Why Isn’t Consciousness Just Vast Instead of Infinite?

"When I explore my experience, consciousness feels dimensionless, no edge. But if I were dropped in the middle of the ocean, I wouldn’t know where the edge is either, yet I know there is one. How do I know consciousness isn’t just incredibly vast but does have an edge? Rupert says: ‘The reason that you know there is an edge to an ocean, even when you’re dropped in the middle of it, is that you have at some time in your life seen the edge of an ocean. So even when you’re dropped into the middle of it, you know it exists because you have experienced it before. But you have never experienced the edge of consciousness, and nor has anyone, nor could anyone ever experience the edge. More accurately, consciousness has never experienced its own edge or its own limit. Ask any of the eight billion people on earth: if you explore your consciousness, do you ever find a limit? You always get the same answer. Why would you not trust your experience? Your question is superimposing the mind’s limitation on consciousness and then presuming that the questions that are relevant for your mind are therefore relevant to consciousness. If you ask consciousness directly what is your experience of itself, all it will say is “I am”. It won’t say “I am unlimited” because it doesn’t know limitations.’"

From event 05 - 12 October, 2025 Seven-Day Retreat at Garrison Institute, 5–12 October 2025

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