I AM is the self definition of the absolute, the foundation on which everything rests. I AM is the first cause-substance. I AM is the self definition of God.
I AM is that which, amid unnumbered forms, is ever the same. This great discovery of cause reveals that, good or bad, man is actually the arbiter of his own fate, and that it is his concept of himself that determines the world in which he lives . . and his concept of himself is his reactions to life. In other words, if you are experiencing ill health, knowing the truth about cause, you cannot attribute the illness to anything other than to the particular arrangement of the basic cause-substance, an arrangement which was produced by your reactions to life, and is defined by your concept “I AM unwell”. This is why you are told “Let the weak man say, ‘I AM strong'”, for by his assumption, the cause-substance . . I AM . . is rearranged and must, therefore, manifest that which its rearrangement affirms. This principle governs every aspect of your life, be it social, financial, intellectual, or spiritual.
Man in the darkness of human ignorance sets out on his search for God, aided by the flickering light of human wisdom. As it is revealed to man that his I AM or awareness of being is his savior, the shock is so great, he mentally falls to the ground, for every belief that he has ever entertained tumbles as he realizes that his consciousness is the one and only savior. The knowledge that his I AM is God compels man to let all others go for he finds it impossible to serve two Gods. Man cannot accept his awareness of being as God and at the same time believe in another deity.
Whenever I say “I AM”, I AM [is] creating something. Prayer is believing that we have already received that which we ask. When I say, “I AM”, I AM attaching my awareness of being to something. Now, you can lie and not believe what you are saying, but you cannot believe something about “I AM” and not create it. We are creating morning, noon, and night by our “I AM” statements. If you say, “I don’t feel well” and you believe it, you are perpetuating illness in your life. You must change those statements to “I feel wonderful”. We have to pray (say I AM), believing that it is true, and then we will receive.
The feeling that the “I AM” in you is God reveals to you that there is nothing to be afraid of, and that you are one with Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence. No one can steal health, peace, joy, or happiness from you. You no longer live with the many “I’s” of fear, doubt, and superstition. You now live in the Divine Presence, and in the consciousness of freedom.
The world for centuries with its belief in its material gods has discredited the idea that man’s consciousness first creates all things mentally; then he sees them materialize. I AM not of the world, means I AM is man’s indwelling consciousness, and it has the complete Power to make its own creation without the help of any man. This basic principle will be the foundation of the new mental world which is about to blossom forth.
When we are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that our own I AMness is our Lord and Master, we know no other. We know whatever we attach feelingly to I AM we become; then the cock crows in us because this truth is a new day in our life. It is a symbol of the awakening to God.
When the Bible records these words of Paul, please remember that in this case “man” means the “I AM,” the conscious spiritual part of yourself. “Woman” or “wife” means your soul; chiefly, in our modern terminology, what is called the subconscious. When we read…… let every one of you … love his wife even as himself,” it means that you have to develop your human character and lift it more and more toward the divine. Where it says the wife must reverence her husband, it means you must learn to control the soul or the subjective conditions.
Everything depends upon its attitude towards itself; that which it will not affirm as true of itself cannot awaken in its world. That is, your concept of yourself, such as “I AM strong”, “I AM secure”, “I AM loved”, determines the world in which you live. In other words, when you say, “I AM a man, I AM a father, I AM an American”, you are not defining different I AM’s; you are defining different concepts or arrangements of the one cause-substance . . the one I AM.
We do well to pay heed to the sayings of the great teachers who have taught that all power is in the “I AM,” and to accept this teaching by faith in their bare authority rather than not accept it at all; but the more excellent way is to know why they taught thus, and to realize for ourselves this first great law which all the master minds have realized throughout the ages. It is indeed true that the “lost word” is the one most familiar to us, ever in our hearts and on our lips. We have lost, not the word, but the realization of its power. And as the infinite depths of meaning which the words I AM carry with them, open out to us, we begin to realize the stupendous truth that we are ourselves the very power which we seek.
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. This means that no manifestation comes to us save our own consciousness draws it. The me referred to is our own I AMness. Your I AMness is the mother and father of all ideas. When Philip says, “Show us the Father,” he is calling forth our dominant mood. One cannot see a mood or a feeling. When you actually become aware of the principle of inner causation, you have discovered your God or your Father in Heaven. Having now discovered the Principle of Life, you must begin to use it wisely. Never permit the suggestion of defeat and impotency to inhibit the free flow of this inner life. Whatever you become aware of determines whether you see lack or confusion or whether you see opulence, order, and harmony in your world.
When man sees the Bible as a great psychological drama, with all of its characters and actors as the personified qualities and attributes of his own consciousness, then . . and then only . . will the Bible reveal to him the light of its symbology. This Impersonal principle of life . . I AM . . which made all things is personified as God. This Lord God, creator of heaven and earth, is discovered to be man’s awareness of being. If man were less bound by orthodoxy and more intuitively observant, he could not fail to notice in the reading of the Bibles that the awareness of being is revealed hundreds of times throughout this literature.
All the quotes in The Power of I AM are credited
to the following authors.
Neville Goddard, Joseph Murphy, Walter C. Lanyon, Walter Devoe, Lillian DeWaters, Emmet Fox, Ella Wheeler, Christian D Larson, Edna Lister, Thomas Troward