I Am,
Therefore I Thinkfrom the book Breakthrough Consciousness
by Sharon Janis
"I am." What does it mean?
We use these two words constantly in our lives: How are you? I am fine. I am upset. I am going here or there. I am doing this or that. The "I am" is usually just used as an introduction to what is really important -- the emotion we are feeling, the thing we're doing, or the place we're going. We tend to skim over the I am and put our emphasis on the verb or adjective that follows. However, there is an experience that can be had; a space beyond our egocentric viewpoints and judgments -- a space of just I am. No adjective, no verb, simply I am, an awareness without form. There are levels leading up to this space that can be experienced as "I am getting more detached from my anger," "I am peaceful," "I am free," "I am That " . . . but then, just simply, "I am." It is this I am that Descartes concluded after his lifetime of brilliant study, research and search for the truth, when he wrote, "I think, therefore, I am." I think, I exist, I am awareness, and therefore, I am .
We sometimes find ourselves shying away from moving into this awareness of I am. Our limited ways of thinking may bind us, but they are a comfortable, familiar bondage that lets us always think we know who and what we are, simply by asserting a verb or adjective after the I am. Nevertheless, just because something is comfortable, doesn't mean it is true or even good for us. If it were, we could all lie around on the couch every day watching mindless sitcoms while eating potato chips and drinking milkshakes (ahem, well, maybe some do!).
Clearly, comfort does not always equal health--whether mental, physical or spiritual. Growth is painful, almost all the time. This is one of those truths that fluffy spirituality may neglect to mention when we join the club of spiritual growth. There is often a moment or time of pain and discomfort as our worldview stretches and our concepts are shattered. After this, come the fruits: the joy of expansion, the ability to be more than we thought we were, the loosening of the ropes of outdated rules and regulations that begin to fall away, leaving a higher understanding to guide our actions, instead of old patterns of guilt or fear.
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, one of the foremost scriptures of India, informs seekers of truth about two types of action -- with action being physical, mental, spiritual or emotional. These two types of action are called shreyas and preyas . Shreyas are actions or experiences that taste like poison initially but then turn into nectar, just as the loosening and removal of our incorrect concepts about life and reality can make us feel uncomfortable and upset at first, but then eventually guide us into new, higher levels of freedom and ecstasy. Preyas, on the other hand, prey on our instinctual desires for immediate comfort and pleasure. Preyas taste like nectar at first, by giving a sense of pleasure or false complacency to our minds. However, these preyas ultimately turn to poison, limitation, and lack of freedom and true joy.
Staying within the comfortable boundaries of our egocentric circle of thought is comfortable in an ignorance-is-bliss kind of way. But eventually, at one time or another, in one life or another, reality sets in we are able to see the many ways in which we were wrong, limited and close-minded about life. This shift can come through the shock of difficult situations, or after the attainment of a long wished for dream which, having been attained, is quickly revealed to be empty of the joy and fulfillment we expected. If nothing else, this shift often comes at the moment of death, when we realize that practically nothing we put our life energy and focus into throughout this time of life -- the worldly success we achieved, the reputation we built, and the material possessions we accumulated -- are not worth even a grain of salt, in the face of a larger reality that extends beyond the threshold of death. Talk about the bursting of a bubble. Just imagine how many millions of people throughout the centuries have gone through their lives putting all of their energy into attaining wealth, conquering lands, gaining power, and satisfying their petty desires, only to experience this same devastating shock at the moment of their death. If only we could get it now and live the rest of our lives from that awareness.
STOP for a moment.
Imagine the building you are sitting in has just collapsed on you. SMASH! If you are outside, pretend you're in a building. This is a contemplation exercise anyway.
You are suddenly trapped under many layers of debris. You don't know what happened. Was it a bomb? An earthquake? You lie pinned under the fallen building in a state of confusion. You smell fire. You are injured but in shock, so the pain has not yet reached your awareness.
Smoke fills the room.
Your precious oxygen is not there for you.
Your body begins to perform its preprogrammed maneuvers for life preservation. You begin to gasp--rather your body gasps for you as you observe, helplessly. Your lungs open further and further to try to take in any particles of oxygen that might be available, but mostly smoke fills the starved air sacs.
The blood tries to continue its work, but without oxygen from the lungs, everything in the body begins to break down.
But you . . .
You watch.
You become a witness to the event, perhaps even lifting in your subtle astral body above the physical body to view the scene. You realize that you have stepped out of the body as you might disrobe at the end of a long night of dancing. This body that you thought was you--lying there helpless on the ground without you. Reality hits.
Death is merely waking from a dream.
-- Yoga VasishtaThe most shocking part of the experience is not the realization that you are not the body, but that you were not aware of this fact throughout your life. You -- the you that you are right now -- know this as the most obvious truth. You have known this before. How did you forget again and again? You almost want to laugh at yourself for being so silly, so deluded. You find that you are able to understand this and so much more, so much more about life, knowledge you now realize you have always had.
