The Power of I AM
I just found one of my older articles: mariaerving.com/back-to-ego-consciousness-spiritual-awakening and read it through briefly and it was interesting to see how much my life has changed since I wrote the article.
When we truly have realized the I AM as being God and that we are that, then our whole world opens up to all kinds of possibilities that was not apparent before and seemingly not available to us before.
It has been, and still is, an amazing journey this thing called Life, it never ceases to surprise me and it just gets better and better.
So after have gone through all the shedding of the ego-self we come to a place in consciousness of total awareness and nothing but that (literally naked awareness with nothing attached to it), and then some interesting things starts to unfold (that we could never had predicted) and we come to see that we have been given the world.
Here’s an article that you might like: mariaerving.com/stuck-advaita-non-duality
So how life changes is that the I AM comes alive (you are born again as pure consciousness and consciousness wants to grow and expand) so you start to create a vision for yourself, and you become it, you move and form consciousness with your beingness.
You may have a have a fixed plan or goal (vision for your life) but you let it unfold before you by following your flow (energy), so there’s no rigidness (attachment to outcomes) or struggle but an openness where you have an inner sense of great expectation of good to come, enjoy and share.
You know that ”the Father and I are one”, but that the Father is greater than I am.
And with the awareness and knowing that you are one there’s no worshiping going on, no tears or pleading, because duality is non-existent.
It’s when we think we are separated that there’s agony and emotional/mental suffering. That’s what hell is, and heaven is knowing our oneness with the God within.
Now we know, we’re not just having an opinion or belief. We know.
Our character or beingness does not come from our opinions of ourselves, and so it’s not possible to change our character by merely changing our opinions about ourselves with shallow affirmations.
When you affirm something you must know it’s the Truth of who you are (even if your surface self does not believe it, you know deep within who you are), you know you already are what you claim as yours.
There has to be a knowing, and that comes from a deeper looking within where the realization hits an inner agreement and you go “This is the Truth of my life! I can feel it my whole being. My whole being is congruent with this!”
The I AM already is everything you can conceive of, and more. It’s limitless.
All we humans do is that we move and have our being in different states of consciousness, boxes of understanding (or, most of the time ignorance/limited understanding) and acceptance, which comes from by never had questioned the status quo.
At any time we can choose another state of beingness and start being that and the world around us will mold itself accordingly to what we feel ourselves to be.
Of course, transformation and change can take time and some inner work is required but once we know that we have put (or accepted) restrictions on how life is going to flow from within and that we can change, then we become unstoppable and the whole process becomes empowering because we know there’s no opposing forces against us.
There’s only one power and that is the God within each and every on of us.
And it is for us. It wants fulfillment through us.
No need to trying to figure out how to change the surface self (to make it look/feel better) because attempting to do that will not transform the mind, but it will only continue to polish the ego instead of refining the true self which means chipping away all that you are not.
The I AM is complete. In its essence it’s naked awareness and in its activity it’s creative (or revealing itself more and more as we grow) and continuously moving and molding itself as our world from the words we utter both within and without, so never say what you’re not.
Only affirm Truth.
Everyone’s life could be a divine fulfillment if we let it. If we only knew who we were and how powerful the I AM is.
It’s God.
Here’s another one of my older articles that just came to mind: mariaerving.com/the-real-you-is-already-here
To realize the I AM as the point of power within us we must seek the greater, higher consciousness, or Truth, and not rearrange the surface self opinions about itself.
We must come to know that everything that God is, I AM. Everything that God has, I HAVE.
God is eternal goodness.
How do we do this?
Here’s three things you can do already now:
Today, dwell in the awareness of I AM. Chip away all labels of yourself and look with curiosity to the naked I AM and feel how it feels to not be anybody or anything.
Just for a moment, sense the difference and see if you can’t find a sense of peace and joy in that.
There’s something within you that wants to come forth through the I AM if you leave it alone for even a moment without attaching anything to it.
You might like this article: mariaerving.com/who-we-are-not
I remember something interesting that I used to do that gave me a lot of insights and that was that I could go for days and continuously ask ”How am I one with this?” (about everything I encountered).
I could look at a tree, a toaster, a car, the sun, or a rock on the ground (anything at all) and ask ”How am I one with that?”, and I could ask within myself when I spoke to someone ”How am I one with that person?” and so forth, and then the revelations started to come.
I can’t share with you what those were because they are not explainable, but as you begin to ask those things of yourself you will come to know by your own awareness how you are indeed one with life in all its expressions.
