#103: Who Am I?

Who Am I?

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

Who am I? This is the question that has been asked of every man since the beginning, yet it is seldom heard as the creative question it truly is. Men ask how their world can be changed, how conditions can be altered, how the unwanted can be escaped, and in all their asking they overlook the one question that alone determines what they shall express. Whom do you say that you are? Your answer, given not with the lips but in the silent conviction of your consciousness, is the decree that brings forth your world in every detail. You cannot escape this. You are always answering this question, and life is always honoring your answer with the only reality it knows—your own out-pictured consciousness.

You are not the body you see in the mirror. You are not the circumstances that surround you. You are not the history you remember or the future you fear. You are awareness, the faceless, formless I AM that is the conceiver of all that appears. Before the world was, you are. Before any condition took shape in your sight, you were already conscious of being. This awareness is the Lord, the only God, the everlasting Father. It is not a God afar off. It is nearer than your breathing, closer than hands and feet. It is your own consciousness of being, and it is forever asking you, its present conception of itself, “Who do you believe yourself to be?”

The answer you give in the depth of your feeling is what you express. If you answer from the evidence of the senses and say, “I am poor, I am limited, I am sick, I am bound by this or that condition,” then that answer becomes the mold into which life pours itself. Your world takes the shape of your conviction. But if you rise in consciousness and answer, “I am the one who is free, I am the one who is abundant, I am the one who is whole,” and if you feel the naturalness of that answer until it becomes your settled conviction, then life must objectify it. There is no other way. Consciousness is the only reality, and it forever solidifies itself in the image of what you are conscious of being.

This is not a new discovery. It is the eternal truth that Jesus knew when he turned to his disciples and asked, “Whom do you say that I am?” He was not inquiring about a man called Jesus. He was revealing the creative question that every man must answer for himself. Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus blessed that answer because it was the recognition that the I AM within is the anointed one, the power that brings all things to pass. He declared, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life.” He did not say, “I, Jesus, am the way.” He said, “I AM the way.” The awareness of being is the door through which everything you seek must pass into your world. There is no other door. To seek any other way is to act as a thief and a robber unto yourself.

Before Abraham was, I AM. This statement is not a boast of one man two thousand years ago. It is the revelation of your own eternal self. Your awareness of being transcends time. It was before any appearance of lack or limitation. It is the same yesterday, today, and forever. When you truly answer the question “Who am I?” with the feeling of the fulfilled desire, you are standing upon this timeless I AM. You are no longer asking how or when. You are simply being that which you desire to express, and the how and the when take care of themselves. Signs follow. They never precede. The evidence appears after the conviction is established, never before.

Most men live as though they were the answer given by their senses. They say in their hearts, “I am a victim of circumstance. I am the product of my past. I am bound by my age, my finances, my health, my relationships.” And because this is their honest answer to the creative question, life continues to present them with the world that matches it. They do not see that they are the conceiver, not the conception. The power that conceives is greater than anything it has conceived. All conceptions are limitations of the conceiver. When you know this, you cease to worship your present limitations as though they were powers outside yourself. You turn within and answer the question anew.

To answer it truly, you must feel it. Words alone are empty. The feeling of “I am” is the secret. Close your eyes to the outer world for a moment and feel yourself to be faceless, formless, only aware that you are. In this stillness you have dropped the old answer. You have died to the man you thought you were. Now, in this formless deep, give yourself the new answer. Feel yourself to be the one you desire to be. Do not argue with the senses. Do not wonder how it can be. Simply feel the naturalness of it. When the feeling becomes your settled conviction, when you can rest in it without anxiety, the new answer has been given and the old world begins to dissolve.

This is what it means to be born again. You must leave behind the answer that has kept you in bondage and assume the nature of the new birth. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot hold the old conception of yourself and expect a new expression. The moment you take your attention from the old answer and place it upon the new, you die to one and live to the other. This is the spiritual marriage where two agree—the awareness and the thing desired—and their likeness is established on earth. Your desire is the word of God seeking embodiment through you. When you feel yourself to be it, you have conceived. Go, tell no man. Lock the secret within you and magnify the Lord—magnify your desire by feeling it as already fulfilled.

