These two truthes will help you awaken from this dream and then help you to deepen your awakening. Let us explore them now. 

The Mind’s nature is to swing between extreme optimism and extreme pessimism. It lacks the basic clarity to give you the real truth. So what you are seeing through the instrument of the mind is mostly your own projection and that is why you cannot trust the mind. You have to learn to disbelieve the mind. It is a learning process, and it is not easy.

You trust and believe in the mind and do not look at it with suspicion at all; you do not doubt it. You believe your beingness, your existence, is dependent on your mind because that is what you have been taught. The mind is like an unqualified employee that you have entrusted to be the head of your organization without evaluating whether it can be trusted, or not trusted.

And what happens when you trust an unqualified employee to be the head of your organization? Chaos! Clarity is the last thing that will happen.

You have so much invested in your organization… a big investment! And what is the goal of your investment? AWAKENING. And what does the mind do? It takes you away from it… not because it doesn’t have great abilities… but because it is confused. And that is why you need to keep watching the mind and to seriously doubt it. Do not believe what it says. 

What you need to do is get to know your mind and develop a relationship with it. Do not take it at ‘face value’… get to know it better, more closely.

As you know, the world is full of problems, all kinds of problems. The world is always going to have problems for you to think about. But what is at the origin of these problems? The mind. 

What is at the origin of the world? The mind. 

What creates this world and its problems? The mind. 

So, if you were to discover someday and somehow that the mind itself is unreal, could your problems or the world then be real? If the basic instrument that is at the origination of your world… in which you experience so many problems… is itself unreal, then how can you take your problems seriously?

You have taken your problems far too seriously because an unqualified employee has told you the problems are too many. Your organization’s balance sheet has more liabilities than assets! So you need to check constantly, check what your mind (your unqualified employee) is telling you, and keep checking it. Is what it is telling you reality? Or is it trying to deceive you? 

The mind is like a projector; it projects the images on the screen.

Your problems are also images; your perceptions are images. 

The mind is projecting these images, just like a movie projector projects images onto a screen… and without the projector, there is nothing there!

You will experience many situations in your life where you will take a position based on what you are identified with. You will read a newspaper or watch TV and the mind will try and take a position but you must deny the mind its position.

You must deny the mind any position where it tries to make you uncomfortable and that is why I tell you, do not believe the mind.

Even with very advanced seekers the mind tries to seep in, so it is important to understand how the mind works, to keep watching it, and not believe what it is telling you. 

Do not try to stop the thoughts or control them; just do not get too involved with your mind.

Know the nature of the mind and let it go on and do not engage with it. Learn to ignore it, learn to move out of your head. When you move out of your head, wherever you go, it is going to be ‘no mind’ and you will be near the Truth. Do not be in your head.

From time-to-time just pull yourself out of your head and think about how the mind deceives you into believing your reality. Have you noticed the mind at night? When you go to sleep, you dream something, and in that dream you have become somebody else. Or you go into another reality, and in that reality, in that moment, the mind has played with you again, and deceived you into another play, and you get carried away into it. That is, if you remember your dreams. For once you start to awaken, you begin to have very vivid dreams. You become nearer to your dreams. You become aware of your dreams and can then watch more closely how the mind is playing these tricks on you because the reality is different there. In some dreams, you will get carried away into that reality; in others, as you more deeply awaken, you will know in that dream that you are dreaming. So your reality keeps changing. 

And then you wake up in the morning, and again you have a dream reality. We call this the ‘waking state’, which is basically a dream state, nothing else. So your reality has again changed. Then you go back to sleep and dream another reality and become identified with that reality. And then the mind goes into deep sleep and becomes submerged and is no longer there. And when the mind is no longer there, the world is no longer there, and when the world is no longer there, there is no more dream… absolutely zero… nothing. Again your reality has changed. From the waking-dream to the dream-dream to no-dream. Absolutely zero.

So this instrument you have put your faith in is very faulty; it is changing all the time. That is why your world is changing all the time, why your feelings are changing all the time, and why your perceptions are changing all the time. It is because the instrument is changing all the time.

So you cannot trust the mind. Do not believe the mind. When you reach the stage where you deeply realize this truth, not just intellectually, but in the core of your Being deeply realize this truth, then everything becomes entertainment. EVERYTHING.

You may still have pain, but you will not be broken.

