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I AM: The Foundation of Everything Neville Taught · Neville Goddard Mindset

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The two words you use most casually, I AM, are the name of
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God. Not a God above you, not a deity
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you must approach through ritual or prayer or the intercession of
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others, the name of the creative power that underlies all of
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reality, and it is the name you use every time you say anything
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about yourself at all. I am tired, I am not enough, I
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am unlucky, I am stuck, or I am healthy.
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I am loved. I am the person for whom doors
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open every time you complete the statement.
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I am with anything at all. You are putting on a garment.
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You are stepping into a state. You are setting the creative
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power of consciousness, the only creative power there is into
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motion. Most people spend their entire
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lives clothing. I am in the observations of the
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current moment. They look at what is around them
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and say I am what my circumstances suggest I am.
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I am what my history has made me.
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I am what other people have decided I am.
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And so they crystallize those very things again.
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And, and again with the most powerful creative force in
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existence. What I am going to teach you in
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this next hour is the foundation of everything I ever taught.
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Not a technique, not a tool. The foundation, the
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understanding that once it takes root in you, changes the way you
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use the two most powerful words in any language.
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What you will discover is not merely a teaching, it is a
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revelation about who you actually are.
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Let me tell you briefly who I am and why I stand before you on
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this matter with the confidence I have.
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My name is Neville Goddard. I was born in Barbados in 19
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five, the 4th of nine children. I came to New York as a young
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man to study theater. I had no interest in
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metaphysics, no background in Scripture, no preparation for
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the path that would consume the rest of my life.
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But in 1933, I met a teacher, an Ethiopian rabbi named Abdullah,
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who showed me that the Bible was not a history of an ancient
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people, but a psychological drama, a map of the inner man.
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And at the center of that map, he told me, was the name of God.
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I spent the next 4 decades examining this teaching, testing
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it, using it, watching it work in my own life and in the lives
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of thousands of people who came to my lectures.
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The details of those results, the crystallizations of
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assumption. I could tell you stories all
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day, but I am not going to do that today.
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Today I am going to give you the thing beneath all of those
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stories, the root, the foundational principle, without
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which all technique is a shell, all practice is emotion without
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substance. I am.
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In this hour, we are going to follow this thread all the way
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down. We are going to see where it
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leads in scripture, inexperience, and in the
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practical art of becoming someone who's outer world
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reflects their deepest intention.
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By the end of this hour, you will understand in a way you
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have not before, why you are precisely where you are and how
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to be somewhere different. Not by effort, not by
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manipulation of the outer world, by changing what follows the
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words. I am in the deepest Chamber of
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your consciousness. This is the hour that changes
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everything, if you let it. Let us begin with the Scripture,
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because Scripture is where I always begin, and I do not mean
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the surface story, but the psychological depth beneath it.
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When Moses asked God for a name, ask the presence speaking to him
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from the burning Bush for an identity by which it could be
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known. The answer that came back was
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this I am that I am. Tell them I am has sent you.
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This has been interpreted for centuries as a theological
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declaration, a statement of divine self-sufficiency, and in
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the conventional reading it is exactly that God says I simply
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am. My existence requires no
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explanation, no derivation, no prior cause.
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But I want you to hear something in this passage that the
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conventional reading misses entirely.
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God does not say my My name is Yahweh or El or any of the other
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names by which I am known in your tradition.
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God says my name is IAM and then sends Moses back to the people
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with that name I AM. I sent you as though the people
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will know exactly what this means.
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Now what is the one thing every human being, regardless of
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culture, language, era, or understanding says constantly in
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every possible context? I am.
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Every statement of being, every self declaration, every feeling
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you you inhabit with the words I AM.
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Every one of these is a use of the divine name.
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Every one of these is a creative act performed by the only
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creative power there is. This is not a metaphor.
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This is the literal teaching. The I in I AM is not your
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personality, it is not your history, it is not what others
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think of you or what circumstances have made you.
