Here’s a question a student recently asked me:

Q: Why would the Infinite Being consent with the limitations?

A: To get into this realm, we have to consent to the limitations that exist here. And one of them is the structure you just described.
But the thing to know is that we’re never actually affected by that. In reality, it’s a good way to look at the koshas, which are those five options. It’s a bit like a theme park. You remain as the infinite being, and then you have these five rides available.

There’s the Bliss ride, which you can go on, or there’s the experience of all forms arising equally and effortlessly in neutrality; there’s the dualistic roller coaster of fear, opposite experiences, and contrast; there’s the emotional roller coaster, and then there’s the dense experience of physicality, which you can go on.

We can consent to experiences in each of these, but the truth is that we never become any of them. It’s just that we’ve consented to the ride.

Even the idea that we’re restricted by this physical body and that we’re existing within it is also a form of consent. And we can withdraw that consent.

I had an experience around 1980 where things sort of turned inside out. All the programming had convinced me to believe that I was existing as a human being in time and space. I was existing in the body. The thoughts, awareness, and emotions were all arising within the body.

But I mentioned this experience in one of the interviews I did. I was meditating, sitting on the bed, and there was this B91 bus that used to come past the house. Suddenly, there was a switch where I realized the bus was within me.

From that moment, I’ve known that, while using the Indian term Aham Brahmasmi, which means “I am the totality of existence,” everything is actually arising within us.

So I can consciously switch between the human mode of experience, like we’re having a conversation here, and, because there’s a spiritual element to it, maintain the knowing that everything is appearing within this infinite ocean of beingness.

You’re remaining as this infinite ocean of beingness. One of the forms arising within that is the body-mind of your personal self. The thoughts are arising, the sensations, the emotions; they’re all waving. All those forms are arising as waves on this infinite ocean that you’ve never left.

But we can consent to having the subject-object mode of experience.

A friend of mine says, “I only become, or appear to become, the individual when someone knocks on my door.”

So we’re actually resting as the infinite being all the time. It’s just that when we’re having a conversation with somebody, somebody asks us a question, the phone rings, or we need to speak to somebody, we assume the role of individuality. And it’s something we can play.

It’s like an actor playing a part. We remain as the infinite being, and we can play the role of the character.

So the infinite being can play the role of being your person without it affecting the infinite being in the slightest. And that’s exactly how it is between the actor and the character being played. The actor never becomes the character, and the infinite being never becomes the individual.

If you’d like to ask me a question directly, I invite you to join our next online meeting…

With love,

David Bingham