You feel as though you've woken up from a dream filled with delusion and misunderstandings. "How could I have forgotten again?" you cry, not outloud, but with your entire being. You no longer have the use of the physical body's organs of expression or perception, yet you are still able to express yourself, you are still able to perceive the scene.
You don't know whether to laugh or cry. You look down at your body and see it lying there unconscious. You have a certain tenderness toward it--no longer an attachment of thinking it is you, but just a recognition of the heart that one might have upon seeing an old childhood house or a favorite toy of the past.
Now put yourself into this space and look back on your life. Look at all of the things that were bothering you this morning or this week, this month, this year. Look at your current list of priorities from the vantagepoint of your last moment of life. Your work. Your love life. Your money. Your dog. All of these things that have so much importance to you. Where do they fit in now?
You are dying, leaving this plane. All of the people, places and things you have known will disappear. It's like you've been on a weeklong vacation to another country. All the friends you made, the bellhop you fought with, the hotel room you called home -- all this will be gone in one week. They feel so real and important for that week, even though you know they are only temporary. Still you become so attached to these things, these people, and this place. Many of the writings of Sufism liken our stay in this world to a short stay in a guesthouse.
You are just a traveler here,
and this world is a mere guest house.
The story of your life lasts only for four days.
You came empty-handed into this world,
and you will leave it empty-handed.
~ A Sufi Qawwali
Back to you. . .
Floating above your dying body, you do not know where you are going, but in this heightened state of awareness, you experience a warm sense of faith and understanding that everything is as it should be.
Whether your destiny is to go on to a heaven or other astral world or plane, or to come back into another physical incarnation or lifetime on earth--or whether the energy that makes up your soul, your ideas, your knowledge and feelings, your love and memories -- whether all that energy is simply going to be re-assimilated incognito, without credits at the end, into the massive universal energy -- even this possibility is surprisingly comforting, as the ropes that previously bound you to your egocentric, protective state of being, your need for individuality and self-importance, loosen and free your soul to fly without need for individual assertion.
You lift up higher and higher, passing easily through the debris that covers your physical body, moving through floors and ceilings of so-called density, the atoms of which are filled with space through which your subtle body flows like airy liquid flowing through rocks in a babbling brook. You move higher and higher into the sky, through the atmosphere, into the black of space. You understand that this black of space is the same dark space of consciousness that has always existed within your being.
Because you are in your subtle body, you are able to see so much light, so much energy scintillating through the so-called blackness of space. As you move into this energy field, this mass of scintillating light amidst the darkness, you feel the particles of your being pull apart from one another, you expand, and you begin to fill the entire space. This happens so quickly and smoothly, that you would never have imagined how naturally you can fill the entire universe. For the first time, you understand the spiritual teachings that came to you during your time on earth:
Thou art that.
I and my Father are one.
Aham Brahmasmi: I am Brahman,
the Universal Force.The Kingdom of God lies within you.
Your knowledge expands to fit into the universal knowledge, just as a hand fits into the perfect glove. You are so far beyond your concept of any teacher or guide you respected, so far beyond even your concept of God or the inner Self. Your limited powers expand back into their universal powers. Your limited power of doership expands into omnipotence. Your limited knowledge becomes omniscient universal awareness. The time and space you had lived in is now revealed as a mere construct of the mind and human experiential system. You become all pervasive and eternal.
All of this orchestra of the play of life moves within you. Without ears, you hear divine music, the music of the spheres being played inside of you. Your will is merged, enfolded into the universal will, just as a drop of maple syrup stirred into a glass of water merges with the full glass of water, filling it completely while enfolded in the water -- one drop filling the entire glass.
I am free. . .
You fly unencumbered by space, moving through the space of universal consciousness without moving at all, for you already fill the entirety of creation, both manifest and unmanifest . . . all the infinite myriad of worlds. This is what the Indian scriptures refer to as Satchitananda . Perfect Existence, Consciousness and Bliss. Sat also means Truth, truth and existence. Both, you now see, are one and the same. You now know that Truth , ultimate Truth, flows and forever has and will flow through all existence. Existence itself is Truth.
"I think therefore I am" is the only assertion Descartes was able to make in truth after contemplating the unreality and undependability of the empirical world he experienced and created for himself. Another way to look at Descartes' statement, "I think therefore I am," is this:
If I stop thinking, if I can break free of all these limitations that come into existence with the process of thinking, then the limited I will cease to exist. The egocentric notion of I dissolves into the greater wholeness of Universal Consciousness.
And there is just,
I am . . .
From this space you could do anything, change anything; your powers are limitless. You could create any circumstance in your life on earth, grant yourself any boon. YOU are the God you have always prayed to. YOU are the fountain of all blessings.
