Think of a movie. When a movie is projected, all the characters and drama of the movie are nothing but light arranged in different forms. There is no reality to the movie, indeed there is no movie at all, other than the light. If light is removed, the movie, the characters, the drama—all of it is literally nonexistent. Along the same lines, what is the light that refracts as all mental experiences of the one mind—personal and impersonal, human and not human, including the subset of “physical” experiences? That light is the self-effulgent light of consciousness.
Consciousness is infinitely more than what it appears as, just as the light of the projector is not depleted in any way by the movie that it appears as. The light remains untouched by the happenings in the movie, yet from a limited perspective it seems to take on limitation as characters, scenes, drama.
Even if there were no movie playing (if there were no mental film), the light would still be as it is. The light is utterly independent of the film and the movie, yet the movie is entirely dependent on the light. Similarly, consciousness is entirely independent of any and all minds, such as mine and yours and the one total mind, yet all minds are entirely dependent upon consciousness.
Anoop Kumar, Is This a Dream? — Reflections on the Awakening Mind (2019)