We can certainly agree that the power of language gets very limiting when it comes to such discussions on transcendent matters. And every word is so loaded that it proves to be a very hard medium to communicate beyond a point. And yet it is the only tool we got (beyond the rare mystic silence). So I agree it's important to acknowledge this epistemological problem we face.

As for consciousness, yes I meant something more than the commonsense feeling of being aware and alive. That is the function of brain and memory which we can loosely called the mind. We have a mind that nonliving things don't. But what I call consciousness is beyond the mind. One way to look at it is as the inherent intelligence in matter. Our mental awareness has nothing to do with the intelligence of our own body cells nor with the stars and galaxies.

It's true we experience a relative unified self or center as an individual and whether you call it illusory or an emergent, natural construct, it amounts to the same. It is emergent and not inherent. A chain made of gold is only an emergent construct, inherently it is gold. The emergent construct is real enough for our transactional functioning. But it is not real in the ultimate sense as neural studies show. Recognizing the lack of a unified individual self in the ultimate sense is an important part of the inquiry toward understanding who we are.