notice that thoughts appear in a kind of field. They arise in a space-like presence. Consciousness itself is not a physical space, yet it may be described as field-like or space-like for the sake of understanding.

Now close your eyes and allow thoughts to move freely, following past experiences. Observe carefully.
Ask yourself:

• Does my attention ever leave the field of awareness?

• Are thoughts inside “I AM” and sounds outside “I AM” truly separate?

• Can attention exist outside awareness?

Allow attention to move wherever it goes and inquire:
Has attention ever left consciousness?

Imagine something entirely unfamiliar — for example, landing on Mars. New perceptions arise. Now ask:
Are these new perceptions inside consciousness or outside consciousness?

Has anyone ever encountered a feeling, perception, or experience outside awareness?

Clearly and simply, no one has ever contacted an experience outside consciousness.

The experiential dimension of awareness is not merely philosophical but can also be approached through disciplined inner practices. A personal exploration of this lived inquiry is described in My Pranayama Journey Toward Balance and Awareness, where attention, breath, and awareness gradually converge, revealing how consciousness becomes evident through direct experience rather than conceptual understanding alone.

---

Consciousness and the Assumption of Matter

Strangely, much of modern world culture rests upon a single foundational belief:
that there exists a substance outside consciousness, called matter, and that matter is the fundamental reality.

Classical physics and reductionist science assume that consciousness is derived from matter — that the brain (matter) produces consciousness.

This assumption raises two fundamental questions:

Q1. What is the nature of the universe?
Q2. How can consciousness arise from matter?

Science openly acknowledges that it has no final answer to the first question.
The second question remains deeply problematic: How does consciousness emerge from unconscious matter?

We assume matter to be the foundation of the universe and then ask how consciousness arises from it — yet all that we know of matter comes through perception, and all perceptions appear in consciousness.

The assumption that matter exists independently of consciousness is further questioned when we reflect on life, death, and continuity of awareness. This inquiry is expanded in Death – The Living Field of Consciousness, which examines death not as an end of awareness, but as a transformation within the same indivisible field of consciousness that underlies waking experience.

---

What Is the Universe Made Of?

Everything we know about the universe is based on perception.
Perceptions arise in consciousness.

Therefore, until we understand the nature of consciousness itself, we cannot truly know the nature of the universe, matter, or reality.

Awareness is our direct experience.

Thus, awareness becomes the primary subject of inquiry.
Before understanding the body, mind, or world, we must understand the knowing by which they are known.

---

Consciousness Knowing Itself

Now ask yourself quietly:
“Am I aware?”

The answer arises as “Yes.”

Notice the pause between the question and the answer. In that pause, awareness knows itself.
Consciousness is aware that it is aware.

I am aware that I am aware.

This knowing is not conceptual. Thought cannot grasp consciousness, because thought itself is an object appearing in consciousness. Only consciousness knows itself.

Consciousness is dimensionless, indivisible, and indescribable. We describe it as space-like only by analogy. It has no form, no border, no division.

It is empty of all objects, yet full as Being.
one, infinite, non-dual consciousness.

---

The Hard and Easy Problems of Consciousness

Philosopher David Chalmers distinguishes two problems:

The Hard Problem

Why does consciousness feel like something at all?
Why is experience subjective?

The Easy Problems

• Identifying neural correlates of consciousness

• Explaining attention, memory, perception, and behavior

Science can approach the easy problems, but the hard problem remains unresolved.

Interestingly, similar questions regarding the primacy of consciousness have also emerged in contemporary science. A notable example is discussed in Federico Faggin – Consciousness and Vedanta Explained, where insights from modern physics and computer science converge with Vedantic wisdom, reinforcing the view that consciousness is not an emergent property of matter, but a foundational principle of reality itself.

---

Conclusion

When all experiences are set aside and the sense of “I” is traced to its source, we arrive at the same consciousness. Minds appear separate, but they overlap in a shared field of awareness we call the world.

Thus, consciousness is fundamental and universal.
The remaining inquiry is profound and essential:

How does matter appear from consciousness?

The Vedantic inquiry into the nature of the Self and consciousness has been systematically presented by the Ramakrishna Order, where knowledge is directed toward realization rather than belief, as documented in the spiritual resources of Belur Math.

The next parts of this series will explore this question through:

1. Quantum Physics

2. Vedanta and the Upanishads

---

Recommended Reading

• Thought as a System — David Bohm

• Biocentrism — Robert Lanza

• Beyond Biocentrism — Robert Lanza

• Quantum Enigma — Rosenblum & Kuttner

• Back to the Truth: 5000 Years of Advaita — Dennis Waite

• The Ten Principal Upanishads — Shree Purohit Swami

• Brahma Sutra Bhashya — Shankaracharya (Swami Gambhirananda)

• Panchadasi — Swami Vidyaranya