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The I in I AM is the pure awareness you inhabit before any
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label is attached. The simple fact of your being,
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that's simple fact of being. That pure awareness is God, not
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like God, not a piece of God. It is the I am of the burning
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Bush, wearing the costume of a particular human life in a
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particular time and place. You are imagination, and
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imagination creates reality. And the tool of that creative
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imagination is the I am. The state you inhabit when you
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complete the sentence with any quality, any feeling, any
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assumption. Now let me show you why this
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matters practically. When you say I am broke, you are
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not describing a condition. You are clothing the creative
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power of consciousness in the state of being broke, and that
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state inhabited with feeling, crystallizes the world around
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you to reflect it. Not because the universe is
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punishing you for your negative thinking, because this is the
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law of consciousness operating without sentiment or exception.
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The same is true when you say I am unloved, or I am stuck, or I
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am not the kind of person who succeeds.
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These are not observations. These are creative declarations
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made with the most powerful creative force in existence.
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And they work. That is the disturbing truth.
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They work perfectly. They crystallize exactly the
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reality they declare. But notice this means the law
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itself is not against you. The law is impersonal.
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It responds to whatever you clothe the I am in.
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It has been faithfully crystallizing your current
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reality from your current assumptions.
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Which means, and this is the liberating truth at the heart of
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everything I teach you can change what you clothe the I AM
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in, and the law will crystallize that instead.
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This is not positive thinking. Positive thinking asks you to
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repeat positive statements while your deep subconscious remains
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clothed in the old assumption. What I am talking about is
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something altogether different. I'm talking about the genuine,
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felt inhabited state, the deep assumption beneath the surface
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that gives the I am its actual content.
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The surface statement you make consciously is not the one that
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carries the most creative weight.
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The statement your whole being makes.
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The assumption so deep it feels like fact, so habitual it feels
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like truth, so automatic you barely notice it anymore.
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That is the I am that the law responds to, and that assumption
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can change. That is the entire teaching.
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That is the good news beneath every technique I ever offered.
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The assumption can change. And when it does, the world it
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has been crystallizing must change with it.
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I want to spend this hour taking you all the way into this
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because most people understand it as a concept and still wonder
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why their life has not changed. The gap between understanding
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and inhabiting is where the real work lives.
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And by the time we are done today, I want that gap to be
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narrow for you. Very narrow.
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We have established the foundation.
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I AM is not a phrase. It is the name of the creative
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power that underlies all of real reality.
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Every time you complete that name with any quality or state,
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you are clothing the creative power of consciousness in that
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state, and the law, which is perfect and impersonal,
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crystallizes that state in the world around you.
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The question is not whether this is true.
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The question is what is your I am currently clothed in and what
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would you have it clothed in instead?
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We are about to go deeper into both questions.
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What I am going to show you next will change the way you hear
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your own thoughts permanently. There are two levels of the IAM,
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and most people live almost entirely at the first without
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knowing the second exists. The first level is the conscious
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I am, the statements you make deliberately with your conscious
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attention. These are the affirmations, the
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intentions, the goals, the things you say you are or want
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to be. They have a role, but alone they
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are insufficient because they operate at the surface while the
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second level operates below. The second level is the habitual
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I am, the deep, automatic felt assumption about who you are
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that runs beneath your conscious thoughts like a current beneath
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the surface of a river. This is the assumption you
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formed in childhood informative experiences, in moments of
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intensity when the world taught you something about yourself and
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your place in it. It does not announce itself.
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It does not form itself into words.
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Most of the time it is simply the quality of what it feels
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like to be you. And this habitual I am is what
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the law responds to most powerfully.
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This is why affirmations alone often fail.
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You say I am wealthy with your conscious mind while your
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habitual I am, the deep felt assumption says quietly and
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without drama. No, you are not.
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You have never been, you will not be.
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The law hears both. But the habitual assumption,
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with its accumulated years of feeling behind it, carries far
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more creative weight than the conscious statement.
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So the work, the real work, is not to memory a new set of
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affirmations. The work is to change the
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habitual IAM, to genuinely shift at the felt level what it seems
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like to be you. This is not a small thing.
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I will not pretend it is a small thing.
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Habitual assumptions have roots. They were formed over years,
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sometimes decades. They are reinforced each day by
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the world. They have crystallized because
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the world reflects the assumption, and the reflected
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world then seems to confirm the assumption, and the confirmation
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deepens the assumption further. It is a self reinforcing loop.
