You can’t conceive of a thing that is not part of a state, but the life of any state is in the individual who occupies it. Life cannot be given to a state from without, because God’s name is “I AM.” It is not “You are” or “They are.” God’s eternal name is I AM! That is the life of the world. If you would make a state alive, you must be in it. If you are in a lovely, gentle, kind state, you are seeing another as lovely, living graciously, and enjoying life to the utmost. Now, to make that state natural, you must see everyone in your world as lovely, kind, and gentle. Others may not see them in that light, but it doesn’t really matter what they think. I am quite sure if I took a survey of what people think of me, no two would agree.
Some would say I am a deceiver, while others I am the nearest thing to God. I would find a range stretching from the devil to God, all based upon the state in which the person is in when called upon to define me. You can be what you want to be if you know and apply this principle, but you are the operant power. It does not operate itself. You may know the law from A to Z, but knowing is not enough. Knowledge must be acted upon. “I AM” is the operant power in you. Put your awareness in the center of your desire. Persist, and your desire will be objectified. Learn to use the law, because there is a long interval between the law and the promise.
Concentration means holding the chosen mental picture to the exclusion of all others till your objective life becomes the picture. “I AM THAT WHICH I THINK MYSELF TO BE!” The Ideal Life is the Real Life and this unseen Ideal Life is the one that alone concerns us. The laws of matter, are the Laws of spirit. They are but reflections of the unseen Laws, because Nature is one. No line can be drawn between the Here and the There; between the present and the past, or the future; between Cause and Effect. The Universe is a Unit, and as such we are to live It. Not to live in it, but to live It, for we are It. This Life of the body that has so troubled us, is the life of appearance, and with appearances hereafter we are not to deal; will deal with eternal verities, i.e. with Ideals which cause these appearances. The goal of every endeavor is Ideal, and that Ideal is REALITY OF SPIRIT. Let this Ideal manifest in perfect faith, by letting it alone, save to hold to it as Will. The Ideal will carry you to the goal of its own manifestation.
When one is absolutely relaxed, conscious only of being conscious, when he has taken his attention away from himself and from his world and fixed his attention only upon the I AM within him, he will be in tune with everything in the Universe and have dominion over it.
How would you conduct yourself if you full realized your oneness with God (I AM), if you could truly believe that He is constantly offering you life, love and every good thing your heart can desire? Well, that is exactly what He is doing! So act as if you already had the thing you want. Visualize it as yours. See the picture clearly in every detail in your mind’s eye. Then LET GOD (I AM) make it manifest. Do what you can, of course, with what you have, where you are, but put your dependence upon God (I AM), and LET His good gifts come to you.
The words are these: “I AM from above; you are from below. You are of this world; I AM not of this world. Now I say to you, unless you believe that I AM He you will die in your sins.” To sin means to miss the mark, so what he is saying is that unless you believe you already are what you want to be, you will never be it. Would you like to be secure? Then say to yourself and yourself alone: “Unless I believe I AM secure I will die in my sins. I will continue to believe I am insecure; thereby missing my goal in life.” Unless you can believe “I AM secure,” even though there is not one thing to support it, you will die in your sin and never feel secure, for the name of God is I AM and besides I AM there is no other. Imagination (I AM) is from above. Imagination is not of this world and nothing is impossible to imagine! That is the story of scripture.
There is One Infinite Mind from which all things come; this Mind is through, in and around man; It is the Only Mind that there is, and every time man thinks he uses It. There is One Infinite Spirit, and every time man says, “I AM,” he proclaims It. There is One Infinite Substance; and every time man moves, he moves in It. There is One Infinite Law, and every time man thinks he sets It in motion. There is One Infinite God, and every time man speaks to This God, he receives a direct answer. One! One! One! “I AM God and there is none else.” There is One Limitless Life which returns to the thinker what he thinks into It. One! One! One! “In all, over all and through all.” Talk, live, act, believe and know that you are a center in the One. All the Power there is; all the Presence there is; all the Love there is; all the Peace there is; all the Good there is and the Only God that is, is Omnipresent; consequently, the Infinite is in and through man and is in and through everything. “Act as though I AM and I will Be.”
The ancients called the sun the savior of the world as it redeems the world from darkness and death when it ascends the heavens. When John (your intellect) recognizes Jesus, the God-Power within (I AM), you begin to fulfill your desires and aspirations, and your sins (your failure to reach your goal and fulfill your desires) are taken away.
It is in the heart of Being that man says “I AM.” It is the I AM of man that is ever one with the Father, as one with God as a drop of water is one with the ocean of which it is a part. Man’s being is one with the Being of God and is within itself that which God is. For this reason, man within himself is power, substance and intelligence. It is knowing this that gives him dominion in the realm of form, or makes all form subject to him. “Even the winds and the waves obey him,” they said of Jesus, who was the first to claim his God-given right of dominion in earth. Within the heart of man’s consciousness lies the creative law through which he expresses his Being. This is the treasure in heaven of which Jesus spoke, and is a treasure because within it lies the power of bringing forth every earthly treasure. It is the cause of things. It is a trinity principle, and through its use “All things are possible,” for within it lies the power and substance and intelligence through which all things are created.
