What is consciousness?

A question with no answer. 

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Consciousness is never "What".

Consciousness is the one Who-so-ever asks this question.

Consciousness is never an Objective Reality.

Consciousness is essentially the one, That manifests itself as I, You, He, She, Who.

Consciousness is sentience.

Before it takes the form  : 'I', You, He, She, or Who, it is the ever present being or self only. 

This self is this consciousness, and the first and fore-most expression of consciousness of the self. This consciousness of the self is in contrast and comparison to the 'other', that is 'non-self'.

This self or self-consciousness is essentially and inevitably the very consciousness or the conscious being associated with, and at the same time, confined within a body, or this physical organism, wrong-fully taken as I. 

As it is bound by the limitations of the body, which is made of the same material as the world is made of, yet because of having the sense-organs, it takes itself as the body only and the rest as 'other', which is called the world, as something different and not the self.

So, consciousness could never be pointed out or addressed as and in terms of 'What'?

'What' is a pronoun used for the insentient, inanimate objects, while 'I', 'You', 'He', 'She' is used for sentient beings possessed with and possessed by consciousness.

Insentient, inanimate objects and things are not alive like the sentient, conscious beings.

So, How could one ask :

"What is consciousness"?

Consciousness implies awareness of, about something. Basically it is of the Self only, that at once is split into self-consciousness and the awareness of the 'other', the not-self, and that is called the world.

As has been pointed out earlier, this physical body and the rest of the world is made of the one and the same stuff, which is the material cause of the both.

This material-cause or the material-aspect is ever so the known and never the One 'Who' 'knows'. The two aspects of the the knowing  or consciousness are therefore the known, - and the one 'Who' knows.

This knowing is the all-inclusive pervading and all-pervasive aspect of consciousness.

Rationally and logically also, one can never address, point out to this in any of the terms like 'What', 'I', 'You', 'He', 'She', even 'that', or 'it'. 

But the sensory perception or the sentience creates the illusion of a multiplicity of many a conscious beings, different and other than one-another.

That is How the Four Cardinal Truths are expressed in these following four forms :

प्रज्ञानं ब्रह्म, -- Consciousness is Brahman. 

अहमात्मा ब्रह्म, -- This Self is Verily Brahman.

सोऽहम्, --- He* is I (Self), I is He*.

अहं ब्रह्मास्मि. -- I AM THAT*.

WHERE He / I is the Supreme Reality, THAT is Brahman, indirectly pointed out as  'तत्', --the third person singular pronoun.

The Omniscient, and thereby

The Omnipotent, and

The Omnipresent One, and

The Unique Principle.

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