Who am I?
I, who speak with so much assurance and authority?
Be Still and Know.
I Am You, Your True Self;
That higher, purer, supernal part of you that arouses itself as you read, which sits back and listens and judges, and points out the truth of these words to your consciousness, and which from the beginning has guided and taught you all the truth you know today.
Not that personality you show to the world and which you think is yourself; not that proud, selfish mask of a self that has been feeding you on error all these years.
For I AM your Real Self, that something in you which you know has made you all you really are, that has inspired, and cautioned, and chided, and urged, and led you on and on, despite hardships, obstacles, suffering, failure, until you have, in a dim, half-conscious way grown to rely upon it, without knowing definitely why.
Yes, I AM that something. I AM that Divine Self of you, abiding deep within your human personality, almost stifled by its worldly ideas, its selfish desires, its foolish pride and ambitions, yet ever seeking, longing, yearning to make you conscious of my existence, of my real identity.
Yes, my child, that something AM I. I, who from the beginning have been sitting here within, quietly waiting for this moment. Yet while waiting it was really I who was guiding you all the time, who put each thought into your mind, made you do everything you did, and who utilized the foreknown result of each thought and act so as eventually to bring you and others to a final conscious recognition of me.
And if I have permitted you to feed on these worldly ideas, to follow these selfish desires, to grow fat with pride, and even to gain the summit of all your ambitions, it was only that you might learn the hollowness of it all, and that you could awaken to the realization that there is something else, something which the soul of you yearns to bring forth.
Yes, I have “blessed” you by giving you all these things you sometime in the past desired, desired so strongly that you forced me to give them to you. For desire is the agent of my will, and supplies you with everything you want, if you want it with sufficient power to compel It to serve you.
But have these things proved the blessings you thought and expected? Have you gotten out of them real enjoyment, and is your heart now at peace?
If not, why?
It is only because you have failed to recognize me, your True Self, as the giver, and have used them not at all in my service, but only to satisfy your own selfish pleasure.
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