You are one with the great “I AM” of the universe. You are part of God. Until you realize that . . and the power it gives you . . you will never know God. God (I AM) has incarnated Himself in man. He seeks expression. Give Him work to do through you, give Him a chance to express Himself in some useful way, and there is nothing beyond your powers to do or to attain.
You have already read in verse five the light shineth in darkness. False concepts, wrong theories, and negative thoughts represent your darkness. If you believe a fan gives you a stiff neck, it is a false light or knowledge and causes suffering in your world. Ideas and concepts which inspire you, thoughts which elevate, dignify, heal, and bless you, represent the Wisdom of God (I AM) which is the true Light. True knowledge of God (I AM) will light up the heaven of your mind and give you peace, serenity, a sense of security, and tranquility. I believe you have a good idea of what the word awareness is all about now. We must remember that we create our own world after the image and likeness of our own mental pictures and thought patterns.
In the midst of conflict, let me become aware of how peaceful my world is, and I will send peace into my world. My authority as I AM has sent peace unto me, for I am conscious of peace. If you know this truth, you will never complain, for you will know you are the cause of your complaint. If you sincerely desire to change your world, however, you must change yourself! If you dislike someone, or think he dislikes you, the cause is not in him and his behavior, but in you. Be honest with yourself and you will discover that whenever you think of him, your conversations are always unpleasant. The new man is incapable of unlovely thoughts or acts. He speaks only kind, loving words.
Mental treatment recognizes that each individual has his identity in mind and is known in Mind by the name he bears. This Subjective Law knows there is a John Smith and a Mary Jones. Why? Because John Smith and Mary Jones know that there is a John Smith and a Mary Jones. But It only knows about them what they know about themselves. Being subjective to their thought, It could not know anything else; consequently, whatever John Smith and Mary Jones say, It says, accepts and does. This is a marvelous concept. Unless we have thought it out, it may seem rather startling. But it means this: that the Law absolutely accepts us at our own valuation. Now this does not mean that it accepts us at an assumption of valuation, but at the actual valuation. It can reflect to us only the actual embodiment of ourselves. It is the deep inner conviction that we carry which decides what is going to happen. So we are each known by the name we bear, and each is daily making some statement about that name. When we say “I AM this or that,” we are involving in Mind statements which Mind in turn produces as conditions.
I tell you it is possible to be anything you want to be, for the believer and the God of the universe are one. Don’t divorce yourself from God, for he is your I AMness. Believe in your I AMness, for if you do not you will never fulfill your desire. Only by assuming you already are the one you would like to be will you achieve it. It’s just as simple as that.
Everything I am telling you is from the Bible. “I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. I, even I AM He and there is no God besides me. I AM the Lord your God, the holy one of Israel, your Savior and besides me there is no savior.” These are the words of God, revealed through his prophets of old. Their prophecy is fulfilled in the New Testament as: “Whatsoever you desire, believe you have received it and you will.” That’s how easily you apply it, for an assumption, though false and denied by your senses, if persisted in will harden into fact.
Let us turn to the Law, and find what It says, that man is conscious mind or spirit; this stands for his objective faculty. The objective mind of man is his recognition of life in a conscious state; it is the only attribute of man that is volitional, or self-choosing; consequently, it is the spiritual man. The conscious mind of man is the contemplator, the reflector. The Universe is the result of the Contemplation of the Divine Mind, or the Holy Spirit, which is God. God creates by contemplating His own I-AM-NESS; and this contemplation, through law, becomes the objectification of the Self-Realization of the Infinite Mind.
The soul in its incarnation into a form of flesh is like a seed that has been sown in the earth. It must be watered by our thoughts of recognition and quickened by our deep feelings of love for the Creator. It has an affinity only for the truth of the Creator’s love; the thoughts and feelings generated by earthly things becloud its faculties and hinder it from receiving its daily sustenance from the I AM within. If the mind of a person is centered wholly upon material things, the soul becomes isolated from the Creator.
If the soul is strong and has had some degree of awakening, it will tire of the dreariness and darkness of mortal vibrations, and when an occasion offers itself by way of sickness or weakness of the body, it will sever its connections with the flesh and return to the freer state of spiritual life, causing death to the body. But it will still be burdened by its personal mind, which it must regenerate. The work of regeneration would have been much easier had the personal mind received and accepted the knowledge of spiritual truths before death, because truth received from the mortal plane of understanding produces a deeper impression on the mind accustomed to dealing with material things.
All Quotes from David Allen’s The Power of I AM Volume 3 Are Attributed to…
Benjamin Johnson, Charles Fillmore, Charles Haanel, Christian Larson, Edna Lister, Emmet Fox, Ernest Holmes, Eugene Del Mar, Fenwicke L. Holmes, Florence Gloria Crawford. Frances Larimer Warner, Franklin Fillmore Farrington, H. Emilie Cady, Helen Wilmans, Henry Harrison Brown, Jane Woodard, Joseph Murphy, Nancy McKay Gordon, Neville Goddard, Orison Swett Marden, Robert A. Russell, Walter C Lanyon, William Walker Atkinson / Yogi Ramacharaka