You will still have disappointments, but you will not be a failure.

Even in your pain or disappointments, you will find it very entertaining.

In the middle of a problem created by the mind, you will suddenly start laughing and wonder how you ever got trapped into believing ‘this’. And you will understand this as you start going deeper and deeper. 

All the Masters say hold on to your I AM-ness… but now I am telling you… even your “I AM-ness” is false.

As Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj has said, I AM-ness is an illusion, it is not real. This is the ultimate Truth.

However… while I AM-ness is false… it is important to understand that…

                                “AM-ness” is not false, it is real.

Do you know (see) the difference between the two?

The first one has “I” at the beginning, and anything that has “I” in it has to be false, a fraud, a deceiver.

So I AM-ness is completely illusionary, and this point needs to be made clear:

 “I AM-ness” is false.  Only “AM-ness” is real.

Whenever you attach “I”, “me”, or “mine” to something it becomes impure. And this seeps into everything… even with your AM-ness you attach “my”… “I”.

Everything is made egoic — see how you have even transformed “AM-ness” into “I AM-ness”? It leaves you because it is false; it is a fraud. It is very important to understand this difference.

Another important point to understand is how you try to contain the I AM-ness as an experience in your body.

Have you thought about this? How the minute you think about I AM-ness you close your eyes and start to feel the I AM-ness as if the I AM-ness is confined within your body. When you meditate on the I AM-ness, your Beingness, you close your eyes to feel your I AM-ness, your Beingness. Is your I AM-ness inside your body? Or is it the substratum?

So why do you have this feeling that the I AM-ness is within you? Because you have this habit, this tendency, of holding everything to yourself.

So you have two problems with respect to your I AM-ness:

The first is related to feeling.

The second is that you are trying to contain it within your body 
as if it is a
body-mind experience. 

I AM-ness is not a feeling, or confined to a particular feeling. But you have restricted it, confined it within certain parameters and said that this is what it is…

“Oh, peace is I AM-ness”… Oh, joy is I AM-ness”… Oh, bliss is I AM-ness”. 

So you have two problems with respect to your I AM-ness:

The first is related to feeling. 

The second is that you are trying to contain it within your body 
as if it is a body-mind experience.

And then, if you do not feel the same I AM-ness or Shakti, you start to wonder what went wrong, why you no longer feel that way… “Why has my Bliss dropped?”, etc., because you are always trying to compare the I AM-ness of today with the I AM-ness of the past.

So, predominantly, I AM-ness is concerned with feeling. 

BUT… AM-ness is not concerned with a particular feeling. It could be much more than what you are feeling at this particular moment. And the moment you compare it to an old experience of bliss or joy or whatever, you have polluted it, become attached to it, and turned it into “I AM-ness”.

AM-ness can be any feeling. Even depression can be AM-ness. And sometimes, AM-ness can be there to teach you something. 

For people who are far too vested in “I AM-ness” being a particular feeling, the AM-ness can come to teach them the lesson of not being too attached to this feeling. So even depression can be AM-ness, and you need to wait for it to unfold in the Totality.

Do not let the mind come back and try to make stories out of it. Stay there, just let it be, whatever it is. Do not compare it with the past. Do not let the mind go there because that is the past, that is possessiveness, that is attachment.

So, now you understand that AM-ness is not confined to a particular feeling, or to your body. That whatever feelings arise within you, or outside of you, whatever you feel, it is all AM-ness.

BUT… how then do you learn to distinguish the difference between “I AM-ness” and “AM-ness”? The only way to know this is to understand that AM-ness does not belong to you. This is an important point…

AM-ness is not yours, it is not your private property… AM-ness is given to you… it is GRACE.

You cannot possess AM-ness. The moment you try to possess AM-ness it becomes polluted and becomes I AM-ness… and then it leaves you. AM-ness can leave you because AM-ness is not yours in the first place! It is a blessing, a gift to you. 

You have to complete the Circle of Completion… full Totality… and for that AM-ness is given to you.

So always remember that AM-ness is a gift given to you. It is not yours; you cannot claim it. 

The moment you say “I” AM-ness you have claimed it and moved into possessing it and attaching to it, and then it will fall. And then it can also leave.

If AM-ness was yours or mine for the taking, then why does it leave us when we die? It leaves us, it is finished, it is gone. So do not attach to It. 

