Eckhart Tolle argues consciousness is the universe's greatest mystery and science cannot explain it. Consciousness is not an object to examine but the eternal subject underlying all experience. He uses a flashlight trying to illuminate itself as a metaphor for why observing consciousness with awareness destroys what you're trying to observe.
Consciousness is the greatest mystery in the universe. Nobody can tell you what it is, because if you're looking for it, trying to examine it, it's like a— let's say you have a flashlight and you're shining the light, you're using the flashlight to look for the flashlight. You're losing it in the flight of— you're looking for it. So scientists have a problem with consciousness because you cannot put it under a microscope, you cannot dissect it, it is not an object that you can see. Everything else is an object, but consciousness is the eternal subject
Why alcohol feels like relief, and what it is really giving you | Eckhart Tolle
