Theory.
The fundamental truth is that our growing up and learning process is NOT of adding new material so much as editing existing ones. All knowledge (heavily edited to include only that which is useful to human life) from the beginning of time, is available to each of us, an intelligence that is carried at the cellular, subatomic level. We are not able to reach out to this knowledge because, our human mind is conditioned to seek evidence to understand something.
Understanding Consciousness is like using our own Mind to understand itself. At the fundamental level, we can perceive only what we can conceive, best explained by this quote "Man's mind mirrors a universe that mirrors man's mind.” We cannot feel an emotion in a vacuum. Even loneliness presumes that we have known togetherness! So we created opposites, including the concept of God, so that we can understand ourselves better!
"The constant urge of all of us to secure happiness in life is in reality an unconscious search for our true Self. The greatest error of a man is to think that he is weak or evil by nature. Every man is divine and strong in his real nature. What are weak and evil are his habits, his desires and thoughts, but not himself. Seek your True Self" - said Bhagwan Ramana Maharishi
Consciousness is the substratum on which our waking, dreaming and deep sleep states resides and attached to it. It is important to realise that the substratum is different from the state in which we are in. Maya or Illusion is when we believe that the substratum is indeed the state, which is not true. This individual substratum is the Self Consciousness the “I” of the I.
One needs to realise the Self Consciousness and reach this state and It is important to understand Consciousness, because the framework of our Consciousness are our thoughts, influenced by our memories and emotions. Logically, therefore, by gradually eliminating our memories and emotions, we should be able to reach a state where references cease to exist and only the absolute remains - where there is no need for any understanding…just the mere awareness of existence is enough..a state commonly called Sat (absolute)-Chit (mind)-Ananda (bliss).
Tripura Rahasyam