This week, I have been endeavoring to repeat the mantra, “I AM,” as a way of raising my consciousness. Each day, I have found myself doing well in some moments, and then “dropping down,” as I think of it, out of crown chakra awareness into the mental world of setting goals, feeling attached to those goals, and then experiencing feelings around the challenges of accomplishing those goals, especially when other people are involved with some of the challenges. These challenges can be simple events like another driver pulling in front of me with their car at a traffic circle when they did not have the right of way.

When one maintains the I AM, one realizes one’s oneness with others, but when one drops the I AM, one may be tempted to feel frustrated, or to feel fear, or even to judge. I have not yet managed to stay continually in the elevated consciousness of I AM, yet I have become extremely sensitized to being out of that consciousness.

So, practicing “I AM” as a mantra has helped me become so aware of having higher consciousness, that when I have “dropped out of it,” I have felt so very upset with myself. As the week progressed, I just felt more and more upset with myself, which is a form of dropping out of the I AM as well, because we are part of the I AM, and judging ourselves or failing to love ourselves or just feeling bad about ourselves lowers our vibration as well.

I even had a discussion with someone, thinking that maybe I needed another teacher – an earthly one, not just the lovely Ascended Masters who usually teach me. (The Ascended Masters who mainly teach me are Buddha and Paramahansa Yogananda, with occasional affirmations or lessons from Jesus, Mother Mary, or Mary Magdalene.) Well, I finally realized that the person with whom I was speaking could teach me about things (good things, like self-mastery techniques, but still – things), but not necessarily empower me to attain Self-Realization. Instead, I became more aware of the importance of cultivating love, peace, and bliss within myself.

And yet I was not feeling peaceful, nor as loving as I would like, because I felt unhappy with myself about not accomplishing some of my goals, and because my consciousness kept dropping down out of the I AM. I also had lingering self-doubts after the conversation with the teacher, thinking that maybe I was being delusional to think that I could achieve Self-Realization on my own (without an earthly teacher, complete with official, authenticated “lineage”), instead, in my case, just being taught by the Ascended Masters. I was pretty busy doubting myself.

Finally, this morning, as I meditated and prayed, it came to me that when one pursues the path of Self-Realization within the material world, without being able to withdraw and spend all of one’s time in meditation and spiritual disciplines , then one’s path is more indirect rather than a straight path, similar to the approach taken when sailing a boat.

When one sails, one holds the intention of going directly in a certain direction, but it is virtually impossible to sail directly straight in one direction and to get to that destination, unless the wind is perfect for going that particular direction at that particular time. Instead, one usually has to tack back-and-forth against the wind, setting what becomes essentially a zig-zag course.

Similarly, when one holds the clear intention of going directly to Self-Realization, but one lives in the world, one has to alternate focus between Self-Realization and worldly goals, so until one becomes established permanently in the Self-Realized, or God-Realized state, one just zig-zags in the right direction, often feeling a little off-course while still making progress. I was so grateful for receiving this intuition; it was a gift of divine grace inviting me to stop being so hard on myself.

I’m not sure I could have gotten there, to receiving this intuition, if a friend had not encouraged me with the words, “You’re such a beautiful soul.” No one has ever said that to me before; it felt like such a beautiful gift. I realized I needed to get busy affirming others as well, because words like that heal our souls on their journeys.

During my meditation time, I also sensed that Buddha wanted me to read something in his book that I keep next to me when I meditate (well, it’s a biography of Buddha). So, I picked up the book, praying that I would open it to the part that I needed, and sure enough, the story of Buddha’s life about which I read was that he rejected not one but two teachers, and then went off on his own to seek Enlightenment. I believe Buddha was telling me to pursue Self-Realization “on my own”, in the sense that I did not need an earthly teacher.

(If you read the post entitled “The Keys to Enlightenment,” you will see that Buddha led me to the helpful spot I needed in the same book at that time – different need, different message from the book!) I love it when I feel as though I have proof that this stuff is not all in my head! More proof coming…

I realized that what I experience as God in me, that elevated consciousness, the unconditional love for self and others, the peace, the joyfulness, all of this is part of realizing God within my Self. I had even, a few weeks ago, felt as though I had sensed “this Atman is Brahman” as the Hindu expression goes. That dissolution of all of the self that is not Self allows one to realize that one is Self – just pure Spirit.

And then, another gift today: my lovely friend who is a follower of Meher Baba sent me two quotes from Meher Baba, and while both were helpful to me, one fit perfectly my need at this time:

“Nothing is ever written on you — but on your mind. You, the soul, remain untarnished. Good and bad, everything is written on your mind. When the impressions go, then all is wiped out. Mind sees the soul — this is illumination. When good and bad are written off the mind, mind sees the soul. Mind then tries to become one with the soul — this is Realization.

Mind seeing the soul means you seeing God. But mind does not become you, you being God; mind must merge in the soul for you to become God. When mind merges in soul, then you are God-Realized.”

Meher Baba in Lord Meher, page 2252

I read that and realized that all of my struggles with every time I let my consciousness drop down to the level of mere mind did not matter – because it was only an experience that affected my mind – it had not damaged my soul in some way, the way I must have been subconsciously imagining. I felt forgiven and set free to pursue my path with more self-love and acceptance. Of course, self-love and self-acceptance are essentials for us in order to be able to love and accept others. Instead of beating myself up, I could just rejoice in the brief moments in which I felt closer to having my mind merge with soul. I AM going to rejoice in those moments.

I AM. This is true of all of us. The more we live the awareness of I AM, the closer we come to merging the mind with the soul. Now, that is something worth practicing!

To the I AM in all of us, http://self-realization-community.org/

Love and Light, http://lightworkertraining.com/

Nonnie