What is consciousness?

"Brahman brings consciousness to everything but does not participate in any action.  It is free from the good or bad effects of karma. It is the same consciousness in every human being. This we call Atma. It is not your body, mind or ego.  It provides consciousness that makes us experience the material things of the universe.  It is the principle that allows us to look into ourselves as well."

"Consciousness is everything just as it is.  Consciousness does not need to know how it exists in order to exist, just as we do not need to know how we breathe to take another breath.  In reality, consciousness is akin to rays from a single light, and does everything perfectly whether it is aware or not.  As humans, we have the ability to see that our consciousness is an extention of source consciousness.  Our consciousness is the same consciousness that shines the sun, whether we realize it or not."

“There are three states of awareness that make up our human experience of consciousness. Life is really so funny. We can go around the whole universe and explore but that which is closest to us we take it so much for granted. We should spend a little time on the awareness issue and how it is really a miniaturized version of the universe itself and get to know ourselves. The three states of consciousness are the ‘awakened state’, the ‘dream state’, and the ‘deep sleep state’. I will expand on each….”
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"In short, being-ness. Words cannot describe it but can point to it. Mind can comprehend it with labels but cannot truly fully know it. One cannot know consciousness but one can experience consciousness only by giving one’s intellect a chance to be silent. It is not even awareness. Awareness is what can be done when one has consciousness. Only by turning off the mind, like closing off the eyes, only can one can experience consciousness."

“By giving consciousness a definition, we minimize the vast and infinite nature of it. And on the other hand, attempting to touch the entity of consciousness gently with words is a beautiful and awakening practice; and honestly one that more people need to have. I believe that inside a definition of consciousness, there must be an invitation—an invitation to go deeper within, to discover for yourself, what consciousness is to you.”
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“Consciousness survives death. You may think this is a religious or metaphysical claim, but it is not. To understand how this is possible, you simply have to accept a definition of consciousness that most of us already do: consciousness is a dynamic relationship between environment and individual. Anything that perceives the world, responds to it, and influences it is conscious. Some may argue that environment and individual are actually one, but for the purpose of this thought experiment we will consider them separate….”
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"One popular explanation of consciousness is that it’s the sense that there’s something it’s like to be XYZ -- for example, a horse has consciousness because there’s something it’s like to be a horse. Viewed in that way, a rock probably does not have consciousness. But human consciousness is a horse of a different color, in that we have self-aware consciousness. Whether by gift of G/god or evolution, we have a unique view of ourselves (including our mortality) --  as if each of us has a Mini-Me (sometimes referred to as a “homunculus”) who resides in our forehead and watches us live our...