You say ‘I’ can watch my own body and 'I' can watch my own mind, so who or what is the ‘I’ that is observing or watching?   This is something that each of us has to find out for ourselves in our own experience of meditation.

Depends what you mean by illumination.  It doesn't make sense to say that illumination is not illumination or that self-awakening is not self-awakening - even in Zen. 

And the universe is self aware and conscious and we as human beings can and do become aware that we are aware.  We are a part of the universe, stardust if you like, that has become conscious and self-conscious.  Otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to observe our own thoughts and be aware that these thoughts are not ‘me’, that they arise in consciousness and then vanish out of consciousness.   

A knife may not be able to cut itself (unless you break it in two), but consciousness is not exactly the same thing as a knife – a knife is a physical object and consciousness is not a physical object or even a thing at all (despite nonduality and emptiness).   And as such it can think and speculate on the nature of consciousness, that is, on its own nature.  

Btw there's no such word as 'self-awarening'.  Self-awareness yes. Self-awakening yes.  'Self-awarening' no. Maybe you're trying to coin a new word or concept. It’s just not clear what it’s supposed to mean. Perhaps ‘becoming self-aware’?

Unfortunately, words need to be used as carefully and accurately as possible in a forum like this because we don't have the facility of expressing ourselves through physical action, gestures or body language here.  Otherwise we're just guessing what someone else is trying to say.

Zen has become synonymous with or infamous for accommodating self-contradiction and paradox but there’s a limit. 

Typical airy fairy pseudo Zen talk like, for example, ‘the pants you’re wearing and not wearing’ is nonsense.  You’re either wearing a pair of pants or you’re not (unless perhaps they’re around your knees or ankles).  If you don’t believe me, the next time you go to work, go without any pants on and see if there’s anyone who doesn’t notice  you’re not wearing any pants. (And you won’t get round it by wearing a skirt instead.)

Zen is also about being real and down to earth and practical and commonsensical.

I like talking nonsense myself as must be clear from some if not all of my posts. lol.  However I try to be aware that I am talking nonsense when I’m doing it.  

If anyone thinks I am talking nonsense now, please feel free to let me know and I’ll seek to mend the error of my ways.

Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself.  Dogen

Great advice but could be dangerous is you're a schizophrenic.

‘If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.’ (currently at the no. 5 spot in the Squidoo Proverbs and sayings chart).

Either way is spirit.  What do we have to worry about?

Correction: 

Whether you see that it seems or it seems that you see,

It’s ‘all one’ what you think you see in me. :)

Consciousness is nothing but your conditioning.

Anyone who can make a statement like that has already gone way beyond enlightenment.

If it weren’t so profoundly spiritually and cognitively, and even experientially, mistaken, not to mention incomprehensible, it might almost make me angry.  lol.