Your world is your consciousness objectified. Waste no time trying to change the outer picture while the inner answer remains the same. Change the answer and the picture must change. If you are conscious of being poor, no amount of money that comes to you will make you feel wealthy, for you are still answering the question with lack. But when you answer “I am wealthy” and feel its naturalness, the evidence will appear in ways you know not of. The same is true of health, of freedom, of any state. The I AM is unconditioned. It is neither rich nor poor, sick nor well, bound nor free. These are all names you give to the nameless. When you feel yourself to be any of these, you are asking the nameless I AM to express that nature, and it does so without respect of persons.

Do not condition your answer. Do not say, “I will be wealthy when such and such happens.” Do not say, “I will be free after this obstacle is removed.” Your answer must be unconditional. It must be felt as present fact. “I am now the one who is free. I am now the one who is whole. I am now the one who moves in a world of abundance.” This is the firmament in the midst of the waters. In the midst of all changing opinions and contradictory evidence, let there be this conviction. Then you shall see the dry land appear. Your belief will take on form.

The senses will rise in protest. They will show you the old answer still seemingly true. But you are not to judge after the appearance of being. You are to judge righteous judgment—judge from the conviction you have established within. The old answer was built upon the evidence of the senses. The new answer is built upon the rock of faith in your own I AM. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. When you have this faith, you are no longer a victim of fate. You are a victor through your own conviction. All things are possible to him who believes, for belief is the answer given to the creative question.

Tonight, before you sleep, ask yourself this question in the stillness. Do not ask it of the man you see in the mirror. Ask it of the awareness that is looking through those eyes. Feel the answer rise from within. If the old answer comes first, gently let it go. Feel yourself as faceless, formless I AM. Then define it. Feel “I am the one who…” and complete it with the fulfilled state. Dwell there until it feels natural, until the old tension dissolves and a quiet certainty takes its place. This is the Sabbath. You have finished the work. You have given the answer. Now rest in it. The expression will take care of itself.

You will find that people and events begin to move in harmony with your new answer. They are not being changed by you. They are simply reflecting the change in your consciousness. Do not try to change them. Revalue yourself and they will confirm the change. They are messengers telling you who you have become. When you no longer condemn yourself or others, you discover there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus—in the awakened consciousness that knows itself as I AM. To the pure all things are pure, for purity is the single answer given without mixture.

This is the freedom that Jesus came to declare. He did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. The law is that you express what you are conscious of being. He came to reveal that you can change what you are conscious of being. He sanctified himself that you might know you can sanctify yourself. He said, “And now I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” The truth is “I AM.” When you know this, you stop asking others for permission to express. You stop looking for signs before you believe. You believe, and the signs follow.

You are the vine. The qualities you claim as “I am” are the branches. As long as you feed the old branches with your attention, they live. When you withdraw your attention and feed the new, the old wither and the new appear. This is not hard work. It is the easiest thing in the world when you approach it in the right attitude. Feel it as natural. Do not strain. Do not force. Simply assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled and rest in the knowledge that your I AM has received the answer and will bring it forth.

The whole drama of your life is the answer you are giving to this one question. Change the answer and you change the drama. There is no other cause. There is no other power. “I AM the Lord and beside me there is none else.” When you know this, you no longer blame conditions or people. You no longer wait for something outside yourself to save you. You turn within and give the new answer. You become the savior you have been seeking, for your savior is always the state of consciousness you assume.

So tonight, answer the question as you have never answered it before. Do not answer from memory. Do not answer from the evidence round about you. Answer from the depth of your desire. Feel yourself to be the one you long to be. Let the feeling become so real that the outer world loses its power to frighten or discourage you. In that moment you have died to the old man and been born anew. The old answer no longer has dominion. The new answer is now the lord of your life, and all things must serve it.

You are not what you have been. You are what you are conscious of being. And you are free to be anything you can feel yourself to be. This is the glorious truth that sets men free. This is the answer to every problem, the key to every door, the fulfillment of every desire. Who am I? You are the I AM that is God. You are the conceiver. You are the door. You are the way. And your answer, felt tonight, is already reshaping your world.