Bernardo and I had a discussion over at his blog a short while ago in which I hope I came to understand a little better his vision of mind-at-large. The sticking point for me, which I couldn't quite wrap my head around was how a m-a-l, which isn't aware that it is aware, could generate entities like us that are aware they are aware. I mean, awareness of awareness seems an advancement over mere awareness, doesn't it?
The answer, as I understand it, is that m-a-l's intentions can cause things to happen. If it has an "unarticulated" desire, then the object of that desire eventuates. Maybe the desire that gave rise to everything that materialists think is the concrete, external world was the result of an "unarticulated" desire to come to "know itself". Which would require the arising of something capable of self-reflection, of something able to be aware that it was aware, a capacity that m-a-l itself doesn't possess, but is able to experience through it/them.
I say "them" because there are apparently many of us, but only one m-a-l. Bernardo seems to think in terms of an analogy with multiple dissociative disorder, where one individual can identify with various different personalities or alters. Each of us is an alter of m-a-l that can experience from a particular viewpoint. This necessarily entails the illusion of separation: an illusion that many accept at face value, but which in certain states some of us can overcome, getting varying degrees of the sensation of oneness and connection. I've had this sensation myself, and have read many reports of people who've had it to greater degrees, as in samadhi, NDEs, psychedelic experiences, and so forth.
It's a sensation that is impossible to describe, because the thing attempting to describe it is the alter, which only has language available to it, and the alter borrows description from everyday occurrences. Nonetheless, the alter can experience it and retain a memory of having done so. Maybe we all experience it in deep sleep or anaesthesia, but don't form such a memory, so that for all practical intents and purposes, it might as well never have occurred.
Awareness of awareness is a marvellous thing, seeming like the pinnacle of human achievement, and we can't help projecting that on m-a-l. Surely m-a-l would be the most self-reflective entity that could be imagined, something that would have complete knowledge and understanding of all that is? Maybe it's this projection that gives rise to the idea of God as all-knowing, capable of having consciously created the universe and of being "in charge" of every tiny detail.
But the thing is this: as alters, our intentions can't make things happen. We can't, in normal states of awareness, think things into existence. This is what gives us subordinate status to m-a-l. We think we can create things, such as our scientific explanations, which many elevate to the status of absolute reality; but over time, such explanations change and are refined until there comes a point where we realise they can't actually account for empirical observations.
I suppose the classic example is QM, which despite giving rise to incredibly accurate mathematical description, remains completely mysterious. We're forced into such language as "waves of probability" that eventually "collapse", which in the end doesn't explain anything because there isn't an explanation in the usual way we think of explanations. It's just the place where the rubber meets the road, where the innate desire of m-a-l interfaces with the illusion it's created in order to "come to know" itself.
At the fringes, between our total identification with our alters (points-of-view) and m-a-l, there is the zone where, to larger or smaller degrees, we can get some intuitive insight into the true nature of m-a-l. This is what accounts for various psi and spiritual phenomena, the description of which is always hampered by the restrictions of ordinary language.
I don't mean by this to speak for Bernardo, only for my interpretation of what he's saying. Doubtless he will correct me if I've misrepresented his position.