I am and yet I am not

I am

and yet

I am not

I am is one of the most important statements a human being can make. This existential assertion – I am. None of this Descartes nonsense – I think therefore I am – no, I don't have to deduce. I am. It's a felt sense. But if we say it apologetically, either as Descartes did as an inference, not being in touch with his own felt sense of existing; either for that reason, or more commonly because inside we have some other doubts about ourself, not necessarily about our existence, but rather about who we are, whether we are valid, whether we have a right to be here, whether we are good enough, whether we are lovable, whether we are worthy, whether we have value; until we have addressed any such self doubt, we cannot really assert I am totally, in an integrated fashion, with the whole of our being saying I am. We can force it, just as somebody who feels impotent might try and enforce their will on others. But that's not the point. The point is to do one's homework, draw all one's energies together into a single unified, integrated being. And then that I am can become total.

From that space we are ready to progress on the spiritual path into our deeper essence. And when we do this, we might, if we are lucky, come to the place where there is a union with god, where the boundary between oneself and the rest of existence has simply melted away. And this can only happen once we have really reclaimed ourself in our totality, once we have become integrated. Until then we are too afraid. We're trying to cover up and hide some feeling of inadequacy, and we need boundaries to do that, we need that boundary: I am here, you are there, and we are separate.

But once you are integrated, once you feel the whole of yourself, pulling in one direction, with no inner division, no self doubt, not through some pride or stubbornness, but just naturally an integrated being. Once one feels that, the boundary is no longer needed, and without that boundary, that great union can occur.

We have to be a little careful with words, though. In truth, we were always united with existence. It was only our ego mind that created the illusion of separation, that needed that boundary. So when we rediscover that we are not separate from existence, then this statement, I am, takes on a different quality. a different meaning, a mystical meaning.

Some masters have said, I am that, meaning I am existence. I am the rock I am looking at. I am the butterfly sitting on the rock. I am the clouds in the sky. I am all of it. I don't so much like the phrase I am that. I'd rather say I am this. It feels closer to the truth that is trying to be conveyed. I am this rock. I am this butterfly. I am this cloud. I am this.

Some masters have said I am truth, or I am the truth. Same meaning. I am the light. I am the Father. I am God. These are all different attempts to convey who we really are, once we have become whole and allowed our boundaries, our illusory fabricated boundaries to dissolve.

And there's another way of putting this and that is, I am not. It might sound paradoxical, but there is no I once those boundaries have gone, once the feeling of separation has disappeared. There is no small I, there is no personal I. It has gone. It's not needed. It was only a concept, it turns out, an idea with no real substance. So I am not is perhaps the closest we can get to expressing this state of non-separation. and so, paradoxically, I can state I am and also I am not.