Most spiritual people realize we are more than our physical bodies. Many believe we are a soul that is only abiding in this particular body for a time, but has resided in other bodies in the past. Many believe we originally came from the spiritual realm and that we have the potential to return there. Many also believe that what sent us into this world was a higher part of our beings.

We might call this part of our beings for the spiritual self or higher self. Since the 1930s, the ascended masters have also called it the “I AM Presence.” This is partly to signify that it is what gives us our basic sense of being or existence, the sense that “I am.” It is also to signify that the I AM Presence is our link to God, who gave Moses the name “I AM.”

Traditionally, the relationship between the I AM Presence and your lower being has been depicted as in the following chart:

Chartwebsite

The I AM Presence is the inner sphere above you, surrounded by the colored rings that symbolize your causal body (see below). Your lower being or soul is the lower figure, and you are connected to the I AM Presence with a tube of light or crystal cord. In between the two is your Christ self, which is a mediator, a connecting link, between your Presence and your soul.

There is nothing wrong with this traditional chart, but it is important to realize, that it is simply one possible symbolization of your Presence, and it is quite linear. It obviously builds on the traditional view that heaven or the spiritual realm is geographically above you.

During the Middle Ages, Christians believed that if you traveled up from the earth, you would break through a membrane and enter God’s kingdom. Modern rockets have proven that to be an incorrect assumption, so it can be helpful to adopt a broader view of the chart. Again, the following illustration is just another – and still somewhat linear – way to symbolize the relationship between you and your I AM Presence.

AANEWChartwebsite

This new chart depicts the I AM presence and causal body as being right around you, meaning not separated in space. This is based on an understanding of the hierarchical structure of the world of form. As explained elsewhere, the Creator created the first sphere out of its own Being, meaning God’s Being is embedded in everything.

After the first sphere ascended, the beings in that sphere created the second sphere out of their own beings. This process has continued until the current sphere, in which the material universe is a part. In other words, the traditional concept of a remote God high above us is simply not correct. There is a hierarchy of spiritual beings extending from the Creator through seven levels. Each level is not separated from the one above it; it is an extension of the one before it.

This means there is no actual separation. Your I AM Presence is an extension of a being in the spiritual realm, and the Conscious You – the you that originally descended – is an extension of your I AM Presence. Thus, you are not actually separated from your Presence. You are existing within the space, the sphere, of your Presence.

Separation is a product of your current perception filter. If you think your perception filter shows you reality, then you will identify yourself as what you see through the filter—a separate being. Yet as you extricate yourself from the perception filter (your sense of self), you will return to the state of pure awareness with which you originally descended. You will then experience a deepening oneness with your I AM Presence, until you can say with Jesus: “I and my Father are one.”

At that point, you will fulfill another statement made by Jesus, namely “I am the open door, which no man can shut.” You are now an open door for your I AM Presence to express itself freely in this world. While you still identify with your outer self, your perception filter will block (filter out) some (or all) of the flow from your Presence.

This means there are stages in your relationship with your Presence, from lower to higher:

You have no connection to your Presence. You know nothing about it, or it is a theoretical concept without any inner, intuitive connection.
You have some connection to your Presence, but you still see it as being separated from you by a distance or a barrier. So you are working on strengthening your connection (often seen as intuition), but the concept of a connection between two parts inevitably implies that the two are separated. At this stage, we often have intuition, mystical experiences or a sense of connection to something greater—and this is what opens us to the spiritual path. Yet our perception filters will still limit the progress we make on the path.
You begin to realize the need to disentangle yourself from your perception filter and attain the state of pure awareness. Thus, you start systematically questioning your perception filter, striving to see the world without looking through any filter.
You come to identify yourself as one with your Presence, as an extension of the Presence. This means you know you are not your lower being or body, even though you still use your four lower bodies as a vehicle for expression in the material realm. You know you are not the outer personality, the ego or the separate self. You are simply the open door, a clear pane of glass.