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But, and this is the critical point, the loop can be
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interrupted, and it can be interrupted deliberately from
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the inside, with nothing but the imaginative faculty you already
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possess. Here is how the interruption
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happens. You begin with the felt sense of
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the desired IAM, not the statement of it, the felt sense
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of it. What does it actually feel like
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in your body, in your quality of being, in the way you look out
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at the world? To be the person who is already
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what you desire to be. This requires imagination, not
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pretense. You are not telling yourself you
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already have something you do not have.
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You are genuinely reaching into the felt quality of what it
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would be like if you were already the person you desire to
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become. The physical sensation, the
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quality of the eyes when they look out from a place of
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sufficiency rather than lack. The way the body holds itself
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when the assumption underneath it is abundance rather than
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scarce, love rather than isolation, capacity rather than
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limitation. Find that felt quality, not the
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words for it, not the concept of it, the actual felt quality, and
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then inhabit it as deliberately and completely as you inhabit a
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room when you walk through the door.
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This is what I mean when I say the state you occupy determines
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the world you see. The state is the felt I am, and
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the world, the outer world that appears solid and independent,
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is the mirror of of that state. I want to tell you something
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from my own experience that I have witnessed many times in
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many people. When someone genuinely shifts
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their habitual I am, when the deep assumption changes, the
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world around them does not change slowly through gradual
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accumulation. It reorganizes often quickly,
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often in ways that defy ordinary probability.
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The person who has been looking for work for months and
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genuinely inhabits the I AM of someone whose gifts are valued
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and sought fine within days. Sometimes that something shifts.
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An opportunity appears from a direction they were not looking.
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A connection is made that should not have been made.
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A door opens that was not there before.
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This is not luck. This is the law of consciousness
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responding to the change in the habitual I am with the same
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faithfulness it has always shown, the same faithfulness by
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which it maintained the previous condition while the previous
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assumption held. The law does not change.
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What changes is what you are asking it to do.
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I want now to address something that always comes up at this
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point in the teaching because I have taught this for 30 years
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and the question is always the same.
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The question is if I am is God, if I am the creative power of
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consciousness wearing a human costume, then why have I created
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such difficulty for myself? Why would God create poverty,
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illness, isolation? This is a profound question and
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it deserves a direct answer. You did not create these things
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with malicious intention or as punishment.
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You created them with unconscious assumption.
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The habitual I am you formed without knowledge of the law.
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You are doing what every human being does before they encounter
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this teaching. Assuming that the outer world is
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cause and consciousness is effect.
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Assuming that you must deal with reality as it is, that reality
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operates independently of what you hold in consciousness, and
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from that assumption you crystallized a world that
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confirmed it, a world in which circumstances appeared primary
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and you appeared small within them.
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This is not God punishing you. It is God which is you
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faithfully doing what I am always does, creating what it
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inhabits. The teaching does not change
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your nature. You have always been the
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creative power. You have always been doing this.
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The teaching simply wakes you up to what you have been doing, so
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you can do it deliberately. What you desire.
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You already are. In eternity.
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The desired state exists. The question is only whether you
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will inhabit it. We have gone into the 2 levels
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of the IAM, the conscious level, which is where affirmations
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live, and the habitual level, the deep felt assumption, which
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is where the law actually operates.
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We have seen that the work is not to change the surface
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statement, but to genuinely shift the felt quality of being.
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Now, in Part 2 of the core teaching, I'm going to take you
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into the specific mechanics of how that shift happens.
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How do you actually change the habitual IAM?
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What is the inner process and what obstacles will you
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encounter and how do you meet them This is the deepest part of
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today's teaching. Stay present.
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The habitual I am changes through what I will call the
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practice of identification. Identification is different from
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affirmation affirmation says I am wealthy.
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Identification is the inner act of actually becoming in felt
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imagination the person who is wealthy of so thoroughly
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stepping into the felt quality of that state that but for the
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duration of the imaginal act, there is no longer a you who is
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wanting wealth, there is only the you who already is.
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This is a more demanding act than affirmation.
