(The Ultimate Truth, The Good News, The Final Answer, The Holy Grail)

 

A. Life & Teachings of the Masters of the Far East  Vols 1-5  Baird T. Spalding (1924-1935)

 

1. The true use of the "I AM" is to maintain man's original identity in and with his source, not allowing it to descend to include within his nature that which he is not.

 

2.  Man is not his experiences, he is what IS.

 

3.  Experiences with that that seem less than himself should never be admitted into his estimate of himself.

 

4. I AM always that which I AM IN SPIRIT, not that which I seem to be in experience, or what I have experienced in the world.

 

5.  No matter what I have gone through, or seem to be going through, I still remain what I am in the original sense, the Image and Likeness of God.

 

B. The Impersonal Life - Joseph Benner (1941)

 

1.  Who am I? -- I who speak with such seeming knowledge and authority? Listen!

 

2.  I AM You, that part of you who IS and KNOWS; WHO KNOWS ALL THINGS -- always knew and was.

 

3.  Yes, I AM You, Your SELF; that part of you who says I AM and is I AM;

 

4. That transcendent, innermost part of you which quickens within as you read, which responds to My Word, which perceives Its Truth, which recognizes all Truth and discards all error wherever found.  Not that part of you that has been feeding error all these years.

 

5. For I AM your real teacher, the only real one you will ever know, and the only MASTER; I (AM), your Divine Self.

 

 

C. The Temple Not Made With Hands - Walter Lanyon (Republished 1976)

 

1. We cannot enter into the Kingdom by any other door than the I AM, the Christ--Father.

 

2. "I AM THAT I AM"; at last the I AM surrounded by the barnacles of human history, race, creed, color, family, begins to realize the  "I AM" of which Jesus spoke when he discovered the Christ within.

 

3.  "Ye must decrease; I must increase."  The belief and considerations of "John Smith" must decrease, must be absorbed in the Godhead, must become one with the I AM, until the soul can definitely say I AM.

 

4.  Then last vestiges of separateness passes away, and the Father and Son are one. The Son has at last reached HOME (he is one with the Power from which all things flow into expression).

 

5. The I AM of "John Smith", so feeble and so enmeshed in the snare of human life, can do nothing, and yet that very I AM is told to do all things.

 

6. When the reflection realizes that it is part of, and one with that which is casting the reflection, then will it be freed of the hypnotism that it can do anything of itself.

 

7.  It is a strange and symbolic returning to Eden--to the Oneness and Wholeness of Life.  At first it is almost sacrilegious to say I AM that I AM.

 

8.  When Jesus uttered it and made himself as God, the "human thought" wanted to destroy him. Why?  because it misunderstood the Power and thought he would personalize it, and make himself into a little individual god, with terrific dominion.

 

D. Advanced Course In Yogic Philosophy - Ramacharaka (1904)

 

1. The flower that blooms in silence that follows the storm.

 

2. There are two general stages of this blossoming of the flower.  the first is the full perception of the "I AM" Consciousness--the second the Cosmic Knowing.

 

3. The first is a consciousness--a knowing--that one is a soul; an awareness that one is a spiritual being--an immortal.

 

4. It is an actual spiritual knowledge that it is an entity--immortal--but it cannot explain it to others, nor can it, as a rule, even explain it intellectually to itself. It simply knows.

 

5.  And that knowing is not a matter of opinion, or reasoning, or faith, or hope or blind belief. It is a consciousness (a certain awareness)--and like any other form of consciousness, it is most difficult to explain to one who has never experienced it (it's like, it's like, etc.,etc.)

 

6.  This awareness of the "I AM" has come to many more people than is generally imagined, but those who have this

consciousness, as a rule, say nothing about it, for fear

that their friends, relative, neighbors would consider them abnormal and mentally unsound.

 

7.  I AM.  I asset the reality of my existence--not merely my physical presence, which is but temporal and relative--but my real existence in the  Spirit, which is eternal and absolute.

 

8.  I assert the reality of the Ego--my Soul--My-self.

 

9.  The real "I" is the Spirit principle, which is manifesting in the body and mind, the highest expression of which I AM conscious (of) being Myself--my Soul.

 

10. This "I" cannot die nor become annihilated.  It may change the form of its expression, or the vehicle of its manifestation...

 

11. But it is always the same "I"-- a bit of Universal Spirit--a drop from the great ocean of Spirit --a spiritual atom manifesting in my present consciousness, working toward perfect unfoldment.

 

12.  I am my Soul--my Soul is I--all the rest is but transitory and changeable.  I AM--I AM--I AM. Repeat the words "I AM" a number of times.