It is a gift given to you. Always remember this. And when you do remember that it is a gift, it is Grace that is bestowed onto you, then you have dropped control over your I AM-ness and how it should make you feel. You accept that whatever Consciousness wants you to feel, you will feel. And then a miracle takes place… AM-ness never leaves you. Never. 

Your desirelessness and surrender were important components you had missed. 

Whenever you do any meditation on your I AM-ness, or on your breath, or on anything, you can have a Samadhi experience, you can control your life-force and learn control of many things, but your effort only teaches you control, it cannot give you Grace. 

Now effort can help lead you to Grace, I am not disputing that, but effort alone can not lead you to Grace.

This is why it is important for you to combine effort and surrender together to know AM-ness. 

So if your “I AM-ness” has gone… let it go; if your “AM-ness” has gone, let it go. This is teaching you something. So do not restrict your I AM-ness to your body. It is not just within your body — though it feels like it is within your body and can be accessed through your body. It is also outside… it is also in the other… it is also in the plants and in the animals… it is EVERYWHERE.

Everything is contained in the AM-ness, not just yourself… EVERYTHING… and every being… and this you cannot realize in the mind, or by practicing I AM-ness.

The important thing is to drop the control over your I AM-ness. Be completely desireless in how your I AM-ness is feeling. Do not worry about it. Open yourself and be receptive to Grace by allowing Consciousness and the Masters to work through you. Allow them. Do not work overtime on your I AM-ness. Rest, let them do the work, drop the control, just leave it. I AM-ness is not in your control. It appears from Grace, and disappears into Grace… it is not in your control.

So stop expecting what will happen… how your I Am-ness will take place, how your AM-ness will behave, what it is, how consistent it is, how inconsistent it is. Do not think like this.

The more you become desireless about it, no matter what it is, the stronger your AM-ness will become, and the more you will be able to feel Grace in your life.

You will, of course, have to put effort in, for effort is part of Grace. But… if you only put effort in, and do not become desireless, then you may have an awakening experience, but you will be humbled in life. This has happened to many Gurus. So beware of this. 

“I Am-ness” is an idea, it is a concept… pure “AM-ness” is not.

I AM-ness is your attachment to AM-ness.

AM-ness cannot be attached to you.

Remember this important difference and open yourself to Grace.

Be receptive, do your work and your sadhana in your most humble way, and leave the ‘fruits’ to how God wants it to be… however Consciousness wants it to be. Please understand this.

It is written that all the great scriptures in the world are false… your birth and the elements are also false… everything is false… and so is your I AM-ness. It is also false. Do not be deceived by it.

Just be involved with your work, as you are doing, and leave the fruits to Consciousness. Open yourself, be receptive to Grace.

If you are meditating on your AM-ness, this is fine. Meditate on Grace as well, allow It to flow.

The trick is this… the more you become desireless, the more the AM-ness will latch on to you. The more you surrender to It, the more it will latch on to you, and you will experience your Self.

So remember, Am-ness is not yours. Anything that you consider ‘yours’ will leave you. This does not mean that you are not going to meditate on your I AM-ness or your Am-ness. Nor does it mean that you will not explore the mind.

Part of what ISIP teaches is attention to the I Am-ness and the mind. That is one part.

The other part is not to have any attachment to it, because whenever you pay attention to something, you are purifying it, you are becoming empty of it.

When you pay attention to your mind, your mind becomes empty of contents.

Anything you pay attention to starts to become purified… all the muck gets thrown out. So paying attention to your mind will remove all the contents from your mind and throw them out.

Paying attention to your I AM-ness will remove the “I”… any contents of the “I-ness”, any attachments, anything that you are holding on to, anything that you identify with. All of that will be removed from your “I-ness”.

But emptying something out does not mean that it will cease to exist just because it has become empty. The only way that the contents can completely and totally leave you… the death of mind, the death of I Am-ness, is through Grace, and only if you can allow yourself to know that they do not belong to you.

If you hold this truth as a deep realization and realize that “it is not mine”, “it is a gift”, the mind and I AM-ness will completely dissolve, they will disintegrate. And the death of mind, and the death of I Am-ness, is the rise of AM-ness, the pure reflection of the Self.

The purest reflection of the Self is AM-ness.

This is the rise of It. It will never leave you and will always be with you. It will transcend life and death… everything. It will become the Self, Itself.