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It requires that you leave your current state behind for the
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duration that you actually release the felt sense of the
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current condition, the tension of lack, the weight of what is
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not yet here, and genuinely enter the felt sense of the wish
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already fulfilled. Most people, when they attempt
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this, discover an immediate obstacle.
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The obstacle is not the difficulty of imagining.
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The obstacle is the attachment to the current state.
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This sounds paradoxical. Why would you be attached to a
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state you are trying to leave? But consider carefully the
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habitual I am. The deep assumption of your
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current condition is familiar. It is known.
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It is safe in the way that the familiar is always safe.
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Even when the familiar is painful, the mind knows how to
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navigate it. The strategies for dealing with
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it are well worn. The explanation for why it
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persists are fully developed. The new state, the desired I am,
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is unknown. The mind does not yet know how
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to navigate it. There are no established habits
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of thought and response within it.
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It has no history in your experience of this life.
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And so the attempt to step into the new state is met very often
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by a subtle but powerful pulling back toward the old one.
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Not a dramatic resistance, simply a quiet return to
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familiar ground. This is the primary obstacle in
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changing the habitual IAM and the primary practice in
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addressing it is what I have always called persistence.
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Not the persistence of effort, trying harder each time you
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fail, but the persistence of return, coming back again and
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again to the felt quality of the desired state until the new
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state becomes as familiar as the old one was.
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Think of it this way. You are not demolishing the old
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state. You are building a new one
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beside it, and inhabiting the new one so consistently, so
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feelingly, that it gradually becomes the habitual one.
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And the old one, no longer inhabited, no longer fed by your
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attention and feeling, gradually loses the charge that made it
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seem like the only truth. This is not quick for most
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people. I will not tell you it is quick,
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but it is possible, and the rate at which it happens is
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determined almost entirely by the depth of feeling you bring
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to the new state when you inhabit it.
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Feeling is the secret. I have said this many, many
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times, and I want to be very specific about what I mean by
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feeling in this context. I do not mean emotion in the
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ordinary sense. I do not mean excitement,
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happiness, or euphoria. These emotions are responses to
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things happening in the outer world, and they do not by
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themselves carry the creative weight I am describing.
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The feeling I mean, is what I would call the feeling of being,
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the quality of what it is to inhabit a particular state, the
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way the world appears when you look out from it, the texture of
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the assumption, the quality of certainty that belongs to
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something you know rather than something you hope for.
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When you know something, not believe it, know it, there is a
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specific feeling that accompanies that knowing.
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A settled quality, a doneness. The matter is not in question,
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the outcome is not uncertain. It simply is that quality of
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knowing that settled certain quality is the feeling I am
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asking you to cultivate when you identify with the desired I AM
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not the excitement of someone who hopes they will receive the
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settled certainty of someone who already has.
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And here is where I want to go into something that most people
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do not understand about the I am and the question of self
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concept. Your habitual I am is not just a
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collection of specific beliefs about specific things.
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I am not wealthy, I am not loved, I am not capable.
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It is more unified than that. It has a quality, a tone that
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suffuses all of those specific beliefs, a general sense of who
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you are in the world, a baseline assumption about your place in
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the order of things. When you change specific beliefs
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without changing this general tone, the change is often
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temporary. The new specific belief sits in
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the old soil and eventually reverts to conform to the
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overall quality of the field. This is why I have always taught
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that the foundation must be addressed, not the symptoms.
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And the foundation is this. What do you deeply, genuinely.
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Below the surface of all your conscious efforts, assume
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yourself to be Do you assume yourself to be someone who
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deserves what they desire, who is capable of having it, who is
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the kind of person around whom good things naturally occur?
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Or do you, below the surface of your affirmations and techniques
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and sincere efforts, assume that somehow for you the law does not
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quite fully apply, that you are adjacent to the teaching but not
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quite at the center of it? I tell you from my own
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experience, the law applies fully to everyone without
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exception. The one who believes they are at
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the centre of it and the one who believes they are adjacent to it
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will both crystallize their assumption and both will
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interpret the result as confirmation.
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So the deepest work of the I AM is not specific, it is general.
