A Great Question

What is consciousness?

Whether awareness is fundamental or produced, and how it is known.

Framing

Consciousness is the one thing we cannot doubt, and the thing we find hardest to explain. Every experience, thought and perception happens within it, and yet it is never itself one of the objects it knows. We can describe what we are conscious of; it is far harder to say what consciousness is.

The contemplative traditions and modern philosophy approach the question from opposite directions. Philosophy and science usually begin from the world and ask how consciousness arises in it, from brains and bodies. Many contemplative traditions begin from consciousness itself, examined in meditation, and ask how the world appears in it. Some conclude that consciousness is the one reality; some that it is a stream of momentary events with no owner; some that it is a pure witness distinct from the mind.

The perspectives below come from these different starting points.

Perspectives

Voices from several traditions, each in its own terms. They are set side by side to be compared, not ranked.

Advaita Vedānta, Ramana Maharshi
Scholarship
Consciousness is the self: ever present, in waking, dream and deep sleep, and never an object. Inquire “Who am I?”, and the thoughts subside into their source, which is pure awareness.
Sources: Who Am I?
Yoga, Patañjali
Scholarship
Pure consciousness, the seer (puruṣa), is distinct from the mind and its fluctuations, which belong to matter; yoga stills the fluctuations so that the seer abides in its own nature.
Sources: The Yoga-System of Patañjali
Yogācāra, Vasubandhu
Scholarship
What we take for an outer world is consciousness only; consciousness itself is a stream of momentary acts, rooted in a storehouse consciousness, with no permanent self behind it.
Sources: The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra
Zen, Huineng
Scholarship
Our own nature is originally pure and complete; seeing it is awakening. It is not found by stilling or emptying the mind, but by not clinging to any thought.
Sources: Sutra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch, Wei Lang, on the High Seat of the Gem of Law
William James
Scholarship
Consciousness is a stream, not a thing; and our ordinary waking consciousness is only one type among others, separated from them by the thinnest of screens.
Sources: The Varieties of Religious Experience

Reflect

Can you find the edge of your own awareness?

Cite this entry

Chicago (bibliography): “What is consciousness?” Question. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/questions/what-is-consciousness.
Chicago (note): “What is consciousness?” question, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/questions/what-is-consciousness.
MLA: “What is consciousness?” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/questions/what-is-consciousness.
BibTeX: @misc{questions-what-is-consciousness, title = {{What is consciousness?}}, howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society}, note = {Question. Last modified November 7, 2026}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/questions/what-is-consciousness} }

What is consciousness?

Framing

Perspectives

Advaita Vedānta, Ramana Maharshi

Yoga, Patañjali

Yogācāra, Vasubandhu

Zen, Huineng

William James

Reflect

Concepts involved

Traditions

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Authors