Within existence, the individual self, the mind, and present reality are what you experience simultaneously on an inter-dimensional level of wakefulness. With natural selection through evolution, conscious awareness, aware of itself as the mind/body organism, is ultimately Self-realized as infinite, unbounded consciousness. Unbounded awareness sees the mind/body organism as a point value of the infinity of consciousness, the actual integrated Self. However, the mind/body goes on as before after Self-realization. Still, it is now unrestricted by an ego placing control and manipulating activities as an individual, known as a character; the personal thinker of thoughts to act on, a doer of deeds with ownership, an individual separate from life striving to accomplish something.
Freedom is gained from the Karmic Wheel of Life because Consciousness, the Self of all, is untouched by any activity or consequence arising from the ongoing Karma (action). The Mind continues to think, perceive, and analyze. It is what it does; that is its function. The mind, ego, intellect, thoughts and feelings, and bodily sensations are still defined within limitations on one level, the level of the physical illusion, but are now functioning within a universal context. Within this Universality, the mind operates surrounded by a world environment of people, places, and things. And this is the exploration of consciousness through a mind/body organism that is expressive of unbounded consciousness at the point value of Self.