Part 2: “I Am” – The First and Last Truth

ConsciousnessWhat is Reality?Awareness of Self

20 Aug

Series Note: ✨ You’re reading a piece in our ongoing series “What is Consciousness? Exploring Our True Nature.” Each post offers a doorway into the same mystery: the awareness at the heart of your being, closer than your own breath.

The Simple Knowing of “I Am”

Before you can say I am a mother, I am a seeker, I am tired, I am hopeful, I am happy, there is something more fundamental: simply, I am.

That bare sense of being is the ground of existence. It doesn’t depend on your body, your story, or even your thoughts. It is the quiet recognition: I exist. And if you trace it back, you’ll see it has always been there — unchanging, unbroken, closer than breath.

Beyond the Labels of the Mind

The mind immediately wants to add labels: I am this. I am not that. I am good. I am not enough. But these are only passing clouds. The sky of awareness — the simple I am — never moves.

Rupert Spira puts it plainly:

“The knowing of our own being — the experience of being aware — is the most intimate, direct, and immediate experience there is.” (Being Aware of Being Aware)

The mistake is thinking we are the clouds, when in truth we are the sky.

Awareness is the source of intuition, inspiration, creativity, love — and the longing to understand the very purpose of existence. Even the simple recognition, “I am aware of being aware,” is a gateway. In that moment, the mind bows to something deeper than itself: the direct knowing of awareness as the ground of being.

It’s such a vast mystery to unwrap, and yet the very question “Who am I?” is what compels us to seek, to travel, to meditate, to lose ourselves in relationships or occupations. And still, the most honest answer waits quietly inside, in the heart — beyond the limits of thought.

The Pure Response of “I Am”

I am.

As a complete response, it carries no ego, no emotion, no lack, no boundaries, no judgment, no right, no wrong. And yet its depth and breadth feel almost tangible — as if its infinite expansiveness could somehow be glimpsed by the finite mind.

To me, it feels like catching sight of infinity through a keyhole: a vast, unknowable essence shining through the tiny lens of human perception. I may never grasp the fullness of it while living in this body, yet still I yearn to understand — to know myself more deeply and to recognise that same eternal beingness shining in others.

And what a trip that is.

One “I” in Many Forms

This I am is not personal. It is not owned by “me” or “you.” It is the same presence shining through every being.

In the Sufi tradition, it is the Beloved speaking in us.
In the Torah, when Moses asked God’s name, the reply was simply: “I Am that I Am.”
In Buddhism, it is the luminous nature of mind.
In Kabbalah, the spark of the Ein Sof — the Infinite — within the human heart.

Different words. One reality.

A Short Practice

Take a breath. Set aside every label for a moment — your name, your roles, your emotions. Just rest in the fact:

✨ I am.

Don’t add anything to it. Don’t take anything away. Let that be enough.

Notice how this simple presence is already whole, already peaceful, already free.

Why This Matters

When we identify only with the mind, life feels fractured — a restless search for meaning, belonging, or validation. But when we know ourselves as awareness itself, the endless striving begins to soften.

We no longer cling to “who I should be,” and instead awaken to what we already are: infinite being. From that ground, love arises naturally — because the same I am that shines in you is also shining in me.

This is why mystics across time echo the same truth: the ultimate journey is not about becoming something else, but about remembering what we already are.

Next in the series: The Nature of Reality – How Awareness Appears as the World.