The entire Christian message of the Bible is summed up in this quote from, Psalm 46: 10 in the Old Testament: "Be still and know that I am God." Understanding this, however, requires some insight into God's response to Moses in the Old Testament, Book of Exodus 3:14, when Moses asks God who he should tell the people he is speaking to. God says, "Tell them, 'I am that I am' " has spoken. God says, "I AM" has sent you to the Israelites. This is God's name. He says it will be his name forever and this is how he is to be addressed.
This "stillness: that presumably we can "know," that enables knowledge of God, is also claimed by Jesus when he says in the Gospel of John 8:31, "...you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Then at the end of chapter 8 Jesus says to the Pharisees, "truly I say to you before Abraham was I am." Of course they stoned him. Why?
Because Jesus who, you recall, says he is in us, that is, he is us, precedes all time. "He," that is, the "I AM" that he is, precedes all time even the historical time of the advent of the people of Israel marked with their founding Father, Abraham. Jesus, like God, is saying that the "I AM" that he is, is the Eternal 'I AM.' Jesus is also saying I am that "I AM." Jesus is either the Messiah, the one announcing the Kingdom of God on earth; or, he is a fraud. But he also has claimed the identity of God, Himself and you/me. He brings God down to earth; and man up to God.
Jesus is claiming to be the transcendent. He is declaring his oneness with God and yet his oneness with us. As the 23rd Psalm declares "he restoreth our souls...and we shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever." That is the "I AM," that you and I are, in Jesus Name, is the House of God, the Eternal Self which we are aware of as the "I AM that I am."
This is Ramana Maharshi's pure Self-Awareness. We just have to accept it as the gift that it is. It is "Given" and we either accept it or struggle to understand it; or doubt it; or try to prove it; or earn it; or try to deserve it.
Why not just accept it, appreciate it, be thankful, grateful and therefore full or that Grace. Then we are free, for we are the truth itself that sets us free.
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