Full Self Consciousness through the I AM
“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying I AM the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12
We have seen how our I AM is a light in the darkness and how we can become, with Christ, the light of the world. The I AM also sheds light on the being referred to as the Father:
The earth exists in order that full self-consciousness, the full expression of the I AM, may be given to mankind. The focal point of the development of the human race is this I AM. Christ is the being who made it possible for every human being – each as an individual – to experience the I AM in themselves.
When we compare the Old and New Testaments we become aware that before Christ fully incarnated, the human being did not yet fully experience the I AM. He experienced himself as a part of a Divine Being just as animals today belong to their group-soul.
A modern Christian – or better put, a Christed person from any religion - feels the presence of the I AM and gradually will learn to experience it more and more. But a Jew from the time of the Old Testament did not feel so enclosed within an individual personality and so could not yet say: “I am an I.” Such a person experienced being within the wholeness of the Jewish people and looked up to its group-soul. If they had wanted to express this in words, they would have said: “My consciousness reaches up to the Father of the whole people, to Abraham… I and Father Abraham are one! In my veins flows the same blood that flows in the veins of Abraham.”
Then Christ came and he said to his nearest, most intimate initiates: “You have been conscious of being one with God through the flesh, through blood relationships. But you should reach for a still higher spiritual relationship. You should believe in a spiritual Father in which the emerging I AM is rooted, and draw upon a more spiritual substance than the group-soul that binds the Jewish people together. You should believe in what lies within me and within every human being, in what is not only one with Abraham, but also one with the very divine foundation of the world.” This is what Christ means when he says: “Before Father Abraham was, was the I AM!” He is saying that his I AM not only goes back to the blood-Father, Abraham, but is one with all that flows through the entire cosmos and is beyond religious beliefs. From this height to which his spiritual nature has been lifted he declares: “I and the Father are one!” These are important words, which we must experience within ourselves.
How did Christ’s initiates respond to his declaration? They said: “No individual physical human being has ever existed before to whom this name of I AM could be applied; Jesus Christ is the first to bring to the world the I AM in its full significance.” Therefore, they named Jesus Christ the I AM. That was the name in which they felt themselves united, the name that they understood, the name “I AM.”
It is with this understanding we have to read the Gospel of St. John. When we find the words: “I AM the Light of the world,” we must interpret them quite literally. Now, what was this “I AM” which for the first time appeared in human form? It was the force of the Logos that united with the earth in the sunlight. Whenever the words “I” or “I AM” appear in St John’s Gospel, realize that I AM was the name in which the initiates felt themselves united.
So Jesus was saying to his disciples: “That which is able to say “I AM” to itself, is the power of the Light of the World, and whoever follows after me will see in clear, waking consciousness.” But the Pharisees, who clung to the old belief that the Light of Divine Love could only be planted within the human being at night, answered: “You call upon your “I AM” but we call upon Father Abraham. In this way we feel the power that justifies us to act as self-conscious beings. We feel ourselves strong and safe when we exist within the substance of the group soul that reaches back to Father Abraham.” However Jesus replied: “If one speaks of the I, as I speak, then the testimony is a true one; for I know that this I comes from the Father, from the very foundation of the world, and I know how it is to evolve in the future.” So John 8:15 should be understood as follows: “You judge all things according to the flesh, but I judge not the perishable that is in the flesh. And if I judge, then is my judgment true. For the I does not exist for itself alone, but it is united with the Father from whom it has descended.” That is the meaning of this passage. If we understand the principle of the Father, we see that the words, “Before Father Abraham was, was the I AM,” contain the living essence of the Christian doctrine.
The purpose of our existence on this earth is to receive the full self-consciousness of the I AM. The fulfilment of our Christianity is, like Christ, to be one with God the Father as an I AM. So shall it be.
Rewrite of the Gospel of St John Lecture 3 (end) by Rudolf Steiner.