I would say also: we are not trapped, only apparently to our strongly held old belief system.  Think about the dream person.  That dream person can’t escape the dream.  But if the dreamer mind lets go of the identification as that dream person, they are not trapped. Second: Imagine if you WEREN’T.  Would you rather not be at all, or BE and have all kinds of “experiences” including separation, wonder, love, joy, pain?  Experiences, which even when painful, bring seeing, learning, and ultimately waking up.  Moreover… maybe you don’t have a choice to “not be.”  You are, and isness—I Am That—is timeless. 

And: consider the dream experience.  It’s actually the closest you come to understanding what it’s like to be in a body! let me tell you why.

In the analogy, think of the dream person as the “person” and the deeper consciousness having the dream (and projecting it) as the “consciousness appearing as the person.”  Notice that when consciousness is identified with the person in the dream, it sure seems real. You, sure seem limited –even though really “you” are the dreamers mind. But in truth, and in fact, the Dreamers mind has set up the dream, entered it in order to experience something in a way that it couldn’t when it was unembodied in the dream.  It’s a great analogy. The Dreamers mind, which is not limited by the dream, really, but sets up the dream, enters the dream, and then acts as if it were limited by/as the dream person, as if the dreamers mind were the dream person looking at separate dream trees.

There’s a deep reason why the soul comes here out of the infinite to experience things in space, time and causality. The big question everybody’s going to always ask is two things: why did it come here in the first place and what is it get out of creating this burning center of experience? Let’s just take that as an assumption: in order to experience as a center of experience in space time, causality with separate stuff and all this, it has to necessarily limit its own infinite consciousness or seem to. See the excellent passage from the Wisdom of the Overself “the immortal overself”.   Many, many, many traditions to explain. Is it a reflection of that infinite?

Is it a limitation? It is a determination.  But think about the dream. The soul has the power to set up a center of experience. Come here, seem to forget itself so it can experience in space, time and consciousness and then come to recognize itself again.  The whole dream setup is the POWER of the Mind… it is the Power of the Soul to actualize in this way, not a limitation, but an expression.

Isn’t it awesome? Right. Soul comes with awesome. It’s just like a dream. It sets up Avery. It comes and experiences a space time world through Avery so it can access and express the divine. And then at some point: I’m not little Avery, I’m infinite consciousness appearing as a person. A wake up.  In other words, in the dream analogy, the dream person has a lucid dream.

They wake up in the dream, not from the dream. They wake up in the dream and recognize it’s a dream now.

The suffering part of it becomes infinitesimal. In other words, When you wake up in the dream and you know that it’s a dream, the dream is whatever it is, it is contents. And you are free, safe, Witness.  That’s why I’ve played the Omkara: Life is beautiful. Life is horrible, life is wonderful. It’s a dream made of love. The love is never, ever, ever covered over by the contents. The awareness is never, ever, ever covered over by the contents, but you don’t recognize that until you wake up out of that identification with the dream person. 

So we ask: why does God make this world with suffering?  No. God being the Ocean of Consciousness, Vibration, Waves… the universal appearance overflows.  God provides a world, which means form and appearance, within the ocean of consciousness, within the Light of Intelligence there is a spectrum.  Each of us is a drop of the ocean, or a ray of the sun.  Duality is unavoidable if there is to be unique Conscious-Living-Being.  And along the way to ripening maturing will be learning.  Suffering is a temporary mis-perception of what is, and misidentification.   

Now the whole thing can be witnessed and more. It’s not that something different is seen, but you see differently. You see differently and all looks different. Did that dream change when you woke up and realized it was a dream? Not from the dream, but in the dream, it still goes on.

Now, if you want backup for this view, read the quote, The wisdom of the OVERSELf, read the chapter on the Divine Over Self, where PB says that this way the overself’s original consciousness is like having no consciousness at all. It’s too infinite. And he says the Overself has to set up a center of experience in order to experience itself as distinct and unique and separate.

That’s how important I am, a unique divine name and the divine name of God couldn’t recognize itself as unique back in that infinite ocean–too infinite.