The ancients knew that the secret name of God had power. Now we do.
The Great Affirmation, therefore, is the perception that the “I AM” is ONE, always harmonious with itself, and including all things in this harmony for the simple reason that there is no second creative power; and when the individual realizes that this always-single power is the root of his own being, and therefore has center in himself and finds expression through him, he learns to trust its singleness and the consequent harmony of its action in him with what it is doing around him. Then he sees that the affirmation “I and my Father are ONE” is a necessary deduction from a correct apprehension of the fundamental principles of being; and then, on the principle that the less must be included in the greater, he desires that harmonious unity of action be maintained by the adaptation of his own particular movement to the larger movement of the Spirit working as the Creative Principle through the great whole. In this way we become centers through which the creative forces find specialization by the development of that personal factor on which the specific application of general laws must always depend.
The truth is that if we are just as necessary to God as God is to us, we have therein the real principle and the real need of divine unity. We all must admit that it is inconceivable to think of the family of human souls as being one with God if neither were necessary to the other; but the fact that they are all necessary to each other gives an eternal reason for endless unity between the Infinite and every soul in existence. The same idea is applicable to the individual I AM and the manifested life of the personality. Our conclusion here must be that although the individual I AM is perfect in being, living in the absolute, still manifestation through the personality is absolutely necessary to the conscious existence of the I AM.
“The word is creative,” as Emmet Fox says, “and the strongest and most creative word is “I AM.” Whenever you say “I AM,” you are calling upon the Universe to do something for you, and it will do it. Whenever you say “I AM,” you are drawing a check upon the Universe. It will be honored and cashed sooner or later, and the proceeds will go to you. If you say ‘I AM tired, sick, poor, fed up, disappointed, getting old,’ then you are drawing checks for future trouble and limitation. When you say, ‘I AM divine Life, I AM divine Truth, I AM divine Freedom, I AM divine Substance, I AM eternal Substance,’ you are drawing a check on the bank of Heaven, and surely that check will be honored with health and plenty for you. “Remember you don’t have to use the actual grammatical form, ‘I AM.’ Every time you associate yourself in thought with anything or think of yourself as having anything, you are using a form of ‘I AM.’ The verb to have is a part of the verb to be. In the very ancient languages there is no verb to have. It is a modern improvement, like the radio or the automobile. I have means I AM because you always have what you are and you always do what you are.”
When Jesus said, “No man cometh unto the Father but by me,” of course, he meant the I AM. This I AM, then, means the inner Reality of every man’s nature, and when we stop to figure it out, how can we come unto God, the Living Spirit, except through the avenues of our own consciousness, which is the only approach to God we could possibly have? It is another way of saying that the only way we shall ever approach Reality is by uncovering the Divinity already latent within our own consciousness, in our own soul, in the center of our own being.
The Inner Force of Thought
There are certain forms of mental action that exercise a direct power upon the human personality, while there are other forms of mental action that do not exercise that power. How to tell the difference between the two is a great problem, and a most important problem, because to find the solution is to find the real secret of practical results in the metaphysical field. Those who have tried to secure results through the application of right thinking have found that at times results came almost instantaneously, while at other times it seemed almost impossible to accomplish anything, even though the same methods were employed to the letter. Then there are many who never secure any results whatever, though they apply the same principle, as those who are exceptionally successful, and the reason why seems a mystery. The mystery disappears, however, when we learn that thought does not become power unless the inner force of thought is brought into action.
Two persons may with the same enthusiasm and perseverance affirm “I AM well”; one finds no change, while the other begins to mend at once, and is soon restored to perfect health. The same idea and the same method was employed in each case, but only in the one did thought become power. In like manner two persons of equal intelligence may live according to the same system of metaphysics or idealism. The one gains ground every day, while the other finds conditions no better than he did while employing his previous helter-skelter modes of thought. It is evident, therefore, that it is not the thought itself that produces results, but some power that is back of or within thought.
As it takes faith to leave the old state of material bondage wherein we receive only that which the law of sense determines for us, and again an increase of faith to meet the tests that compel us to rely upon the unseen power to provide for the daily needs, still again it requires faith in an intensified degree to know I AM supply, . . that where I AM God is, and where God is, all is. Therefore, abundance is here where I AM, for I AM the boundless, limitless abundance of power, substance and intelligence of God, present in all places, under all circumstances and at all times. This is the promised land, the fulfillment of faith that admits of no limitation, that recognizes no lack, that abides in the consciousness of abundance and hence lives and loves and gives. It is the exercising of faith that “worketh by love,” for love is the fulfilling of the law, . . the perfecting of it.
Creation is finished and perfect. There is actually nothing to heal or be added from the outside. God is that which I AM; my purpose is not to demonstrate things, but to reveal, or to give out from my Center, what that Center is. I can do that only by keeping myself in absolute harmony with that which I AM. Acknowledge him in all the ways. I AM saved from all untoward circumstances only by virtue of what I AM, by the Life Principle of the Universal Mind. I AM the way, the truth and the life. My mission is to cooperate with the Universal Consciousness in my own mind. The circumstances of my life will automatically express the harmonious action of my thought.
SELF-AWARENESS
Often when I am teaching classes I have the students take the two words, I AM, and put their full attention on just these two words for thirty seconds, or perhaps a full minute. I ask them not to relate these words to body or profession, or to the immediate situation. They are to think exclusively I AM and nothing more. Try it in the quiet of your own home. As I often say, that which I AM is not name and number. It is unconditioned and free. That is what you are contemplating. You are contemplating the essence of being, and that is what the great spiritual thinkers, both East and West, did. These great minds have taken a moment, or a few moments, on a disciplined basis, to deal with that which they were which was not name or profession; which while it used body was not body; and which, while it used intellect was not intellect. They were dealing with Pure Cause before it became Effect. You are always cause becoming effect. That is why your mind creates out of itself. That is why your emotions create out of themselves; whether it be a gracious home, a family, or a great business enterprise. By means of the individual, cause is always becoming effect.
