I Am

I found this really helpful ...


What is the first name of God?

I Am.

Exactly. I Am is the first name of God. When you want to think of God, you think of I Am with your respiration. I Am is the first name of God. Close your eyes and try. Inhale and say, "I." Exhale and say, "am." Inhale say, "I," exhale say, "am." Doesn't that make you feel good? Just by saying I Am to yourself, it lifts you up. So the thing to do is this: Whenever you have a problem, I don't care what it is, I don't care how serious you think it is, whether it's personal or worldly, wherever it came from, the secret is to forget yourself. For the moment, forget about the problem for as long as you can, and do the I Am meditation. Every time the problem comes back to you, do the I Am meditation. If your mind wanders, bring it back again and do the I Am meditation.

When I explain this to some people they say, "Robert, but you tell us we have to get rid of our minds. We have to annihilate the mind, not think with it." This is true. This is the highest truth. But yet most people cannot do this. Remember Advaita Vedanta is really for mature souls. People who have practiced sadhana in previous lives. It's like going to school. Self- inquiry, Advaita Vedanta, is like the university of spiritual life. You cannot fool yourself.

There are so many people who try to practice Self- inquiry and they give it up. Then I tell them to surrender, surrender completely. That's the other way. Again this becomes difficult. They try it for awhile and they always revert back to themselves, your personal self. So I give them the I Am meditation. Everybody can do that. When nothing seems to work, go back to the I Am. It's really very powerful. Do not take it simple. I can guarantee you this. If you can practice I Am for one day, just one day, all of your troubles will be transcended. You will feel happiness you've never felt before. You will feel a peace that you never even knew existed. As you keep practicing I Am, your thoughts will become less and less. Your personal self will go into the background and you will begin to feel an inner Bliss. You will begin to feel that it no longer matters what I'm going through. It makes no difference, because it is God who is going through this, not me. And God has no problems. You automatically become happy, just by using the I Am meditation.

In the Bhagavad Gita it says, "Out of a million people, one searches for God. And out of a million people who search, one finds Him." It's sort of difficult. That's how it appears. But if you begin to use I Am as a meditation and you allow the I Am to go deeper and deeper, your bodily consciousness will disappear, and I Am will take over.

If you want to mix Self-inquiry, Atma Vichara, with I Am, that's permissible. You can use them both together. I'll explain how. Say you're using the I Am meditation. In between, thoughts keep popping up. Whether they're good thoughts or bad thoughts makes no difference, but thoughts keep interfering. You can now inquire, "To whom come these thoughts?" and you don't have to go any further. Just observe and watch. When your mind becomes silent again, you go back to the I Am meditation with your respiration. When thoughts come again you inquire, "To whom do they come?" As you progress in this method, you complete the question. "The thoughts come to me. What is the Source of me? Who am I? What is the Source of I?" You begin to feel and see that the I that seems to have the problem is not you. You begin to feel, "I" have a problem. "I" am sick. "I" am angry. "I" have no peace of mind. And you begin to laugh. For the realization tells you, "I" has all these things, I don't. "I" is the culprit. "I" appears to want this and need that. So it is with desires, wants, self-aggrandizement. All of this belongs to the "I." Who is this I? Where does it come from? If the "I" isn't really me, then who am I? And you keep still.

Now you may go back to I Am with the respiration. You inhale and you say I. You exhale and you say Am. As you progress this way, you're going to find something interesting happening to your life. You're going to find there's more and more space between I Am. It will happen by itself. You will inhale and you will say I, and all of a sudden nothing will come out of that. Then you will exhale with Am. You will inhale again and say I. Remember you're not putting this on, you're not making it happen. It's happening all by itself. And the space between I Am is the fourth dimension of Consciousness. After waking, sleeping, dreaming. It is the state of the Jnani. It is your freedom. It is Pure Awareness. Pure Awareness is not the I Am. The I Am leads to Pure Awareness. And when you keep practicing, "Who am I?" alternating with both of them, there will be a greater space before you say, "Who am I?" again. That space is Bliss. You'll feel something you've never felt before. An inner joy, an inner delight. You will just know that the whole universe is the Self, and I Am That. As the months progress, the words will become less and less. You may start off with I Am, and then you will be in the Silence. You will not say another word. You will just experience the Silence. That Silence is Nirvana, Emptiness. It is no thing. It is the nothing I was talking about. You will just sit in the Silence.

~ Robert Adams, Silence of the Heart