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The "Who am I?" Exercise
First, before proceeding to do the following exercise, be aware this can be a powerful opening. It is simple but can be powerful. I recommend you do not do this, if you have concerns about your preparedness in any way for it. This is for someone who has a felt-readiness to meet who she or he is, a person prepared already by divine Grace to explore with full devotion the life of Spirit.
Second, when I speak of saying anything, I do not mean audibly. This work is done in silence.
Third, I recommend for you to get in a comfortable position. Close the eyes. Concentrate for a time on the in-breath and out-breath. Quiet the body-mind. You may have a means already that you use to center. If so, feel free to use that means. The key is to be centered and calm, receptive, and alert.
Last, read through the entire exercise, before proceeding to center and engage it.
We think of the identities in the story of who we see ourselves to be ~ man, mother, gay, straight, Buddhist, Christian, doctor, carpenter, lawyer, single, married, rich, poor, smart, white, black, ... ~ and drop each, saying, "No, I am not ..., I am" or, more simply, "No, I am." One returns to rest in the thought-feeling I am before proceeding to the next identity. We can feel these identities vanish. We feel we are not a this or a that. We can feel energy shift bodily. This is not something we just think, this is a whole-being experience. Yet, we do not end here.
I am dissolves like the identities that collected around it, such as, I am good, I am kind, ... I am is an identity, too, for a thought ~ all identities are thoughts. I am is a more primal identity than the prior ones, so closer to the Source. I am is the gate that opens to I.
With I am in mind, one can shift mentally to I, dropping am. I am is the gate to I, I the gate to Pure Spirit. The energy of this I is felt. One is not to conceptualize about I, only sense how it feels. Relaxed awareness on I is the way. Notice it disappear. If it does not drop on its own, you may wish to ask a question, like one of the following: "What is I?" or "What is before I?" or "What is left?" In my experience, I dissolves without inquiry. And I can feel so powerful and pure that one may wish to cling to I. I is like this for being so close to the Source. I carries a strong scent of Pure Grace. Letting go of I, one discovers that there is no one there, no one ~ in the sense of an identity ~ left to come forth and say, so to speak, "This is I" or "I am I." Presence is not present to answer, Presence is the answer. One feels the nakedness, like the relief of undressing from the clothing worn a long, long time.
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