Third; Start receiving and allowing feedback from life. We all get signs and feedback all the time and it’s only when we don’t listen and act that we experience more of the same old same old.
To move beyond something we need to see clearly and do things differently.
Think ”This is for me” about everything and strive to see what is there for you to learn or discover.
Our individual path is the path of a hero (or heroin) and we are all hero’s in training, no matter how deep our awakening there’s always a new level of understanding to embark on and embody.
Life always moves upward and forward, transforming itself and knowing itself in deeper and deeper ways.
Receiving the feedback from life allows us to be corrected from our own ignorance so it’s a really good thing.
Our job is to be attentive to that, so whining and complaining has to be banned for good.
And every time we do something that we don’t feel proud of, or that doesn’t feel right, we go against our own true nature, and we have to become attentive to that.
That’s when we need to stop and think where we are restricting ourselves if we think we have to do something that goes against our values or what we know God to be.
Ask yourself questions like: Is God afraid? Does God have to steal? Does God lie? Is God poor? Does God hold grudges? and so on.
These are processes we all have to go through in our own individual ways but only by self-awareness and correction of ignorance can we come to know our true nature so we have to be willing to stretch ourselves a lot sometimes (be willing to change) until we embody the Truth of who we know ourselves to be and who God is.
The great God within wants us to have a life of fulfillment because that’s how we are designed to live and the only thing between us and our true life is our beliefs (opinions) about ourselves and life.
Question every negative thing you say about yourself (”I AM ____”) and know that you are speaking God’s name in vain every time you speak negatively about yourself, or every time you limit yourself by saying you can’t or that you’re too this or too that.
You are restricting and limiting the God-force within you from being able to express itself fully when you do that.
I AM is eternal goodness. There is no ego in this.
That’s what spiritual awakening is, it removes the ego-self’s hold on you and leaves you with the awareness of pure being, and then when you’re there without wanting or desiring anything, then your real life is given to you (and then some!).
Then you will know that all your dreams and aspirations are what God wants through you, so they are bound to be fulfilled.
Everything is for our growth and realization towards the fulfillment of our desires.
So to recap:
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Dwell in the I AM. Meditate on it. Feel it.
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Continuously and curiously ask ”How am I one with this/that”?
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Be open and receptive to feedback from life in order to correct ignorance into knowing the Truth.
This picture is from a wonderful hiking trail here in Nerja called Rio Chillar.
I love walking there – there’s nothing like connecting with nature!
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A more recent article about the Power of I AM can be found here:
The Power of I AM
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Maria, great article.
Is it a common misconception of the smaller Self that one will naturally progress towards a spiritual teacher role similar to your path?
Or does what one ends up doing have absolutely nothing to do with ones state of being?
Many thanks,
Tom.
Hi Tom, thank you, glad to hear you liked it. 😊 It’s a very old article, from 2014, so I haven’t read it in a while.
Whatever you are meant to do and be in your life has everything to do with your individuality, so if you’re meant to become a teacher for others then you will, but if you’re meant to do something else, then that’s what you’re going to do, and it will be just as ‘important’ as anything else as what we all end up doing is to be of service to others/the world in some way or form.
You passions, interests, natural inclinations etc will ‘take you’ there, you will be (and are right now too) guided towards it by your intuition and by being aware of all the synchronicities and signs that are constantly showing you the way.
Sometimes the small self can get excited about all the (spiritual) discoveries it makes so it can become excited about sharing them too early too, so in that way there can be misconceptions about ones role in life.
Then it becomes the (spiritualized) ego that is being the driving force in their life and ‘purpose’, and not the partnership with the universe, or your own higher self, which is God, that we are meant to have and live in alignment with.
Hope this was helpful to you? 😊
Very, thank you Maria…
Tom.
You’re so very welcome Tom! Glad I could help. 😊
Hi Maria, do you agree that all action should arise from the river of truth within (I am)?
Any other action seems to shift thought back upwards towards mind and eventually usually ends in re-indentification.
Taking back the wheel is so bloody enjoyable, it gives us a sense of (false) independence and (false) power but it all seems fall apart fairly quickly when we jump back in the driving seat again.
Does this resonate with your experience? I believe there is some uniqueness to each river of I Am (truth) within and this is where we should all be operating from.
Love to hear your thoughts, I have very recently thrown a tantrum whilst waiting for action to arise haha!