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It is the cultivation of the basic assumption.
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I'm the kind of being around whom the law works fully and
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faithfully. I am not the exception.
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I am not the special case for whom certain things are simply
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not available. I am without condition, without
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limitation, without exception. This is the burning Bush.
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This is the voice that speaks from it, not the God of a
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particular tribe or tradition. The God that is the awareness
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within you before any label is applied.
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And that awareness, your I AM is the foundation of all creation.
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The specific desires, the money, the love, the health, the these
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are the contents. The I AM is the container, and
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the container must be large enough to hold what you desire.
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Most people work on the contents.
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They imagine specific outcomes, specific scenes, specific
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results, and they wonder why the outer world does not change as
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quickly as they feel it should. The reason very often is that
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the container has not changed, the general assumption of who
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they are. The baseline I am is still the
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old one, and the new specific original acts are being
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performed by someone who, at the deepest level, still assumes
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themselves to be the old self. The practice, then, is twofold.
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Continue your specific imaginal acts, your state akin to sleep,
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your scenes of the wish fulfilled.
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They are essential, but alongside them address the
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general tone, the baseline assumption, the felt sense of
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who you are in the world. Spend time daily, consistently
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in the felt quality of being someone for whom the law is
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fully operative. Someone who is deeply aligned
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with the creative power of the IAM.
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Not arrogantly, not as performance, simply as a felt
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recognition of the truth of your own nature.
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You are imagination, and imagination creates reality.
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This is not an aspiration, it is a description of what you
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already are. The practice is simply to feel
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it as true, until feeling it as true is as natural and
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effortless as breathing. We have covered the 2 levels of
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IAM. We have covered the practice of
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identification, genuinely inhabiting the felt quality of
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the desired state rather than merely affirming it.
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We have covered the obstacle of attachment to the familiar and
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the practice of persistence in return.
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And we have gone into the deepest teaching, the general
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tone, the basic assumption about who you are that either enables
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or undermines all specific imaginal work.
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Now I'm going to take you into the practical application and
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then the guided visualization, and then at the end, a teaching
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that I rarely gave in my lectures, something that belongs
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only to those who are ready. Stay with me.
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The practical application of the I am teaching begins with an
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honest inventory. I want you to sit quietly after
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this, not now, but after, and ask yourself with complete
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honesty, what do I actually believe about myself below the
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surface? What is the quality of my
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habitual? I am not what you want it to be,
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not what you know it should be. After everything you have
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studied, what does it actually feel like to be you in the
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quiet, in the moments when you are not performing positivity
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for yourself or others? This inquiry requires honesty
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that most people find uncomfortable, because the gap
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between what we know we should believe and what we actually
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believe at the habitual level is often significant, and
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acknowledging that gap, seeing it clearly, is the necessary
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beginning of changing it. If you notice that your habitual
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I am carries the tone of I am someone things don't quite work
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out for, acknowledge it if it carries.
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I am someone who keeps trying but keeps falling short.
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Acknowledge it if it carries I am someone who is close to the
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good things but never quite receives them.
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Acknowledge it. The acknowledgement is not
24:42
defeat, it is diagnosis. You cannot change what you do
24:46
not see once you see the habitual I am clearly.
24:49
The practice has two components that work together.
24:52
The first component is the IAM session once each day, ideally
24:57
in the morning, before the world's events have colored your
25:00
consciousness. Take 10 minutes to sit quietly
25:03
and inhabit the felt quality of the desired IAM.
25:07
Not a specific outcome, not a scene of a wish fulfilled.
25:11
Simply the quality of being the person around whom the law works
25:15
fully, the felt sense of being someone who is deeply,
25:18
genuinely, naturally in alignment with the creative
25:21
power of consciousness. Sit in that quality.
25:25
Let it permeate. Let it be the tone from which
25:27
you begin the day. You may have to build this
25:30
slowly. The first few attempts may feel
25:32
flat, forced, unconvincing. That is natural.
25:36
You are trying to inhabit a state that is not yet habitual.
25:39
It will feel like a new room, feels unfamiliar, slightly
25:43
uncomfortable. Stay with it, not with with
25:45
force, with patient, faithful return.
