Really? If I see forms and formlessness occupying the same region of reality, Emptiness permeating form, that's consciousness that I have. If I can literally ascertain with my consciousness that formlessness IS form, with no separation, that is direct knowledge. There is an obvious problem with language here. You can't simultaneously say "space doesn't exist because it's imagined" and "space exists because you imagined it exists" without resorting to paradox, and it seems the paradox isn't an actual structure of reality but just an interpretive linguistic issue based on reconciling infinite with finite or formless with form. My lowercase consciousness though definitely has contours, shape, definition, contrast. With my visual field specifically, there are colors, and then when you reach the edge there aren't any colors and only Emptiness, which is not intellectualized to be there but IS LITERALLY RIGHT THERE. The issue is that a single limited form can only be in one location at one time, but Emptiness can be at all locations and all times and outside them. An object can't be outside of itself unless it stops being an object or stops "imagining" that it's an object, and the color red can't be the color blue in itself because that would be absurd. They need some greater principle that goes beyond the finite that unites them, and that's what I mean by Self.