I Am-ness in Meditation: Awareness Beyond Thoughts and Objects

One of the things that's a little bit hard to understand is how this fundamental I am-ness, your fundamental authentic transpersonal self, is not dependent upon objects.

Any object you can see is an object. It's not the subject.

It's not the pure self. So you wanna try to get a sense of I am-ness stripped of objects and realize that if all objects are gone, there is still I am-ness.

Now, usually the way this happens is a difficult process of training where you actually for two or three years have to learn to get into meditative states where you suspend all objects either by concentrative modes or modes of insight awareness that go actually into the unmanifest.

So you are in an unmanifest state of vast consciousness with no objects arising, and there's still I am-ness, radiant, open, empty I am-ness.

So the-- what we're gonna do and walk through a little bit on Thursday is, is this kind of exercise, and I'll show you just a little bit of how it works.

So you have a sense of I am-ness right now, and if you think about five minutes ago, what was actually present in your experience five minutes ago that's present now?

I am-ness. There's I am-ness, wasn't there, five minutes ago.

So how about five hours ago? I am-ness. I am-ness, yeah.

But where were the objects five hours ago?

Not, not here. None of this. But there was I am-ness.

So what was present five years ago? I am-ness. I am-ness. It's ever present.

No objects at all. If you actually feel that I am-ness, it's present now.

It was present a minute ago. I am-ness was present a minute ago.

Five minutes ago, I am-ness. And the objects are all changed.

And that's what's so important. What you are is not an object, and that means any thoughts that you have, that's not what you are.

Those are objects, and those change. The thoughts you have now, the same thoughts you had five minutes ago?

No. Do you have I am-ness? Yes. Yeah. So interiorly, your body's an object.

Your feelings are objects. Your thoughts are objects.

You can feel the self-contraction. That's an object.

What's aware of that? I am-ness, the pure self.

So what was present five years ago? I am-ness.

What was present fifty years ago? Yeah. I am-ness.

What was present five centuries ago? Show me your original face, the face you had before your parents were born.

I am-ness. No objects at all. That fundamental ongoing I am-ness.

What was present five millennia ago? Yeah. Before Abraham was, I am.

The I am-ness is the only thing that exists.

Everything else is a modification, a ripple, an arising.

And suffering and bondage is the misidentification of I am-ness with an object.

You identify with yourself, your ego, your body, and that just is the world of objects.

They come, they stay a bit, they torture you, and they leave.

That's the path of objects. I am-ness is ongoing, unchanging, ever present.

Five millennia ago, there is only I am-ness.

Before the Big Bang, there is only I am-ness.

It's the great unborn treasure. There's your fundamental self and condition.

And so as you get that sense of ongoing I am-ness, it's no objects whatsoever.

And the perfect practice, the fundamental practice, is simply recognizing this I am-ness, which is the name of God.

And as long as you're simply-- you recognize it right now.

You aware of I am? Of course you are. And it is absolutely infallible.

You don't-- don't complicate it. Don't-- If you're aware of I am, that's it.

So the practice is you rest in big mind, you rest in I am, and go on about your... I'm-- you're perfectly aware of that.

You can do this and you can do that, and then all of...

At some point you'll be distracted. You'll forget I am-ness.

You'll forget big mind. The moment that you are-- recognize you're distracted and you recognize who is distracted, I am distracted.

The moment you recognize distraction, you are instantly and automatically returned to view.

You are instantly and automatically reinstalled in I am-ness.

With no... It's absolutely infallible. It's that simple.

So moment to moment, all you have to do is recognize this ongoing, ever-present knowingness called I am-ness.

It's-- and it existed now, five minutes ago, five years ago, five decades ago, five centuries ago, five millennia ago, and before the Big Bang.

And fundamentally, I am-ness doesn't enter the stream of time and objects.

That's why it's the unborn, and therefore it never dies.

Doesn't mean it goes on forever. It means it doesn't go on at all in the stream of time.

It's just ever-present, pure I am-ness. So we wanna come back and anchor that because that's another very simple way that whenever you are concerned that I can't do the practice or I don't understand it, simply recognize who it is that says,

"I don't understand it." That is I am-ness, and that is infallible.

So this is something that you can never, ever get wrong.

If you don't understand it, just recognize who doesn't understand it.

I don't understand it. I am. So that's, that's a, a, a barometer that you can use to anchor that in addition to the work you do on big mind.

So you can sort of use that maybe in, in, in the coming days, uh, as a way that you can fundamentally always be sure of who and what you are, and it's absolutely infallible.

And before the universe was, I am. And that is the fundamental absolute secret of the great traditions.

And it's a secret all calls to realize and then to manifest in an integral way.