25:48
Over days and weeks you will notice the quality becoming more
25:52
accessible, the felt sense of it arriving more quickly, the tone
25:56
beginning to carry through into your daily activities, coloring
26:00
the way you move through the world, the way you encounter
26:03
other people, the way you hold yourself in moments of decision.
26:07
This is the habitual. I am beginning to change.
26:10
This is the most important change that can happen in a
26:13
human life. The second component is the
26:15
daily ordered. At the end of each day, spend 5
26:19
minutes reviewing the I am statements you made that day,
26:22
not the explicit ones. You rarely say I am deliberately
26:26
the implicit ones, the felt assumptions you inhabited in
26:30
various situations. When you encountered difficulty,
26:33
what did your habitual I am say? When the relationship showed a
26:37
moment of strain, what assumption did you instantly
26:40
fall into? When something was tighter than
26:42
you wanted it to be, what did you feel yourself to be in that
26:45
at that moment? This audit is not about guilt,
26:48
it is about noticing. The habitual I am is automatic.
26:52
The first step to changing it is simply to see it operating, to
26:57
catch it in the act the way you would catch a habitual physical
27:00
posture you did not know you held.
27:03
Once you see it operating, you can practice the substitute in
27:06
the same way that you would catch yourself hunching and
27:09
consciously straighten your spine.
27:11
Catch the limiting I am and consciously step into the
27:14
desired 1, even briefly, even for 60 seconds.
27:19
Feel the quality of the better assumption.
27:21
Then return to your day. This substitution practice
27:24
consistently accumulates. Each brief inhabiting of the
27:28
desired I am adds to the new groove you are carving in the
27:32
deep subconscious. The groove deepens over time.
27:35
The old one becomes less automatic.
27:38
And one day, often suddenly, in a way that takes you by
27:41
surprise, you realize that the old I am no longer seems like
27:45
the truth. The new one does.
27:47
That is the day everything changes.
27:49
Not in a dramatic outer event, though.
27:52
Outer events will follow in the inner recognition that you are
27:55
no longer the person you were. The assumption has genuinely
27:59
shifted. The habitual I am is the new one
28:02
now. And from that point forward, the
28:04
crystallization of assumption proceeds from a different
28:07
center. Everything begins to build from
28:10
the new foundation. I want to say something about
28:12
patients here because I know the question in your mind, How long
28:16
does this take? I will not give you a number
28:19
because the time varies for every person and every desire.
28:23
What I will tell you is this. The time it takes is exactly the
28:27
time required for the habitual assumption to genuinely change,
28:31
not the time required to say the new thing convincingly, the time
28:35
required to feel it as true. Some people, people who are
28:38
ready, people in whom the resistance is already loose,
28:42
change rapidly. Within days or weeks.
28:45
There will the world begins to reorganize.
28:47
Others require months of consistent practice, and a few
28:50
require longer because the habitual I am, they are working
28:54
to change was formed in conditions of great difficulty
28:58
and has decades of feeling behind it.
29:00
All of this is workable. All of it is within the scope of
29:03
the law. The law does not discriminate by
29:06
the depth of the wound or the age of the assumption.
29:09
It responds to the new I am the moment.
29:12
The new I am is genuinely inhabited.
29:15
Your job is simply to inhabit it genuinely, not perfectly, not
29:19
constantly genuinely with real feeling, as often as you can, as
29:23
consistently as you can, until it is no longer an act, but a
29:27
fact. Consciousness is the only
29:29
reality, and you are consciousness with the full
29:32
creative power of I am at your disposal.
29:35
What you deeply assume yourself to be, you will become, not
29:38
because of effort, because of law.
29:41
Close your eyes, Let the body settle, let the weight of it
29:44
find the ground beneath you. Shoulders drop, jaw unclenches,
29:49
hands open. Take one slow breath, let it go
29:52
completely. Now I want you to do something
29:54
simple. Simply become aware of your own
29:57
awareness, the fact that you are here, present, conscious.
30:00
The simple I am before any description is added.
