I am reading (skimming, really) the book I Am That by Maharaj, and he says to keep in mind “I Am” as a means of connecting with the inner source of all.
The last few things I have read have explained that our underlying Awareness and the observer are actually one and the same, with awareness being the base of who we are (and in some way, the base of everything) and the observer being an parsed off piece of this global awareness. As I understand Adyashanti’s meditation practice, it is actually focusing the observer on our underlying awareness, and in the process incorporating this Awareness as our own. In fact, he suggests asking “Who Am I”, and then when the I answers, which is our Awareness, we can observe that more easily. Which I have found to be true.
Maharaj reflects a similar idea, but he keeps harping on the idea of “I Am” as being the key to entering into this reflection. At first, I thought he was talking about the same “I Am” that Adya referred to. Finding that internal “I” of Awareness. {Side Note: The “I” of Awareness is not to be confused with the “I” which is a creation of the Ego. The difference being that the “I” of the ego has attributes that it has assumed, while the “I” of Awareness just is pure awareness of being.}
However, as I thought more about “I Am” which is what he said I should do, I ended up in a place of Decartes “I think, therefore, I am.” Which, though I don’t really know what Decartes meant by that, I always assumed to mean that I can prove I exist by the fact that I think I am, at least to myself. And that led me to another understanding of “I Am” which is one of the whole world being mine. Everything that exists in the world is mine, since from my perspective it comes into existence. This doesn’t negate the fact that the entire world is yours too, by the way, since you too can say “I Am”.
Having said all of that, I think that the truth is somewhere in between. I can taste it, but I’m not there yet. I was hoping that writing this post would clarify the connection between this outer facing “I Am” and the inner facing one, but the truth escapes me still.
Recapping, and hoping for an insight, I can use “I Am” to connect with my inner sense of Awareness of being, and I can also use this same “I Am” to give birth to my entire world, through awareness.
The Eastern Teachers claim that it is this Awareness of being is one of everything, and by tapping this awareness we are then interconnected to everything. There is a loose connection to using “I Am” to reflect the entire world that I can find.
Remember the other day in the postscript when I spoke about how we seek to know we exist, since we actually know we do, but sometimes don’t quite feel that way? The idea being that when we know something in our core, but don’t feel it in our mind, this dissonance forces a search. If I am correct, then what is the manifestation of the fact that we all know that we are the entire world, but don’t really know it? Of course, it must be wholeness. The fact that we don’t feel complete, and search for things that will make us feel whole or complete us.
One other thing that is important to note, is that when we look deep we see that we are everything (at least according to the Eastern Teachers, and perhaps my own experience as well), and when we look outwards, we can see that in many ways we are everything in our own world, but in between our mind sits upon it’s throne of separation, pushing us to approach the world as a distinct entity, and not really in line with how we intuitively understand the world and likely view the world. This is a very tricky dissonance and likely the source of much internal conflict.