By Steve Bancarz

http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/i-am-god-what-does-this-really-mean/

If there is one phrase I have seen more often than any other around the New Age community, “I am God” takes the cake for being the most used, as well as the most misused.  Often in discussions, someone will ask whether or not God exists, and multitudes of people start commenting with things like “Of course I exist.  How could I not exist?  I’m God.”

What in the world could this person mean? Jim is not the one who brought the universe into existence. Tony is not the prime mover and the first cause of creation.  Cindy was not  responsible for the fine tuning of the initial conditions present at the beginning of the universe.  Alex is not the paradigm of moral goodness.  Jeff does forgive wrongdoings of souls or weigh them on the scales of justice.  Angels and demons do not tremble at the sound of your name.  And people do not pray to me or feel my presence in their heart when they have mystical and spiritual experiences.  So what could anyone mean when proclaiming themselves creator of the universe, and how could one be the creator of all things if there was a time when the person claiming to be God did not exist?

It is first necessary to provide a foundation for why this idea circulates around the internet community in the first place.  The way I see it, God, as the creator of the universe and thus the dimensions of space and time, is necessarily eternal, spaceless, formless, beginning less, immaterial and infinite.  This means that God must be omnipresent, which means that He (with “He” just being a frame of reference. It could be She, or It, for gender is inadequate to describe such a Being) is at all places at all times at the same time.

The minute we claim that God is in one place but not in another is the minute we limit the infinitude of God and reduce His perfectly divine nature to something much less divine, for it is far more divine to be everywhere than just in one location.  Here’s something to think about.  If God was all that existed prior to the universe, of what did God make the universe out of?  What is the material God used to create the universe of there was nothing existing but Him?

We must therefore be made of God, for God would only have His own consciousness as the material to form the universe out of.  This is of course a very anthropomorphic description, but the main idea here is that the God’s Consciousness is the essential substance of all things.  God can therefore be thought of as the Self of all.  The “I Am” of all lifeforms and the life-force of all motion and sentience.  Where there is an “I Am”, where there is consciousness and awareness, and here lies the presence of God as the universal identity of all that is.  God is both within us in space and time, and outside of us beyond space and time.

When Moses was spoken to by the Divine and was told to tell the Pharaoh to free the slaves of Egypt in the Bible, Moses asked God “Who shall I say sent me?”. And the voice replied saying “I Am.  Say that I Am sent you”.  We are all apart of this I Am by virtue of the fact that we participate in Being, and if we silent ourselves and reach a state of inner stillness we can sense the presence of God dwelling within us and can see it reflected in each moment in all things.

We can use this understanding and experience of God to gain insight into what people such as Jesus meant when he said “I am the way, the truth, and the light.  No man may go unto the Father but by me”.  We must consider here, who was Jesus referring to when he said “I”?  Was he referring to his body?  His historical identity?  His psychological and egoic self?  Or was he referring to his most true and fundamental Self, an identity which is inseparable from the Most High?

The problem is, when we use the phrase “I am God”, our sense of self is grounded in our me-ness and our personhood.  Our thoughts, our emotions, our history, our name, our job, our social status, our capabilities, our nationality, our race, our beliefs, and our kinship all contribute to our personal sense of self, also known as the ego.  We identify with this personal ego, who then hijacks the meaning of the True Self for its own sense of pride, superiority, and self-worth.  If you feel pride or hubris from saying the words “I am God”, then you can be certain it is not a declaration of the universal Self, but of the individual person.  It is not the Being of God revealing itself through you, but rather is the mind-body ego taking pleasure in seeing itself as the Almighty.

As you watch from a distance to see what emotions arise in you from saying this phrase, ask yourself this.  Who is it that is watching?  Who is outside of my emotions and my thoughts to know that these thoughts and emotions are happening?  This space of awareness beyond thought and emotion, the part of you that is the silent witness of all activity is the space in which our connection with God is sensed within us in a realm beyond thought and word.

All that can be watched and seen within you is not you.  Go to the place of pure perception, to that which cannot be seen.  What remains when we discard, just for a moment, all that which we can observe within us?  The experience of the Self as God lies not in a subscription to a series of thoughts in the mind, or even on faith, but instead is what remains when the artificial personal self retreats into the silence of the present moment.

So yes, your identity is in essence inseparable from the Source of all things, but this does not mean we need to indulge our personal egos false sense of pleasure that comes from saying “I am God”. We must silent ourselves, go within, and sit with the question “Who is this ‘I’ that is speaking? Who is it that is claiming it is God, and who is outside seeing this take place?”

I personally never say “I am God” because I am not Jesus. I am not Buddha. I am not an enlightened master who has completely disidentified from his thinking mind to the point where his thoughts and words stream in from the river of life. Each day is an opportunity to walk more closely with the Divine within us, and experience God in the core of ours hearts.

We may have our own moments of transcendence where our connectivity with Source becomes tangible, but unless we are forever living in the space of God Consciousness, I think it is best we pursue personal experiences of the Divine and the disintegration of the false self before we allow our egos to parade themselves around proclaiming their own divinity.