 

13.  Not until the lower nature (I) is brought under the mastery of the highest that has unfolded in one, can the longed for event occur.

 

14.  So long as the lower part of one's nature is allowed to rule and master him, he shuts out the divine light.

 

15.  Only when he asserts the real "I" does he become ready for further unfoldment.  We have told you that the bloom or bud is--the "I AM" consciousness.

 

16. When you have fully grasped this, and realize what you are, and have made that highest (as yet) consciousness master of your lower principles, then you are ready for the bloom to open.

 

E. The Mystical I - Joel  Goldsmith (1971)

 

1.  Greater is he that is within you, than; he that is in the world.  Who is he that is within you that is greater than he that is in the world?

 

2.  Is there any "I" in you other than the "I" of your own being, your own Self?  Is there another?

 

3.  Think of these words: "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.  "Who is this Father within?

 

4.  Does it not mean that there is a Presence within you, and a Power as well, since He performs that which is given you to do?

 

5.  "Fear not, for I AM with thee."  Can you agree within yourself that this "Fear not, for I AM with thee" refers to a Presence, a Power, and a Wisdom?

 

6.  What you have is a problem of a sense of separation from God, and you in your ignorance have set up a selfhood apart from God.

 

7.  In other words, you are not declaring, I AM I.  Instead, you are declaring, I am a person; and lack of education, lack of opportunity, or certain circumstances are depriving you.

 

8.  You are doing all this. You are making your own prison. You cannot demonstrate supply; you can only demonstrate "I".

 

9.  "That which I am seeking I AM."  That sentence should be enough to save the world.  But with the intellect it cannot be accepted, therefore it takes years of hearing it and living it, until eventually you can say, "Yes, I, I."

 

10. Now I understand the meaning of "I".  You cannot personalize "I". ("I" does not belong to "me", it belongs to "God").

 

F. The Upanishads

 

1.  Mind experiences bondage from the firm conviction "I AM not the Real Self."  It realizes entire freedom, from the equally firm conviction, "I AM the Real Self."

 

2.  He continually sees the Real Self who studies unifying philosophy.

 

3.  The Inner Self, the witness of everyone's mind, is the God; -- if all holy places stand together in this body of mine, what other place could be holier to seek?

 

4.  All ideas come of Thinking.  Attune this Thinking, therefore, to the Highest self, thy Inner Consciousness.

 

5.  That which leads to false vision, sets up the Personal Self in place of the Real Self; shadows forth a thing in nothing;--this is that which we describe as thinking.

 

6. So must he who desires liberation reflect constantly on himself.

 

7. The even-eyed (single-eyed) enlightened one sees God everywhere.

 

8. The Real Truth is seen by reflection engendered through some beneficent suggestion... No other means than reflection can produce real spiritual Knowing.  Nothing but light can ever reveal the existence of things.

 

9. Reflection may run as follows: -- Who am I?  How is this evolved.  Who can be the creator of this?  What may be the material cause?  And it may proceed to answer the question thus: -- I am not the body -- a mere cluster of elements, -- nor even the senses.  I am something quite different from the one as well as the other.  Things come out of ignorance, but die away on the rise of Spiritual Knowing.

 

10.  Thou longeth after unrealities such as "I" and "mine." Those who know wish thy activity were directed to the highest reality...Constant oneness of aim is the mind's fixing on the Eternal Being -- this is called Pacification of the mind.

 

11.  He is liberated even against his wish who gains that full consciousness of Self which dispels the illusion identifying Self with the body; -- consciousness as strong and as firm as that he had while under the illusion.

 

12. The liberated man thinketh ever upon that Being who is the goal of all philosophic reasoning; who is the conviction of every heart; who is the All; who is Everywhere; who is Everything.

 

13. Relate thyself not with the future, nor with what has gone by; live the present out with smiling heart.

 

14. The consciousness of "self" implied in the "ego", the subject; and the consciousness of "belonging" implied in "mine" attached to objects; -- when both these consciousnesses, so to speak,  are emptied of all content whatever, then indeed does one become the knower of Self.

 

15. The absolute sense of universal Being is realized only when consciousness, void of all that it makes conscious, loses itself in the Self, being purified of all relation to personality.

 

G. The Bhagavad Gita

 

1.  He who holdeth Me constantly in mind and serveth (me in all matters) no other (no outsider -- no worldly person, thing or thought) will be brought through safely -- He is My own!

 

2.  Each goeth to that which he worshipeth (where your treasures lie, so lies your heart, so its best not to sleep with pigs), according to his degree of spiritual comprehension.

 

3.  Those who worship Me, in my Essence (in Spirit and Truth)  come to dwell (in the "secret place of the Most High" -- Most Essential Conception of God) with me in my Essence.

