If you ask a man if he is conscious or if you say to him that he is
not conscious, he will answer that he is conscious and that it is
absurd to say that he is not, because he hears and understands you.
And he will be quite right, although at the same time quite wrong.
This is nature's trick. He will be right because your question or your
remark has made him vaguely conscious for a moment. Next moment
consciousness will disappear. But he will remember what you said and
what he answered, and he will certainly consider himself conscious.
In reality, acquiring self-consciousness means long and hard work. How
can a man agree to this work if he thinks he already possesses the
very thing which is promised him as the result of long and hard work?
Naturally a man will not begin this work and will not consider it
necessary until he becomes convinced that he possesses neither
self-consciousness nor all that is connected with it, that is, unity
or individuality, permanent I and will.
From 'The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution"
~P.D. Ouspensky
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