Your divine blueprint

Your I AM Presence contains the divine blueprint for your individuality, all of the characteristics that make you a unique expression of God’s Being. This blueprint was created by your spiritual parents – spiritual Beings existing in one of the spiritual realms – and it is permanent and immutable.

It is precisely to express this divine blueprint as a gift to planet earth, that your I AM Presence created you, the Conscious You that is meant to be an open door through which the Presence can express its gift and also experience the material world. In other words, your highest potential is to be an open door, through which the individuality anchored in the Presence can be freely expressed. This is what Jesus described when he said “I can of my own self do nothing” and “It is the father within me who is doing the works.”

Because the I AM Presence resides in a realm of vibration that is above the material universe, it cannot be negatively affected by any mistake you make in this realm. No matter what mistakes you might have made, it has not impacted your true identity. Therefore, regardless of how miserable you might feel, or what mistakes you think you have made, you ALWAYS have the potential to reconnect to your I AM Presence and unlock your true spiritual potential.

This is a safety mechanism built into God’s design of the universe, and you can NEVER lose your ability to establish a sense of oneness with your higher Being. However, the ego works against this connection and seeks to keep you in a state of mind in which you feel separated from God.

The two aspects of your I AM Presence

One of the foundational teachings given by the ascended masters is that everything in the world of form is an expression of the one, indivisible Creator. Yet in order to create a world of differentiated forms, the one Creator first expressed itself as two complimentary polarities. These can be called Yin and Yang, masculine and feminine, expanding and contracting, Alpha and Omega.

Yet the point is that any form that is sustainable is created from a balanced combination of the two forces. Thus, within any form created through the oneness of the spiritual hierarchy, both aspects are found. This means that your Presence also has these two basic aspects.

It was mentioned earlier that the name “I AM Presence” refers to the name that God gave to Moses. In most Bibles, this is translated as “I AM THAT I AM.” Yet some biblical scholars are aware that a more correct translation of the original Hebrew would be “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.”

Your Presence has both aspects:

The I AM THAT I AM is the Alpha aspect of your Presence, and it is the immutable, immovable center that connects you to the spiritual hierarchy and ultimately to the I AM THAT I AM of the Creator.
The I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE aspect is what gives your Presence the drive to express itself in the material world. Meaning that it is out of the I WILL BE aspect that the Conscious You is extended.

The important point to ponder is that the I AM aspect is the immutable, never-changing center of your Presence, while the I WILL BE aspect is constantly changing or rather transcending itself. This is especially important for you, because it helps you realize that you can indeed transcend any limitation in the material world or any “mistake” from your past.

The way to truly transcend is to lock in to the constant flow of the I WILL BE aspect, so you do not fall prey to the lie – promoted by the ego and the forces of this world – that you are bound by material conditions or can never escape the mistakes you have made. It is what Jesus called the “prince of this world” that wants you – as a Spirit – to be bound by conditions or mistakes in this world. The Conscious You is an extension of the I Will Be aspect of your Presence, and once you accept that, you can indeed transcend any condition.

However, the prince of this world is a very powerful and subtle programming, that has infused the collective consciousness for a long time, and we have all been affected by it. The only way beyond it is to know that Spirit is never bound by anything in this world and will at any moment express itself as it wants to express itself. This is NOT the egoic drive to do whatever you want without facing the consequences.

It is the Spirit’s desire to transform the limited conditions of this world into their highest potential. And you simply cannot transform this world, if you think your expression should be bound by current conditions. Thus, only when the Conscious You becomes the open door, will you be able to truly flow with the unconditional – and thus unrestricted – creative flow of your I WILL BE Presence.

In other words, the Conscious You truly should never think or say “I am.” Instead, it should always think in terms of “I will be.” If you think “I am this limited self,” your only option for escaping that self is to change it into something else. Yet if you think, “I will be,” you do not have to change the self; you simply say “I will be more than this self.” The difference is profound.

Tool for expanding your contact with your I AM Presence

Next: Your causal body