But along with this power comes knowledge, and you find that the previous importance of worldly success and enjoyments -- even good health and spiritual attainment -- falls into the background. It's like the experience many people report when they come to a saint to discuss personal problems in their life. They bring the entire burden with them, but at the feet of the saint, they are suddenly unable to recreate and express the problems. These previously all-consuming difficulties dissolve in importance before the presence of one who has merged with the great power and truth of this universe. Instead of babbling on and on, describing each intricate detail of what has gone wrong for them, these people often find themselves sitting silently, tapping into the consciousness of the saint. The higher vibration of consciousness begins to resonate in their own being, allowing them to expand past the worldview within which their so-called problems were valid.
Now, one with all this, you yourself have become the saint. You have become the great power and truth of this universe. All is well. All is as it should be right now. There is nothing to ask for, nothing to do. There is just the awareness, I am .
Instead of the pulsing of blood running through your veins, there is a throb of awareness without form, pulsating through your entire universal being. This is the ananda of Satchidananda , the unobstructed, pure bliss. Each throb of awareness brings with it bliss beyond your highest expectations or concepts. You have to chuckle as you remember how you used to focus all your attention and intention on creating situations where you could feel the spasm of pleasure you thought of as bliss . . . those moments where things went your way and you felt the bliss of satisfaction, or you found the bliss of sexual satisfaction in a lover's arms. You just have to chuckle.
This . . . this is beyond exquisite, it is all encompassing bliss throbbing throughout every particle of this creation. Each particle rings out in joy, within your own being.
As you throb and flow within this space of incomprehensible peace, love, enthusiasm, bliss and knowledge, spreading your wings to fill the entire universe, you suddenly hear a noise.
BAM!
CRASH!
Then the sounds of men yelling as you are sucked oh so suddenly back down into that little room where your body lies. You see men running in, heavy equipment moving large pieces of the building from their path, as they run to your body and pick it up. You can't believe it. You had totally forgotten you had ever had a body. All you knew was that throb of life, the oneness of the spheres, you knew in that space that none of this insignificant, inaccurate physical plane dream you had been in was real.
Why??!!!???
You are shocked to have contracted back to this place so quickly, and there is a note of disappointment added to the symphony of bliss and fullness that still resonates through your being.
Look at your body lying there, breathing . . . recovering. Visualize yourself floating after this experience, looking at your body. Talk to yourself. Teach yourself what you have learned. Be your own best friend, your own teacher. Use this contemplation exercise to gain for yourself the benefits many have actually received from their near-death experiences. Become aware of the great knowledge and power that can move through you.
Use this life to start to focus on what is truly important -- the state of your being, the state of your soul, the energy of consciousness that stays with you after this movie ends -- without credits. Without blame or praise. Without right or wrong. No judgment day, no judgment at all. No fear, no guilt. Just the play moving into another, higher realm.
Talk to yourself. Use your own vast resources of knowledge and greatness to teach and guide yourself. Move into the awareness of being the greatest part of you. Identify with your wise being, as you continue to play all the roles that fall into the category of You-ness. Learn to tap into that space. It exists within and through every single one of us.
Thou Art That
Look at what you are going to have to face next in your life and infuse it with the freedom you just experienced. Know with all your certainty that this place of great wisdom and knowledge lives inside of you, as you. Know this with such certainty that even when you find yourself back in the more limited states of being worried, concerned, upset, filled with desire, greed, or limited forms of love, understanding and purpose, you will still be able to remember what really exists inside of you. You may not always be able to touch that space, but just the knowledge that it truly is always there, watching over you, manifesting as this entire play of creation, will bring a deep note of peace and comfort into even your most discordant times.
Remember the inevitability of your death--not with fear, but with an expanded point of view. Infuse it with the Existence, the knowledge, the Consciousness and the Bliss that you were -- just moments ago. Bring light into the situations you face. Bring detachment and reality back into the circumstances of your life. Bring your free spirit back with you. Know that you can soar through these high spaces even within your own body.
Maybe you can't experience your oneness with the universe as completely while you're sitting inside of the physical body with the sound of the blood pumping, with the circumstances of limitation all around us, with the words that create reality, the attachments to people and things around us, the senses that keep bringing new images, sounds and other sensations on silver platters to our minds, the instincts of the body which move us without explaining why. Even with all this, we can still have a simultaneous awareness of the higher realm.
You are back in the bondage of this physical realm, of the body. But something is different. You bring with you a breath of fresh air. Your wings can never be bound so tightly again
There is a lightness in your step. The thunderous explosive throb of "I am" still echoes in the pulse of your body, and resonates throughout the pulse of your life. You pray you never forget what you learned. But you know . . . you know that even if you do, it is okay. THAT is and will always be your truth, your consciousness, your bliss. That is you. Thou art That. No matter what. Even if you get in an argument with someone or make a mistake and feel guilty. Even if you have bad habits and bad manners, or good habits and good manners. Those are just images projected on the movie screen, flickers of life force on the screen of this world. A part of you now gets to sit back and watch, eating popcorn (with butter!!), drinking coke, and enjoying the show -- laughing with yourself, crying with yourself, but always knowing that when the show is over you will get to go HOME.
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