The “I AM”

Look at yourself.

No.

Really look.

Not at the face in the mirror.

Look at the life you’re defending.

Every morning, before you’ve even met yourself, you reach for your phone.

Your messages tell you who you are.
Your calendar tells you who you are.
Your bank account tells you who you are.
Your fears tell you who you are.

By the time your head hits the pillow, you’re exhausted.

Not because life is so hard.

Because pretending is.

You’ve worn the mask for so long you’ve forgotten it’s a mask.

You call it me.

And then Jesus says something that should shake you to your core.

“Before Abraham was, I AM.”

Not I was.

Not I will become.

I AM.

No biography.
No résumé.
No identity.

Just reality.

And then he turns to ordinary, frightened, compromised people…

…and says,

“You are the light of the world.”

Don’t nod because you’ve heard those words before.

Let them offend you.

Because if they’re true…

then almost everything you’ve built your life on begins to crumble.

You don’t get to hide behind your childhood anymore.

Or your trauma.
Or your anxiety.
Or your success.
Or your failure.
Or your carefully curated personality.

You don’t get to spend your whole life polishing a mask and call it authenticity.

The Zen master Rinzai used to grab his students and shout:

“There is a true person of no rank coming in and out through your face right now. Look!”

No rank.
No title.
No brand.
No role.

Strip it all away.

Your name.
Your profession.
Your story.
Your politics.
Your wounds.
Your achievements.
Your spiritual identity.

What’s left?

Don’t answer too quickly.

Your mind has a thousand answers.

I’m not interested in any of them.

I’m asking about the one who’s aware of all of them.

Right now.

Stop.

Take one breath.

Drop your shoulders.

And ask yourself:

Who is aware of this moment?

Don’t think.

Look.

Stop chasing your thoughts for just one second and notice the one who sees them.

That’s the doorway.

Not tomorrow.

Not after ten more retreats.

Not when you’ve finally healed enough.

Here.

Beneath the noise.
Beneath the performance.
Beneath the desperate effort to become someone.

Stop trying to become spiritual.

That’s just another costume.

The truth doesn’t need improving.

It only needs remembering.

The next time fear tells you who you are…

Don’t argue with it.
Don’t fix it.
Don’t heal it.

Walk away from it.

Come back to the only thing that has never changed.

I AM.

Everything else…

is costume.