Learning patience.
Tom.
Haha, I hear you Tom – been there, done that, so many times! 😊
It’s a dance you do, or the ego does, over and over again until the actions naturally start to arise more and more from Truth.
So before you come into wholeness and full partnership with your higher self (where you let It lead and guide your actions), this dance back and forth is normal.
Temper tantrums etc, it’s all part of the process.
It’s great that you can laugh at yourself, that’s always a good and positive sign that you’re moving in the right direction, and that you have a higher level of self-awareness! 😊
The actions that comes from the ego self will diminish more and more the more you surrender and let go of control, which becomes easier and easier the more you do it.
And you do that naturally when you see how futile the ego’s attempts are, it just becomes obvious after a while where to operate from. 😊
That’s when things start to shift and everything becomes more and more effortless and easy, and life begins to flow like it’s meant to flow.
It’s like a shedding process;
Every time one layer of the ego falls away, the Truth within you takes a firmer hold of your consciousness, and then ultimately, you ‘become’ it.
Or you were always That, but now something else is driving your life forward.
I have written a lot of articles about surrender and letting go, so if you haven’t seen them yet, have a look here:
https://mariaerving.com/?s=surrender
I think you will find them helpful. 😊
haha, it’s really beneficial to hear you experienced the same…
Your articles are immensely helpful, as if they have been written by me, for me…and from a higher perspective they have of course.
The similarity in our experiences is fascinating.
It is paradoxical to take action from a surrendered state and yet we feel so empowered when aligned with truth.
From here when I’m aligned with truth and take action from there the outer experience can suddenly becomes immeasurably painful, leading me to believe I have done something wrong…
I’m answering my own question here as truth arises but did you discover that is a case of ‘if you’re going through hell, keep going?’
Intuitively one sees this as a bridge that needs to be crossed.
Look forward to hearing your thoughts…
Tom.
Glad to hear you find them helpful Tom! 😊
About your question; I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
Could you please elaborate and maybe share an example or two of how you’ve experienced that taking action from a place of truth is painful?
Hi Maria,
Taking action from truth isn’t painful…as I become more rooted in truth and make ‘progress’ the outer experience and mind seem to kick back and hit me right where it hurts haha!
This has lead to the belief that I am doing something wrong and has knocked me off my feet so to speak…
Is that clearer? Did you experience anything similar?
Many thanks,
Tom.
Ah, I see, yes, I thought it was an odd thing to say! 😊
What you have experienced is very common, it happens when you’re moving outside of your comfort zone, or outside of the boundaries of the ego, or the ‘old’ version of yourself.
It’s just the old level of consciousness resisting change and sometimes even kicking and screaming because it wants to stay as your identity, while ‘you’ are moving (or growing) away from it.
And the feeling of doubt and thinking you’re doing something wrong is also just the old self (or the limited/conditioned self) throwing those things at you in an attempt to stay established as ‘you’.
Also, the more Light you’re exposed to, or you expose yourself to and let shine through you, the more the ego resists, so that’s what creates the friction, or inner turmoil.
Until you see through it, that is; then it has no power over you anymore.
It’s like a fear-barrier that you just have to grow through and not let it discourage or intimidate you.
I’ve written about these things too here on my website.
See it as a good thing though, that when it happens, it’s actually an indication that you’re on to something good, otherwise the ego self wouldn’t be so resistant.
See it as an interesting thing that happens and realize that no, you’re not doing anything wrong – you’re actually growing and evolving, it’s just not very welcomed by your ego/small self that you do that, that’s all.
As long as you stay the same, the ego is good and comfy, but as soon as you beging to change, it will not like it and will start creating havoc for you that makes you doubt your path, actions, and so on.
It knows exactly where to hit you so to speak, it knows your fears and things like that and goes after you that way.
So when it happens again, you can see it as a good thing and instead be excited about it because it means that you’re on to something good, that you’re growing beyond the you that you were before.
Then it has nothing on you anymore, and you’re able to move through the process much quicker and on to the next level of your growth and evolution.
Was this helpful to you?
Excellent, thanks Maria…
Very helpful as always, keep up the great work!
Tom.
Glad to hear that Tom, and thank you.
Here’s another article that I think you might like:
https://mariaerving.com/spiritual-temper-tantrum
Maybe it resonates with you. 😊
Absolutely!
I recall punching my car roof whilst driving once shouting GIVE ME SOMETHING TO F*&@#?G DO! hahaha…