 

{ When whatever you do and wherever you go are realized to be it...Peace, Quiet and Rest come to the Soul (i.e. This Is It! Watts,etc.)" Recent Writings.}

 

4.  I, O Prince, AM the Spirit which is well seated in the consciousness of all beings, the reflection of which they each know as "I" or "Ego".

 

5.  I AM that which is the Essential Principle in the seed of all beings and things in nature.

 

6.  Behold, as a Unity, standing within my body, the Whole Universe, animate and inanimate, and all things else that thy mind impelleth thee to see.

 

7.  He who worketh to his best, in the line of his duty, and then offereth his work, and labour, and duty, as a sacrifice to the Absolute Spirit (acknowledge him in all thy ways)...

 

8.  Worketh and performeth your duty in that Spirit...

 

9.  This is felt, not as a thought, but as a fundamental sense of your being-- a knowing (not a thinking).

 

H. Compulsory Dance - Da Free John (1978)

 

1. What could this manifestation possibly be but God? Without having to alter your (everyday) perception, what could this possibly be, but God?

 

2. It is not that this existence is a puzzle for you to ponder and know about until you realize God.  No, THIS IS GOD!

 

3. The only obvious phenomenon is God.

 

4. Anything in its apparent obviousness is nothing but the "Obviousness of God".

 

5. Those who have seen God have an opportunity for wit and distraction, because they have only the "vision" (impersonal attitude, viewpoint, orientation, way of looking) of God.

 

6. They are not serious anymore about the spiritual path that stands before the "unenlighened".

 

7. You are not other than "unenlightened".  If your are "seeing God", then "see (it as) God." You obviously do not have a (true) problem.

 

8. It won't take long unless you forget the Vision, and think you don't have it.  You forget you are seeing God.

 

9.  Once you realize you are always seeing God and could not possibly do otherwise, because there is only God, then what kind of serious path of experience would you like to create.

 

I. Coming Home - Lex Hixon (1959)

 

1.  Ultimate Consciousness alone is the Teacher -- Primal Awareness focused two fingers right of the breast bone and accessible through the primal sense, "I AM."

 

2.  The source of the I AM is experienced in what is called the "Right-hand Heart."

 

3.  If attention becomes totally absorbed in the stream of primal awareness, all sense of individual (individuality) body is dissolved, and no exclusive location remains.

 

4.  Primal Awareness, or Ultimate Consciousness, is then understood to be situated nowhere and everywhere.

 

5.  A "Guru" is (a surrogate mother) nothing other than our own "Primal Consciousness (Awareness) of Being, awaking the seeker to Primal Awareness, which is prior to the states of dreaming or waking, prior to birth and death.

 

6.  Enlightenment sprang up from the ground of the I AM by concentrating on this word used so often: I, I, I.

 

7.  I AM: central mode of access to Ultimate Consciousness.

 

8.  Contemplate the Primal Intuition, I AM, prior to all assertions (stay there, on God, and you put on his cloak of eternality).

 

9.  Continuous asking and then living the existential question "Who is it that is having this particular thought or perception I am having now?"

 

10.  To trace the rootedness of the separate "I" in the universal I AM, which itself ultimately dissolves in Primal Awareness (Second Bloom or Father, Transcendental Awareness, Cosmic Consciousness.

 

11.  Who Am I?  is an attitude that should permeate daily consciousness.

 

12.  The quest for the Self of which I speak is a direct method, for the moment you really get into the quest and begin to go deeper, the Real self is waiting there to receive you, and then whatever is to be done is done by something else, and you as an individual have no hand in it.

 

13.  Inquiry is not a deliberate mental act but becomes part of the flow of daily awareness, continually and naturally reorienting itself toward the Source as Primal Awareness (Thou shall keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee).

 

14.  As on checks the clock, the natural inquiry arises. "Who is telling time; as one opens a book awareness spontaneously inquires, "Who is reading?"

 

15.  Daily activity is not inhibited but gradually rendered transparent to Ultimate Consciousness (In the world, but not of it).

 

16.  Who Am I? is an underlying attitude (repeating First Name is a similar technique)

 

17.  Is there an answer to "Who Am I?"  No, you just stop questioning. The Consciousness that asks the question is already the answer.

 

18. The "I" thought is the "root" thought. If the root is pulled out all the rest is uprooted.

 

19.  Enlightenment is never absent.  We already are Primal Awareness. This very mind that is now thinking and reading is none other than Ultimate Consciousness, the Ground of Being (the Holy Ground upon which all stand).