The real man is the soul or the individuality the “I AM”; and that part of man is always perfectly well; in fact, cannot possibly be otherwise than well, a statement that can be demonstrated to the scientifically exact. To know that this is true, and to know that you yourself are the real man that something in human nature that is always perfectly well, is to know the truth the truth that makes man free.
When man discovers his I AM to be the impersonal power of expression, which power eternally personifies itself in his conceptions of himself, he will assume and appropriate that state of consciousness which he desires to express; in so doing he will become that state in expression. “Ye shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass” can now be told in this manner: You shall become conscious of being or possessing a thing and you shall express or possess that which you are conscious of being. The law of consciousness is the only law of expression. “I AM the way”. “I AM the resurrection”.
I AM is the Super Mind, the sum total of God-Consciousness; the action of this mind is always within and upon Itself. It is the complement of the other two minds and the container of both. The three in reality are one. There is only one mind, the Universal Mind of God. Mind and Consciousness are interchangeable terms. Conscious and subconscious are two names for the One Mind. Subconscious and subjective mean the same thing . . the mind and the law of the soul. Unlimited power is available to man as he consciously uses the creative force. The I AM which we discover in our own consciousness is the Principle we use in our work in the Silence. Both conscious and subjective minds are the instruments of the I AM.
THE LAW OF CREATION
Let us take one of the stories of the Bible and see how the prophets and writers of old revealed the story of creation by this strange Eastern symbolism.
We all know the story of Noah and the Ark; that Noah was chosen to create a new world after the world was destroyed by the flood.
The Bible tells us that Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth.
The first son is called Shem, which means name. Ham, the second son, means warm, alive. The third son is called Japheth, which means extension. You will observe that Noah and his three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth contain the same formula of creation as does the divine name of JOD HE VAU HE.
Noah, the Father, the conceiver, the builder of a new world is equivalent to the JOD, or unconditioned consciousness, I AM. Shem is your desire; that which you are conscious of; that which you name and define as your objective, and is equivalent to the second letter in the divine name (HE). Ham is the warm, live state of feeling, which joins or binds together consciousness desiring and the thing desired, and is therefore equivalent to the third letter in the divine name, the VAU. The last son, Japheth, means extension, and is the extended or objectified state bearing witness of the subjective state and is equivalent to the last letter in the divine name, HE.
You are Noah, the knower, the creator. The first thing you beget is an idea, an urge, a desire, the word, or your first son Shem (name).
Your second son Ham (warm, alive) is the secret of FEELING by which you are joined to your desire subjectively so that you, the consciousness desiring, become conscious of being or possessing the thing desired.
Your third son, Japheth, is the confirmation, the visible proof that you know the secret of creation. He is the extended or objectified state bearing witness of the invisible or subjective state in which you abide.
In the story of Noah it is recorded that Ham saw the secrets of his Father, and, because of his discovery, he was made to serve his brothers, Shem and Japheth. Ham, or feeling, is the secret of the Father, your I AM, for it is through feeling that the consciousness desiring is joined to the thing desired.
The conscious union or mystical marriage is made possible only through feeling. It is feeling which performs this heavenly union of Father and Son, Noah and Shem, unconditioned consciousness and conditioned consciousness.
By performing this service, feeling automatically serves Japheth, the extended or expressed state, for there can be no objectified expression unless there is first a subjective impression.
To feel the presence of the thing desired, to subjectively actualize a state by impressing upon yourself, through feeling, a definite conscious state is the secret of creation.
Your present objectified world is Japheth which was made visible by Ham. Therefore Ham serves his brothers Shem and Japheth, for without feeling which is symbolized as Ham, the idea or thing desired (Shem) could not be made visible as Japheth.
The ability to feel the unseen, the ability to actualize and make real a definite subjective state through the sense of feeling is the secret of creation, the secret by which the word or unseen desire is made visible – is made flesh. “And God calleth things that be not as though they were”.
Consciousness calls things that are not seen as though they were, and it does this by first defining itself as that which it desires to express, and second by remaining within the defined state until the invisible becomes visible.
Here is the perfect working of the law according to the story of Noah. This very moment you are aware of being. This awareness of being, this knowing that you are, is Noah, the creator.
Now with Noah’s identity established as your own consciousness of being, name something that you would like to possess or express; define some objective (Shem), and with your desire clearly defined, close your eyes and feel that you have it or are expressing it.
Don’t question how it can be done; simply feel that you have it. Assume the attitude of mind that would be yours if you were already in possession of it so that you feel that it is done.
Feeling is the secret of creation.
Be as wise as Ham and make this discovery that you too may have the joy of serving your brothers Shem and Japheth; the joy of making the word or name flesh.
All I AM Quotes From The Power of I AM Volume 2 are from the following Authors
Fay Adams, U. S. Andersen, Raymond Charles Barker, M. MacDonald-Bayne, Joseph Benner, Kate Atkinson Boehme, Thomas Parker Boyd, Louise Brownell, H. Emilie Cady, Robert Collier, Florence Gloria Crawford, Mrs. Dan M. Davidson, Walter Devoe, Franklin Fillmore Farrington, Charles Fillmore, Emmet Fox, John Seaman Garns, Harry Gaze, Neville Goddard, Henry Hand, Shirley Bell Hastings, Ernest Holmes, C. W. Kyle, Christian D. Larson, Elinor S. Moody, Joseph Murphy, Janeski Robenoff, Robert A. Russell, John Milton Scott, Elizabeth Towne, Thomas Troward, Helen Wilmans