Chapter 1 : I Am
“All things when they are admitted are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light.”
Ephesians 5:13
The “Light” is consciousness. Consciousness is one, manifesting in legions of forms or levels of consciousness. There is no one that is not all that is, for consciousness, though expressed in an infinite series of levels, is not divisional. There is no real separation or gap in consciousness. ‘I AM’ cannot be divided. I may conceive myself to be a rich man, a poor man, a beggar man or a thief, but the center of my being remains the same regardless of the concept I hold of myself. At the center of manifestation there is only one ‘I AM’ manifesting in legions of forms or concepts of itself and “I am that I am”.
‘I AM’ is the selfdefinition of the absolute, the foundation on which everything rests. ‘I AM’ is the first cause-substance. ‘I AM’ is the selfdefinition of God.
“I AM hath sent me unto you.”
“I AM THAT I AM.”
“Be still and know that I AM God.”
‘I AM’ is a feeling of permanent awareness. The very center of consciousness is the feeling of ‘I AM’ I may forget who I am, where I am, what I am but I cannot forget that I AM. The awareness of being remains, regardless of the degree of forgetfulness of who, where and what I am.
‘I AM’ is that which, amid unnumbered forms, is ever the same. This great discovery of cause reveals that, good or bad, man is actually the arbiter of his own fate, and that it is his concept of himself that determines the world ... See more
Chapter 1 : I Am
“All things when they are admitted are made manifest by the light: for everything that is made manifest is light.”
Ephesians 5:13
The “Light” is consciousness. Consciousness is one, manifesting in legions of forms or levels of consciousness. There is no one that is not all that is, for consciousness, though expressed in an infinite series of levels, is not divisional. There is no real separation or gap in consciousness. ‘I AM’ cannot be divided. I may conceive myself to be a rich man, a poor man, a beggar man or a thief, but the center of my being remains the same regardless of the concept I hold of myself. At the center of manifestation there is only one ‘I AM’ manifesting in legions of forms or concepts of itself and “I am that I am”.
‘I AM’ is the selfdefinition of the absolute, the foundation on which everything rests. ‘I AM’ is the first cause-substance. ‘I AM’ is the selfdefinition of God.
“I AM hath sent me unto you.”
“I AM THAT I AM.”
“Be still and know that I AM God.”
‘I AM’ is a feeling of permanent awareness. The very center of consciousness is the feeling of ‘I AM’ I may forget who I am, where I am, what I am but I cannot forget that I AM. The awareness of being remains, regardless of the degree of forgetfulness of who, where and what I am.
‘I AM’ is that which, amid unnumbered forms, is ever the same. This great discovery of cause reveals that, good or bad, man is actually the arbiter of his own fate, and that it is his concept of himself that determines the world in which he lives. In other words, if you are experiencing ill health, knowing the truth about cause, you cannot attribute the illness to anything other than to the particular arrangement of the basic cause-substance, an arrangement which is defined by your concept ‘I am unwell.’ This is why you are told “Let the weak man say, ‘I am strong’.” (Joel 3:10), for by his assumption, the cause-substance – ‘I AM’ – is rearranged and must, therefore, manifest that which its rearrangement affirms. This principle governs every aspect of your life, be it social, financial, intellectual, or spiritual.
‘I AM’ is that reality to which, whatever happens, we must turn for an explanation of the phenomena of life. It is ‘I AM’s’ concept of itself that determines the form and scenery of its existence. Everything depends upon its attitude towards itself; that which it will not affirm as true of itself cannot awaken in its world. That is, your concept of yourself, such as “I am strong,” “I am secure,” “I am loved,” determines the world in which you live. In other words, when you say, “I am a man, I am a father, I am an American,” you are not defining different ‘I AMs;’ you are defining different concepts or arrangements of the one cause-substance – the one ‘I AM’. Even in the phenomena of nature, if the tree were articulate, it would say, “I am a tree, an apple tree, a fruitful tree”.
When you know that consciousness is the one and only reality – conceiving itself to be something good, bad, or indifferent, and becoming that which it conceived itself to be – you are free from the tyranny of second causes, free from the belief that there are causes outside of your own mind that can affect your life.
In the state of consciousness of the individual is found the explanation of the phenomena of life. If man’s concept of himself were different, everything in his world would be different. His concept of himself being what it is, everything in his world must be as it is.
Thus it is abundantly clear that there is only one I AM and you are that I AM. And while I AM is infinite, you, by your concept of yourself, are displaying only a limited aspect of the infinite ‘I AM.’
“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!”
Chapter 2 : Consciousness
It is only by a change of consciousness, by actually changing your concept of yourself that you can “build more stately mansions” – the manifestations of higher and higher concepts. (By manifesting is meant experiencing the results of these concepts in your world.) It is of vital importance to understand clearly just what consciousness is.
The reason lies in the fact that consciousness is the one and only reality, it is the first and only cause-substance of the phenomena of life. Nothing has existence for man save through the consciousness he has of it. Therefore, it is to consciousness you must turn, for it is the only foundation on which the phenomena of life can be explained.
If we accept the idea of a first cause, it would follow that the evolution of that cause could never result in anything foreign to itself. That is, if the first cause-substance is light, all its evolutions, fruits and manifestations would remain light. The first cause-substance being consciousness, all its evolutions, fruits, and phenomena must remain consciousness. All that could be observed would be a higher or lower form or variation of the same thing. In other words, if your consciousness is the only reality, it must also be the only substance. Consequently, what appears to you as circumstances, conditions and even material objects are really only the products of your own consciousness. Nature, then, as a thing or a complex of things external to your mind, must be rejected. You and your environment cannot be regarded as existing separately. You and your world are one.
