If, when we read these bible texts, we can open our imagination new ideas then a new understanding can rise up within us. It isn’t about being prescriptive about what the text means but rather it is about the process that happens within our being when a possible meaning comes alive for us. It is like opening a blockage for our energy to flow differently. A simple ideas such as ‘last’ not meaning the end of time but the last thing we did a moment ago or a day ago can change the whole perspective of a bible text.

By contemplating the ideas that have arisen so far from the statement that ‘the I AM is the bread of life’ we can each discover even more. For instance, in the last reflection we looked at the idea that our will is unconscious? How does our life change when we realise that we created our will in our last life and that we are presently creating our will for our next life. Do we experience a new level of satisfaction in our life when we observe how bodily desires clamour to be satisfied knowing that they can never be satisfied with worldly things?

In the reflection before that we spoke of how we can drag the past into the present or wish it was tomorrow. Lucifer always wants the good old days and Ahriman wants us to have the future now. How do we find the courage to live in the present with the impulses of the I AM? We need courage because the presence of the I AM in our being creates a pressure that can make us anxious.

In the second reflection we considered the independence of the I AM. Because the I AM is now our personal possession, and personal responsibility, we are freed from group consciousness. But everywhere we look new group consciousnesses arise, at work, through sport, in social gatherings etc. People want their freedom and independence but they can’t handle it.

In the first reflection we looked at the clues to finding this bread of life; to ‘come’ and to ‘believe’. We must resist the old patterns of the astral and etheric bodies, created over lifetimes, and let the I AM express itself in us now.

Christ is our food; we must be nourished by him. Christ is the pure cosmic I AM, the bread, that gives us life. It gives us what we require to live and grow and remain healthy - spiritually.

Two interesting observations about the Gospel of St John were -

1.      That the name of Christ is rarely used, it is Jesus who speaks and acts. This helps us to identify with the man which is a much more immediate experience than trying identifying with the God.

2.      That John never reveals himself as the author. After John has heard the word “I” from the mouth of Christ Jesus he cannot bring himself to use it for himself. He can only speak of himself as the Disciple whom Jesus loved. Because he has experienced the reality of the ‘I’ ahead of most of mankind he feels unworthy to use it. This is his experience of the sacredness of the ‘I’.

There can be no doubt that the I AM is a mysterious part of our being. In the 1980s Rev Mario Schoenmaker recommended an exercise for his students. He suggested that we go through a whole day without saying “I” (or me!). This is an excellent thing to do because it draws the force of will into the I AM. It makes us conscious of our place in the world. Our will is the most individual part of us and its destiny is to become free - not free to do what we want but spiritually free. In this process we come to know why we can say, “Not my will but thine”.

Rev Mario also said that it was ridiculous to say, “I have a cold, or I have a headache.” Your “I” cannot have a cold; it does not experience sickness or death. The I AM is life, the bread of life, the substance or life.

The I AM belongs to eternity because it is the core of the human being that incarnates again and again. The substance of the I AM is love, as we experience our I AM more and more in our daily life so we love more. The pure I AM is perfect love – that is our aim and purpose.