I Am

Most people usually call me and ask me how to alleviate their problems. "How do I get rid of a bad marriage? How
do I find another job? How do I remove illness from my life? How do I become a millionaire?" And so forth and so
on. What I usually say is “Do not think of your problems, but think of God."

Now I'm not speaking of the God up in the sky. I'm not speaking of an anthropomorphic deity. I'm speaking of pure reality, of consciousness. When I mention God I mean absolute intelligence. Think of God whenever your problem
comes along, whenever you feel despondent, whenever you feel out of sorts, whenever you feel something is wrong, think of God.

"How do I do this?" they ask. "How can I think of God? What we call God is invisible. Absolute reality has no form and no shape. How can I think of God."
I've gone over this once before. Who can tell me? How does one think of God? How does one meditate on God? I'll
give you a hint. What is the first name of God?

Student: I am

Robert: Exactly. I am is the first name of God. When you want to think of God, you think of I am, with your respiration. I am is the first name of God. Close your eyes and try it. Inhale and say I, exhale and say “am." Inhale, say I, exhale, say “am."

Doesn't that make you feel good? Just by saying I am to yourself it lifts you up.
So the thing to do is this. Whenever you have a problem, I don't care what it is, I don't care how serious you think it
is, whether it's personal or worldly, wherever it came from, the secret is to forget yourself. For the moment forget
about the problem, for as long as you can, and do the I am meditation. Every time the problem comes back to you, do the I am meditation. If your mind wanders, bring it back again and do the I am meditation.

When I explain this to some people they say “Robert, but you tell us we have to get rid of our minds. We have to annihilate the mind, not think with it." This is true. This is the highest truth. But yet most people cannot do this.
Remember, Advaita Vedanta is really for mature souls, people who have practiced sadhana in previous lives. It's like
going to school. Self-inquiry, Advaita Vedanta is like the university of spiritual life. You cannot fool yourself. There
are so many people who try to practice self-inquiry and they give it up.

Then I tell them to surrender, surrender completely. That's the other way. Again this becomes difficult. They try it for awhile and they always revert back to themselves, their personal self. So I give them the I am meditation.

Everybody can do that. When nothing seems to work, go back to I am. It's really very powerful. Do not take it simply.
I can guarantee you this. If you can practice I am for one day, just one day, all of your troubles will be transcended.
You will feel happiness you've never felt before. You will feel a peace that you never even knew existed. As you keep practicing I am, your thoughts will become less and less. Your personal self will go into the background and you will begin to feel an inner joy, an inner bliss. You will begin to feel that it no longer matters what I am going through. It makes no difference, because it is God who is going through this, not me. And God has no problems.

You automatically become happy, just by using the I am meditation.
In the Bhagavad Gita it says “Out of a million people, one searches for God. And out of a million people that search,
one finds him." It's sort of difficult. That's how it appears. But if you begin to use I am as a meditation, and you allow the I am to go deeper and deeper, your bodily consciousness will disappear, and I am will take over.

If you want to mix self-inquiry, atma-vichara, with I am, that's permissible. You can use them both together. I'll explain how. Say you're using the I am meditation. In between, thoughts keep popping up. Whether they're good thoughts or bad thoughts, makes no difference, but thoughts keep interfering. You can now inquire “To whom comes these thoughts?" and you don't have to go any further. Just observe and watch. When your mind becomes silent again, you go back to the I am meditation, with your respiration. When thoughts come again you inquire “To
whom do they come?"
As you progress in this method you complete the question. "The thoughts come to me. What is the source of me?
Who am I? What is the source of I?" You begin to feel and see that the I that seems to have problems is not you.
You begin to feel, I have a problem, I am sick, I am angry, I have no peace of mind, and you begin to laugh, for the
realization tells you I has all these things, I don't. I is the culprit.
I appears to want this and need that, filled with desires, wants, self-aggrandizement. All this belongs to the I. "Who
is this I? Where does it come from? If the I isn't really me, then who am I?" And you keep still.

Now you may go back to I am again, with the respiration. You inhale and you say I, you exhale and you say “am.” As you progress this way you're going to find something very interesting happening to your life. You're going to find there's more and more space between I am. It’ll happen by itself. You will inhale and you will say I, and all of a sudden nothing will come out of that. Then you will exhale with “am." You will inhale again and say I.

Remember, you're not putting this on. You're not making it happen. It's happening all by itself. And the space
between I am is the fourth dimension of consciousness, after waking, sleeping, dreaming. It is the state of the jnani.
It is your freedom. It is pure awareness. Pure awareness is not the I am. The I am leads you to pure awareness. And
when you keep practicing who am I, alternating with both of them, there will be a greater space before you say
“Who am I?" again. That space is bliss. You will feel something you've never felt before, an inner joy, an inner
delight. You will just know that the whole universe is the self, and I am that.

As the months progress, the words will come less and less. You may start off with I am, and then you will be in the
silence. You will not say another word. You will just experience the silence. That silence is nirvana, emptiness. It is
no thing. It is the nothing I was talking about. You will just sit in the silence.

~ The Collected Works of Robert Adams