30:04
Just the awareness, just the being, just the I Stay with that
30:08
for a moment. The pure fact of your own
30:10
existence. Now let the quality of the
30:12
desired I am begin to arise. Not a statement, not words,
30:17
simply a quality, a tone, a felt sense.
30:20
What does it feel like to be someone who is fully in
30:23
alignment with the creative power of consciousness?
30:26
What does it feel like to be someone around on whom the law
30:28
works completely? Let the feeling come slowly,
30:32
gently. Perhaps it feels like
30:34
spaciousness, room ease. Perhaps it feels like solidity,
30:38
foundation, something firm beneath the feet.
30:41
Perhaps it feels like warmth in the chest, an opening, a sense
30:45
of things being possible. Whatever quality arises, let it
30:49
be. Let it fill the space now.
30:51
Let the words I am arise within that quality.
30:54
Not as a declaration, as a recognition.
30:57
I am not followed by any descriptor yet simply the best
31:01
statement of being clothed in this quality of fullness.
31:04
Let it settle. I am and the creative power of
31:07
consciousness moves with me. I am and what I inhabit.
31:11
I create. I am and what I assume I
31:14
crystallize in the world around me.
31:16
Let these not be words you speak, Let them be facts you
31:19
recognize, truths you feel in the body, not just the mind.
31:23
Now let one thing you desire arise within this quality of
31:26
IAM, not A as something you are hoping for, as something you
31:30
are, as something already inhabited within this state.
31:34
Let it be quiet, ordinary already.
31:36
So stay here. Let the quality of the desired I
31:39
am be simply what it feels like to be you right now, in this
31:43
moment. Breathe slowly.
31:45
You do not need to rush back. Stay as long as this feels real.
31:49
When your mind wanders, return gently not to the words, but to
31:53
the felt quality. The creative power of
31:55
consciousness moves through what you inhabit.
31:58
Stay in this quality. This is the work.
32:00
This is the I am at work. Breathe.
32:03
When you are ready, open your eyes, but try to carry this
32:06
quality with you into the rest of your day.
32:09
Let it be the tone, let it be the foundation.
32:12
I promised at the outset that I would take you somewhere today
32:15
that the average treatment of this teaching would not take
32:19
you, and I am going to keep that promise.
32:21
Now. What I am about to share is
32:23
something I spoke of rarely, Not because I withheld it from
32:26
anyone, but because most people who came to my lectures were not
32:30
yet asking the question to which this is the answer.
32:34
The question is what is the relationship between the
32:36
personal I am, your IAM, the creative power of your
32:40
individual consciousness, and the universal IAM, the one
32:45
consciousness that underlies all of reality.
32:48
Here is the teaching that I believe is the most liberating
32:51
thing I ever offered. They are the same, not similar,
32:54
not related, the same. The I am that you experience as
32:58
the center of your individual consciousness.
33:01
The simple fact of your being before any description is added,
33:05
is identical to the consciousness that underlies all
33:08
of creation. There is not a universal I am
33:11
out there somewhere and a personal I am in here.
33:14
There is only IAM and it is what you are.
33:17
This is what was meant in my understanding of Scripture by
33:20
the teaching that Christ and the Father are one.
33:23
Not the Christ of conventional theology, a singular historical
33:27
figure, but the Christ of the deeper teaching, the
33:30
imagination, the creative power, the I am in human form.
33:35
You are not separate from the source of all creation.
33:38
You are the source of all creation individuated in this
33:41
particular human experience. Now I want you to feel what this
33:45
actually means for your relationship to your desires.
33:48
You are not a small being making requests of a large power and
33:52
hoping to be heard. You are the power itself in
33:55
human form, temporally clothed in the beliefs and assumptions
33:59
of this particular life. When you desire something, the
34:02
creative power is desiring it. When you imagine something
34:06
fulfilled, the creative power is acting.
34:09
When you inhabit the feeling of the wish already granted, the
34:12
creative power of all creation is inhabiting that state.
34:16
This is not arrogance, it is the deep structure of the teaching,
34:20
and it changes the quality of the imaginal act from the
34:23
inside. When you enter the state akin to
34:26
sleep and begin your scene, you are not a small person hoping to
34:29
attract a large result. You are the creative power
34:33
itself, setting in tension with the authority of IAM.
