The Great I Am

"Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognized.  It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness, and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you.  All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as savior and as giver of release." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 163, 1:1-3

When I read this passage before my morning meditation it was like a cartoon light bulb lit up over my head!  When Jesus said the last thing we'll overcome is death, he wasn't talking about bodies!  He was talking about the wish to be something else... the desire for change.  How often have we heard that change is the only constant?  How often have we thought, "I just need a change."  Maybe it's a change of mates, a change of jobs, a change of scenery.  Maybe it's a diet or exercise plan, yoga, meditation, or a commitment to read the Course every day.  "But wait!" I can hear you all saying... "those are all good things!  It's good to focus on health, on awakening, on self-improvement!" But the one thing all of these good intentions have in common is the wish to be as you are not.

Think carefully about this... the only reason to improve something is if it is somehow lacking.  It is this that is impossible.  God created only God, everywhere and always.  There can be no other substance or existence.  What would it be made of?  Where would it be?  And the continual search for improvement is the same as saying, "I am not" instead of "I Am."

While we dream of a world that seems imperfect and in constant flux, we have great need of forgiving the desire to be as we are not.  As we let go of wanting things to be different, as we let go of wanting ourselves or them or it to change, we discover the unchanging I Am as the very Ground of Being. When Buddha said that desire is the source of all suffering, he was pointing out that it is the desire or wish for change that spins the wheel of samsara, the dream of life as change and suffering and death.  Awakening from the dream is simply recovering our Awareness of Self, of I Am without a fluctuating object.

Ironically, there can never be a change in Reality.  As Jesus pointed out, "Before Abraham was, I Am."  Before and after are dream-concepts, meaningless to the radiating Bliss that I Am.  What we call the Christ, the birth of the Awareness of Changeless Oneness we celebrate as Christmas, is "the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow."  We are perfect ideas, extensions in pure Spirit, forever in the Mind of God.  Emmanuel, God with Us, is the Great I Am. 

"God Wills you learn what always has been true: that He created you as part of Him, and this must still be true because ideas leave not their Source.  Such is Creation's Law; that each idea the mind conceives but adds to its abundance, never takes away." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section VII, 13:2-3