who i am (v3)

i'm probably more sure of "i am spirit" than anything else i've written on this forum. The rest is easily corrupted, in various degrees, by my ego.

The words serve as a a mantra for grounding and a reminder of what matters and the way i want to live. It's easy to be drawn into "the matrix." The hypnotic spell (i.e. bull💩) of our environmental programming. Like the character "Neo" we can probably do amazing things to if we stay connected to our true self/source, which, in turn, connects us to everything in the system.

how powerful we would be if you were connected to EVERYTHING, but how little we would have to apply that power, because we would all be in harmony!

consider how a fragile, simple minded ant can form a strong colony by connecting their shared objectives & intelligence!

"I AM that i am" is a Bible reference. I refute many things in that book. But i can't refute the power of those words.

Unlike myself, my older sister was religious. A week after she was diagnosed with brain cancer, she told me she heard the words "i am" in her head. She didn't know what it meant. Within days, she, coincidentally, found a pamphlet a neighbor had left. It referenced the "i am." Within days, as i was leaving my mother's house, i stopped and remembered i wanted to look the phrase up in her Bible. I opened the book and found it was bookmarked on the "i am" page. Like the neighbor, my mother was not told what my sister heard. The bookmark was just where she had stopped reading last.

Months later i took a look at a booklet a spiritual friend had left at my house. Yup. Entitled, The I AM Prophecy. Flipping the TV channels i stopped on a Dr Wayne Dyer lecture at the moment he was philosophizing about the "i am" philosophy. I researched and found there is evidence supporting the concept, relating to synapse science.

i am, that i am

i am that which i believe i am

what i program my brain to believe, is what i am. In my sister's case, she could find comfort in knowing she was not a human being having occasional spiritual experiences. She was a spirit having a temporary human experience.

i recall the Hindu saying Dr Dyer quoted as:
this real you
water cannot wet and fire cannot burn
we are eternal
unborn and undying

In a lecture on teachings from the Tao Te Ching, Dr. Wayne Dyer says that we come into this world with a round-trip ticket, destined to return to where we came from. But, before then, to be free from our earthly body and connect with our source, we must learn to "die while we're alive".

He shares this ancient parable from India:

A traveler goes on an African safari where he comes upon a community of beautiful talking parrots and he captures one. He brings it back to India and feeds his pet the best foods and treats him well. Before returning to Africa 2 years later, he asks the parrot if there is any message he could deliver to his friends in the jungle. The parrot tells his master to say that he is very happy in his cage and to convey his love. When the man delivered the message, one of the parrots, with tears welled up in his eyes, falls over dead. Upon his return to India, the man tells his parrot what happened, and, also, overcome with emotion, his parrot's eyes well up with tears and he drops dead. When the man dumps the parrot into the trash heap outside, he is shocked to see the parrot fly up into the tree. The man asks, "why did you trick me?" The parrot says, "my friend in the jungle sent me an important message. That if you want to escape from your cage, you must die while you're alive."

For me, the process includes stripping away the things that aren't real. I remember a joke from a little book of elephant jokes from when i was a kid, "How do you sculpt an elephant? Chisel away everything that doesn't look like an elephant". So, to understand what i am, it helps to know what i am not.

To paraphrase, Dr. Dyer says our ego tells us:

who we are is what we have and what we do and what people think of us

but remember,
if you grow up believing that you are what you do, then when you don't, you aren't.

and if you believe that you are what you have, when it's gone, you aren't

and if you believe you are what other people think of you,
then when other people think differently about you, you aren't

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth" - Henry David Thoreau

dying to know the truth?

• does a caterpillar die when it encases itself in its tomb?

• does a blossom die when the flower falls from the tree?

• is water destroyed when it evaporates in summer or freezes in winter?

or do they all just change form?

• the caterpillar into a butterfly

• the blossom into fruit

• the water into a cloud

• the cloud into rain

• the rain into a snowflake

• the snowflake into a puddle, lake, or river

to begin the cycle all over again

how foolish to believe we are different.

to believe our own cosmic cycle begins with seed and ends with rotted fruit
is like believing water is gone when it evaporates into the air

what is water?
is it soft or hard, still or flowing, hot or cold, dense or light as air?
the human body is mostly made of water.

what is a human being?
a solid physical body or a spirit as light as air?

we are the caterpillar
the blossom
like water
ever changing
eternally flowing

btw, i believe man created god in his image, not the opposite.
but how ironic for those who believe there is an almighty, judgemental God/Allah/etc..
to hear these inquiries on their judgement day:

Allah:
"you blew-up yourself and a hundred others because you thought i'd "hook you up with 13 virgins?""

God:
"you did WHAT for the collection and control of fossilized dinosaur bones (oil) and shiny rocks (gold, diamonds, etc.)?"

"you killed your brother over a piece of dirt in the Middle East, in my name?"

"you abused and exploited the creatures I created simply because you like the taste of their flesh -- and milk -- when you could've had a V8?"