 

20. As long as we withhold our full assent to such affirmation, we must continue spiritual practice and wait.

 

21.  But when we can feel honestly at home with the attitude that the ultimate goal is attained (see "Goal Is Won"), and has always been attained, this is the dawn of Self Realization.

 

22.  Consciousness is the Self of which everyone is aware. No one is ever away from his Self and therefore everyone is in fact Self-Realized. Only, and this is the great mystery, people don't know this and want to realize self.

 

23.  Desire to realize the Self, to completely and continuously conscious of Consciousness, is rare and precious.

 

J. Hidden Power; Bible Mystery & Bible Meaning -

Thomas Troward (1921;1913)

 

1.  The Kabbalists tell us of "the lost word," the word of power which mankind has lost. Is this mirific word really lost.  Yes and No. It is the open secret of the universe and the Bible gives us the key to it.

 

2.  It tells us, "The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart.'  It is the most familiar of all words, the word which is in our heart, we realize as the center of our conscious being, and which is in our mouth a hundred times a day.

 

3.  It is the word "I AM."  Because I am what I am, I may be what I will be.

 

4.  My individuality is one of the modes in which the Infinite expresses itself, and therefore I am myself that very power which I find to be the innermost within of all things.

 

5.  To me, thus realizing the great unity of all Spirit, the infinite is not the indefinite, for I see it to be the infinite  of Myself.  It is the very same I AM that I am...

 

6. We  do well to pay heed to the sayings of the great teachers who have taught that  all power is in the "I AM."  We have lost, not the word,  but the realization of its power.

 

7. It is the polarization of Spirit from the universal into the particular, carrying with it all its inherent powers, just as the smallest flame has all the qualities of fire.

 

8,  The I AM in the individual is none other than the I AM in the universal.  It is the same Power working in the smaller sphere of which the individual is the centre.

 

9.  This is the great truth which the ancients set forth under the figure f the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, and of which the Bible tells us when it speaks of man as the image of God.

 

10.  Turning to the teachings of Jesus...there was nothing he laid greater stress on than the I AM.  "Except ye believe that I AM ye shall die in your sins," was and emphatic summary of His whole teaching. 

 

11. He (Jesus) came not to proclaim Himself, but Man; not to tell us of His Own Divinity separating Him from the race and making Him the Great Exception, but to tell us of our Divinity and to show Himself as the Great Example of the I AM reaching its full personal expression in Man.

 

12.  It is the Universal I AM reproducing itself in the individuality of Man that Jesus would have us believe in.  He is preaching nothing but the same old Truth with which the Bible begins, that Man is the image and likeness of God. 

 

13.. He (Jesus) says in effect, Make this recognition the center of your life, and you have tapped the source of everlasting life; but refuse to believe it, and you will die in your sins.

 

14. Why?  It is the failure to realize this Truth of Being in ourselves that is the refusal to believe in the I AM which must necessarily cause us to perish in our sins.

 

15. The transgression of which Jesus speaks is the transgression of the Law of I AM in ourselves, the non-recognition of the fact that we are the image and likeness of God.   The transgression is in supposing that there is, or can be, any Living Originating Power outside the I AM.

 

16.  But so long as we limit the I AM in ourselves to the narrow boundaries of the relative and conditioned, and do not realize that, personified in ourselves, it must by it very nature still be as unfettered as when acting in the first creation of the universe, we shall never pass beyond the Law of Death which we thus impose on ourselves.

 

17.  He (Jesus) made the recognition of the I AM the sole foundation of his work; in other words, He placed before men the same radical and ultimate conception of Being that Moses had done (I AM THAT I AM).

 

K. The Mustard Seed - Rajneesh (1975)

 

1. Jesus says, "I AM the All."  You are also the All--Jesus is simply saying that which should be known to everybody, which should be felt by everybody.

 

2.  Jesus is just a reprehensive of you.  He is not saying anything about himself, he is saying something about you -- he is making an assertion about you.

 

3.  He is saying, "I am the All." What does he mean?   He says you also can become All.  You are already the All, but you are not aware of it. Your misery is that you cannot remember who you are.

 

4.  Self-remembering is needed, nothing else is to be done.  You have to become more conscious, more conscious.  You have to raise your consciousness to a peak from where you can see.

 

5.  You become illuminated; no corner remains dark, you whole being becomes aflame.  Then you will understand Jesus, then you will understand Buddha, then you will understand Buddha, then you will understand Krishna, because the whole effort is to  make you aware of who you are.

 

6.  Remember these words. Let them vibrate into your heart again and again, because through these words your seed will undergo a shaking:

 

7. Jesus said: "I am the Light that is above them all; I am the All and All came from me and All attained to me. Cleave a piece of wood and I am their, lift up the stone and you will find me there."

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