Hey there Dazza

Consciousness isn't realised. You can realise you are conscious but that is not consciousness itself, realisations come from mind processes. But you can become conscious of your mind and how the realisations well up inside you. It's very difficult to explain but consciousness seems to come in 'layers', you become conscious that you are conscious, and when that happens you become conscious that there is another 'later' above that. It's like an onion.

It's called na'eti-na'eti or neti-neti, it means 'not this, not this'. It's when you stand back from the mental processes and become consciousness itself.

Consciousness on its own isn't very much.

But how much of this "I am not my mind body" stuff has little to do with Spirituality?

Exactly.

I am is the centre of the field of the conscious and it's simply an acknowledgement that consciousness IS. Nothing after that. The thought of I am is very different to the consciousness of I am. The thought of I am is usually followed by words people attach to themselves and want to think of themselves as.

For some, yes. For me consciousness is not something that you realise or have thoughts about, it's something that happens in layers above all the usual processes - although that's a 'translation' for the mind. It;s in the same 'waveband' as Gnosis, if that helps.

As best as I can explain my own 'experiences'....

It helps to think about consciousness itself and the 'contents' of consciousness. As a parallel you can think of you being only thought itself, and after that there is what you think about. Thoughts are one 'layer' and the thinker is another 'layer above' that. Similarly with consciousness, you are consciousness and then there is what you become conscious of. As far as I'm concerned I experience that I am both the perceiver and the perceived because I understand that the perceived is a process of the unconscious. I am conscious of that process. From a perspective of the Jungian self I am both the conscious and the unconscious at the same time, two perceptually separate aspects of myself in a symbiotic relationship that creates what I am conscious of. Consciousness is what encompasses that without the filters of the Jungian ego.

No, what you are is not separate from mind or or the thought consciousness or the unconscious, because all of those aspects - and more - play their own role in the creation of your sense of I am. They are all aspects of your self that create 'you'. You can tell yourself that the unconscious has little to do with creating 'you' all you like, but that in itself is a product of the unconscious.

There's a lot more to it than mindful understanding, it's possible that childhood experiences can be a prime motivator for Spirituality and how people talk about consciousness itself. Not to mention the projection of a Persona. The other problem is the way the Western mind works in relation to the Eastern mind works, and the agenda of the 'Spiritual mind'.

'This' vs 'that' is the differentiated consciousness of the ego, part of the ego's 'job' is to create an environment where we can compare and contrast, because that forms the basis of human understanding. We also need echoes and reflections from other egos because we can't see ourselves. It is through that process that consciousness is 'generated', for want of a better word. The big question is, what is being 'generated'?

The world is an illusion but most people take that literally with no attempt at understanding what is meant by it. Another casualty of Western vs Eastern understanding. You can't see what you see, everything you think you see has been processed by your brain - what you actually see is a distorted image projected onto the inside of a sphere.

You are the illusion, that's what people don't want to hear. In the context of Ahamkara you are a kara of the I-maker - you are an invented thing.