By Prana Lite 
Participant:
I have a question about the moon metaphor, but I’ll try to phrase it without it. The experience of “I am” seems to have both objective and non-objective qualities. It appears both as an object and not an object. For example, in the metaphor of a painting, the “I am” is both an object, like an image on the painting, and not an object, like the white paper on which the image appears.
The reason I’m asking is that I experience this “I am” as being aware of itself, even while having other experiences. It feels as though this awareness is registered by the mind. However, if it’s a pure consciousness experience, it shouldn’t have any objective qualities, meaning the mind shouldn’t have access to it. But somehow, it feels like the mind does have access, and this is confusing.
What Is the Mind?
Rupert:
Remember, the mind isn’t something separate from consciousness. The mind is just a limitation of consciousness. All there is to the mind is consciousness itself.
The finite mind doesn’t have access to the nature of infinite consciousness because everything the mind knows is filtered through its limitations. The finite mind cannot grasp infinite consciousness because it only knows finite things. But the knowing through which the mind understands its finite knowledge is infinite consciousness.
So, there’s no separate finite mind as such—it’s just an apparent limitation of infinite consciousness. That’s why the finite mind seems to think that the knowledge of “I am” resides within itself.
You mentioned the knowledge of “I am” having both objective and non-objective qualities. That’s not true. Think of the painting again.
Is Consciousness in the Mind?
If you look at Turner’s watercolor of a full moon at midnight in a landscape, the moon seems to be limited. But when you examine what limits the moon, you realize it’s not the moon itself, but the trees and clouds that surround it. The limits don’t belong to the moon; they belong to the surrounding elements.
In the same way, if your mind—which is just an apparent limitation of the one infinite consciousness—experiences “I am,” it thinks this experience occurs within itself. But actually, this is a gap in the finite mind, a part of it that is not colored by thoughts or perceptions. It’s the part of the finite mind that remains untouched by perceptions and conceptions.
In other words, it’s infinite consciousness shining through, uncolored by thoughts and perceptions. It seems to occur within the finite mind, but it’s not truly in the finite mind.
Does the Mind Reflect Consciousness?
Participant:
Could you say that the mind reflects infinite consciousness?
Rupert:
No, that would imply a lesser understanding. In the past, I’ve used an analogy where the sun represents infinite consciousness and the moon represents the mind. This is a different use of the moon metaphor than in the Turner painting.
At night, the moon appears to illuminate the Earth, but the light it shines is borrowed from the sun—there’s no such thing as “moonlight”; it’s actually sunlight reflected by the moon. At a more basic level of understanding, we might say the mind knows through reflected light from infinite consciousness.
However, this metaphor is not ideal, because it suggests that the mind and consciousness are two different things. In truth, the mind doesn’t have its own separate light. All there is to the finite mind is an apparent limitation of infinite consciousness.
It’s not that the mind reflects some independent light from consciousness. The mind is just a small subset of infinite consciousness. The knowing within the finite mind is infinite consciousness, though much of it is colored by thoughts and perceptions, making it seem finite. But there is a small part of the finite mind that remains uncolored by these thoughts and perceptions. That is infinite consciousness shining within the finite mind—that’s the knowledge of “I am.”
Take the white paper analogy again. Imagine the finite mind as a small circle drawn on the white paper. Now, instead of outlining the circle, we shade it in with a light gray. This gray circle represents the finite mind. However, there is a small spot in the middle of the circle that remains uncolored—it’s still white.
That uncolored spot is the knowledge of “I am,” which seems to be within the mind, but it is actually infinite consciousness shining through.