34:37
When you perform revision, when you go back to a past event and
34:40
construct the better version, you are not pretending.
34:44
You are the consciousness that underlies reality, exercising
34:48
its rightful authority over what crystallizes in the world.
34:52
When you inhabit the desired I am the felt quality of the
34:55
person you intend to become, you are not pretending to be
34:59
something you are not. You are allowing what you always
35:02
were to express through the particular costume of this life.
35:05
The most important conversation you will ever have is the one
35:09
you hold with yourself. And the deepest layer of that
35:12
conversation is not the specific desires or the specific fears.
35:17
It is the question of identity. Who do you take yourself to be?
35:21
If the answer is a small person in a large world hoping things
35:25
will prove, the law will crystallize that.
35:28
If the answer is I AM, the consciousness that underlies all
35:32
of reality, temporarily and beautifully clothed in this
35:35
human life, the law will crystallize that.
35:38
The choice is always yours. The I AM is always available.
35:42
The law is always operative. What changes is what you present
35:46
to it. I began today by telling you
35:48
something that runs counter to everything.
35:50
The ordinary world assumes that the 2 words you use most
35:54
casually are the names of God, that every time you complete the
35:58
statement I Am with any quality at all, you are wielding the
36:02
most powerful creative force in existence.
36:05
I have taken you through the 2 levels of the I AM, the
36:08
conscious and the habitual, and shown you that the law responds
36:11
most powerfully to the habitual one, the deep felt assumption,
36:16
the general tone of your selfhood.
36:18
I have given you the practice of identification, genuinely
36:21
inhabiting the felt quality of the desired state, not as
36:25
affirmation, but as the actual creative act and the daily
36:29
audit, seeing the habitual I am in operation so you can begin to
36:33
change it. And I have taken you finally
36:36
into the deepest teaching that your personal I am and the
36:39
universal I am are not two things.
36:42
That you are not a small being petitioning a large power, That
36:46
you are the power itself, clothed in a human life with the
36:49
full authority of I Am behind every imaginal act you perform.
36:54
What I want you to carry from this power is not a technique,
36:57
not a practice, even a recognition.
37:00
You are imagination. Imagination creates reality, and
37:04
the engine of that creation is the I AM.
37:06
You inhabit consciously, habitually, in the quiet of your
37:10
own inner life. Change what follows the IAM.
37:14
Change it at the level of genuine feeling, genuine
37:17
inhabiting, genuine identification.
37:20
And the world, your world, the only world that concerns you,
37:23
will change to reflect it. This is not a promise, this is
37:27
the law. It has always been the law.
37:30
It was the law before I taught it, and it will be the law long
37:33
after these words are forgotten. The truth of the I AM does not
37:37
require your belief to operate. It requires only your conscious
37:41
participation. We have covered a great deal
37:43
together today. The name of God, the 2 levels of
37:47
IAM, the practice of genuine identification.
37:51
The daily audit. The deepest teaching about what
37:53
you actually are. I want to leave you with one
37:56
instruction, just one. Tonight before you sleep and in
38:00
the morning before the world begins, spend 5 minutes
38:03
inhabiting the felt quality of the desired IAM.
38:07
Not specific outcomes, not scenes of wishes fulfilled,
38:11
simply the felt quality of being the person for whom the law is
38:14
fully operative. The person who is at the deepest
38:18
level, aligned with the creative power of consciousness.
38:22
Do this for 30 days. I do not need to promise you
38:25
anything about those 30 days. I will simply say the law is the
38:29
law. What you inhabit, you create,
38:31
what you assume you crystallize. The I am.
38:34
You consistently clothed with genuine feeling is the I am.
38:38
The world will reflect back to you.
38:40
Begin tonight. Dare to assume the feeling of
38:42
the wish fulfilled, not just the specific wish, the general state
38:47
of being someone whose wishes fulfill themselves naturally as
38:50
a matter of course. By the law of consciousness,
38:53
that is your birthright. If these teachings speak to
38:56
something you have been reaching for, return here.
38:59
There is always more. Come back when you are ready to
39:02
go deeper.