Therefore, you must turn from the objective appearance of things to the subjective center of things, your consciousness, if you truly desire to know the cause of the phenomena of life, and how to use this knowledge to realize your fondest dreams. In the midst of the apparent contradictions, antagonisms, and contrasts of your life, there is only one principle at work, only your consciousness operating. Difference does not consist in variety of substance, but in variety of arrangement of the same cause-substance, your consciousness.
The world moves with motiveless necessity. By this is meant that it has no motive of its own, but is under the necessity of manifesting your concept, the arrangement of your mind, and your mind is always arranged in the image of all you believe and consent to as true. The rich man, poor man, beggar man or thief are not different minds, but different arrangements of the same mind, in the same sense that a piece of steel, when magnetized, differs not in substance from its demagnetized state but in the arrangement and order of its molecules. A single electron revolving in a specified orbit constitutes the unit of magnetism. When a piece of steel or anything else is demagnetized, the revolving electrons have not stopped. Therefore, the magnetism has not gone out of existence. There is only a rearrangement of the particles, so that they produce no outside or perceptible effect. When particles are arranged at random, mixed up in all directions, the substance is said to be demagnetized; but when particles are marshalled in ranks so that a number of them face in one direction, the substance is a magnet. Magnetism is not generated; it is displayed. Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind – that is, by your concept of yourself. The importance of this in your daily life should be immediately apparent.
The basic nature of the primal cause is consciousness. Therefore, the ultimate substance of all things is consciousness.
Chapter 3 : Power of Assumption
Man’s chief delusion is his conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness. All that befalls a man – all that is done by him – all that comes from him – happens as a result of his state of consciousness. A man’s consciousness is all that he thinks and desires and loves, all that he believes is true and consents to. That is why a change of consciousness is necessary before you can change your outer world. Rain falls as a result of a change in the temperature in the higher regions of the atmosphere, so, in like manner, a change of circumstance happens as a result of a change in your state of consciousness.
“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
To be transformed, the whole basis of your thoughts must change. But your thoughts cannot change unless you have new ideas, for you think from your ideas. All transformation begins with an intense, burning desire to be transformed. The first step in the ‘renewing of the mind’ is desire. You must want to be different before you can begin to change yourself. Then you must make your future dream a present fact. You do this by assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled. By desiring to be other than what you are, you can create an ideal of the person you want to be and assume that you are already that person. If this assumption is persisted in until it becomes your dominant feeling, the attainment of your ideal is inevitable. The ideal you hope to achieve is always ready for an incarnation, but unless you yourself offer it human parentage, it is incapable of birth. Therefore, your attitude should be one in which – having desired to express a higher state – you alone accept the task of incarnating this new and greater value of yourself.
In giving birth to your ideal you must bear in mind that the methods of mental and spiritual knowledge are entirely different. This is a point that is truly understood by probably not more than one person in a million. You know a thing mentally by looking at it from the outside, by comparing it with other things, by analyzing it and defining it; whereas you can know a thing spiritually only by becoming it. You must be the thing itself and not merely talk about it or look at it. You must be like the moth in search of his idol, the flame,
“who spurred with true desire, plunging at once into the sacred fire, folded his wings within, till he became one color and one substance with the flame. He only knew the flame who in it burned, and only he could tell who ne’er to tell returned.”
Just as the moth in his desire to know the flame was willing to destroy himself, so must you in becoming a new person be willing to die to your present self.
You must be conscious of being healthy if you are to know what health is. You must be conscious of being secure if you are to know what security is. Therefore, to incarnate a new and greater value of yourself, you must assume that you already are what you want to be and then live by faith in this assumption – which is not yet incarnate in the body of your life – in confidence that this new value or state of consciousness will become incarnated through your absolute fidelity to the assumption that you are that which you desire to be. This is what wholeness means, what integrity means. They mean submission of the whole self to the feeling of the wish fulfilled in certainty that that new state of consciousness is the renewing of mind which transforms. There is no order in Nature corresponding to this willing submission of the self to the ideal beyond the self. Therefore, it is the height of folly to expect the incarnation of a new and greater concept of self to come about by natural evolutionary process. That which requires a state of consciousness to produce its effect obviously cannot be effected without such a state of consciousness, and in your ability to assume the feeling of a greater life, to assume a new concept of yourself, you possess what the rest of Nature does not possess – Imagination – the instrument by which you create your world.
Your imagination is the instrument, the means, whereby your redemption from slavery, sickness, and poverty is effected. If you refuse to assume the responsibility of the incarnation of a new and higher concept of yourself, then you reject the means, the only means, whereby your redemption – that is, the attainment of your ideal – can be effected.
Imagination is the only redemptive power in the universe. However, your nature is such that it is optional to you whether you remain in your present concept of yourself (a hungry being longing for freedom, health, and security) or choose to become the instrument of your own redemption, imagining yourself as that which you want to be, and thereby satisfying your hunger and redeeming yourself.
“O be strong then, and brave, pure, patient and true;
The work that is yours let no other hand do.
For the strength for all need is faithfully given
From the fountain within you – The Kingdom of Heaven.”
