When I was 8 years old a peculiar, yet fascinating awareness opened up inside of me. I can only describe it as an acute awareness of my own beingness, and it was stunning! It felt like wonder and awe fused together and multiplied by a million. Needing to express the marvel that I was feeling, I just kept repeating, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.” There was no other way to articulate what I was experiencing. Little did I know at the time that I was expressing one of LIFE’S greatest and most awesome mysteries!

The mystery of which I speak is Source, Consciousness, God, the great I AM, or whatever label one would prefer to give this life energy, is here, within me and within you. Throughout my life I’d always read and heard references to god within, but I always wondered, where exactly is within? Is it in the neurones and synapses of my brain? Or is it even enclosed within the spatial boundary of my physical body at all, for where within my body would it be? Would it reside in the organs or the blood, or in the cells of which these are comprised? Or would it be within the atoms that are the root matter of my cells? Is it within the subatomic particles that make up those atoms, or is it in the 99.9999999% empty space of those atoms? Our physical bodies are not what we once believed them to be, being made up of mostly empty space and, therefore, more subtle and abstract than we know, is there even such a place as within? Maybe, all of that empty space is pure unbounded Awareness. If that be the case, then rather than being here within me, I AM me! I am, you are, everything is the great I AM, baring forth into an idea of form, experiencing a limitless array of perspectives through which to express, expand, create, and celebrate!

No matter what name we now assign to it, to think of ourselves as that which has been traditionally labelled and thought of as god is rejected by most. It is so far out of the framework of how and what we imagine god to be, that rather than identifying with it, we, instead, view god as something beyond ourselves. We live in a world where no matter the religion, or lack there of, the cultural perceptions have been so influenced by the conditioning of thousands of years of religious literalism, that most people are unable to detach their idea of god from a being or power external to themselves. Absorbed in tradition, orthodoxy, and archaic and worldly interpretations, the version of god that has been passed down has become an idol and, therefore, a stumbling block, and, so all of the power that we have accredited to it is lost to us.

All the books, parables, and symbolisms of the great teachings and teachers, both ancient and modern, point to the truth of our identity. They have pronounced in a multitude of ways that we and god are one! This idea of profound Oneness certainly challenges our comfort zones, and reaching beyond the accepted paradigms of what we believe god to be, it reimagines reality. Most dare not own this truth for themselves and although some may acknowledge it on a superficial level, it is all too incredible to know god as their own Being! This mystery of mysteries then is left to be unravelled by only the few.

It was the yet to be influenced perspective of the heart and mind of my child self that allowed me to experience the awareness that I once did. As I grew older, I could conjure it up at will and every time I did, it was just as marvellous. Eventually, these experiences lost their sheen and the marvel faded, yet looking back I can see that this, too, was part of an evolution, for their diminishment created within me a hunger that would prime me for an even grander awareness of which to capture my awe and amazement, a new awareness that could transpose me back to a state unencumbered by the teachings, paradigms, and beliefs that had taken their stranglehold on me. My awareness of the miraculousness of “I’m here,” was expanding to include the marvel, the mystery, and the magnificence of Who I Am that is here!

One limitless and inclusive, ever-expanding Consciousness, perpetually forming into new expressions, new ideas, new worlds, and new life, boundless possibility generating unceasing expansion and growing to Infinity; each one of us a unique and individualized perspective of this Unbounded Awareness; this is who We Are! Let us adventure into our true identities, for the magnificence of that which we are is the dynamic through which we, as individuals, can empower ourselves and consciously and creatively mould the “realities” of our lives.

I AM here! It is Life’s greatest of mysteries and it is waiting to be unravelled by each and every one of us. Take on the openness of a child, challenge the boundaries of your comfort zone, let loose your limited paradigms, and get ready to reimagine reality! Your empowerment is right here, right now, embedded within your own magnificence. Ever expanding Consciousness, boundless Possibility, the great I AM is here, and concealed within your individualized perspective, it is You! With a sense of awe and wonder, celebrate your truest of identities , as it expresses out through you the greatest of Life’s mysteries: I AM here! I AM here!

I am in you and I am you. No one can understand this until s/he has lost her/his mind. –  Rumi