There are not two I AM’S, but one I AM. Whatever, therefore, I can conceive the Great Universal Life Principle to be, that I AM. Let us try fully to realize what this means. Can you conceive the Great Originating and Sustaining Life Principle of the whole universe as poor, weak, sordid, miserable, jealous, angry, anxious, uncertain, or in any other way limited? We know that this is impossible. Then because the I AM is one it is equally untrue of ourselves. Learn first to distinguish the true self that you are from the mental and physical processes which it throws forth as the instruments of its expression, and then learn that this self controls these instruments, and not vice versa. As we advance in this knowledge we know ourselves to be unlimited, and that, in the miniature world, whose center we are, we ourselves are the very same overflowing of joyous livingness that the Great Life Spirit is in the Great All. The I AM is One.
If a man tries to achieve what he wants through external means, it will forever elude him. He is a thief and a robber in the sense that he is robbing himself of the joy of manifesting his ideal, by refusing to claim and feel its reality mentally. He must have the mental equivalent first; then its manifestation follows. Our own mind or consciousness . . I AM . . is the door to all expression.
All I ask is that you who read these lessons shall try the effect upon the subconscious mind of vigorous, positive, living words. Even though you are in the midst of poverty, sickness and sorrow, affirm the opposite. Say with all the earnestness you can muster: I AM Rich, I AM Well, I AM Happy. Say it again and again, though all things conspire to give the lie to your words. If you do this faithfully, just as sure as you live the words you thus utter will fall into the subconscious mind and become there a power to work for good in all your conditions.
I AM. What is I AM? It is your true being. It is your real nature, your real self and nobody else, because no one else can say I AM for you. Only you can say I AM. That is your real identity, the Presence of God in you, the Indwelling Christ. That is you, and whatever you attach to I AM with conviction, that you are and that you have.
Jesus of Nazareth, who scattered the evil with his eye, is asleep in the imagination of every man, and out of his own imagination must man awaken him by subjectively affirming “I AM Jesus” Then and only then will he see Jesus, for man can only see what is awake in himself.
The Kabbalists tell us of “the lost word,” the word of power which mankind has lost. To him who discovers this word all things are possible. 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. 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 in our heart we realize as the center of our conscious being, and which is in our mouth a hundred times a day. It is the word “I AM.” Because I AM what I AM, I may be what I will to be. 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.
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; and this not by any act of uncertain favor, but by the law of polarity which is the basis of all Nature. The law of polarity is that law according to which everything attains completion by manifesting itself in the opposite direction to that from which it started. It is the simple law by which there can be no inside without an outside, nor one end of a stick without an opposite end.
Our subconscious assumptions continually externalize themselves that others may consciously see us as we subconsciously see ourselves, and tell us by their actions what we have subconsciously assumed of ourselves to be. Therefore let us assume the feeling “I AM Christ,” until our conscious claim becomes our subconscious assumption that “We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory.” Let God Awake and his enemies be destroyed. There is no greater prayer for man.
If I strive to be master, I shall never attain; if I aim to be, I shall never arrive; if I look up and away to a power outside and beyond Myself, I shall never find. Only when I know as I AM known shall I find that I, Self, the Jesus Christ character, am Master. I, the one Life, the one Intelligence, am Spirit, Truth. I, the one and the all, the unborn and the undying, AM the Power and the Glory, the living Reality.
Our behavior is influenced by our subconscious assumption respecting our own social and intellectual rank and that of the one we are addressing. Let us seek for and evoke the greatest rank, and the noblest of all is that which disrobes man of his morality and clothes him with uncurbed immortal glory. Let us assume the feeling “I AM Christ,” and our whole behavior will subtly and unconsciously change in accordance with the assumption.
God is I AM That I AM, and you are I AM, and you make your destiny and your own fate by the things which you attach to that I AM, for that is what you really believe about yourself. If you give credence to fear by saying, “I AM afraid,” then you are destroying yourself. Every time you entertain a pang of fear, or jealousy, or a thought of criticism, every time you speak an unkind word to anyone, and much more so if you say it about them when they are not present, you are definitely shortening and destroying your life. You are definitely breaking down your cells. You are making your body more sensitive to pain. Nor do we lose a grain of good. Nobody can keep it away from you. Every time you say, “I AM one with God,” you are improving your life. Every time you refuse to be bullied by fear, every time you follow the highest you know, and put your trust in God, you are lengthening your life, improving your health, and making it more difficult for disease to attack you.
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