WHO AM I?

 
"Who am I? I have said that I am not this body. Then who am I? I might be energy; but when I do not move, do not act — when I am unconscious — energy does not manifest itself; yet I still exist. So I am not energy.

"I might be mind. But the same applies here. When I am unconscious, in sound sleep, and the mind is still, the mind is not functioning, but I still exist; so I am also not mind. Then who am I? Try to grasp this. Let us try to understand what can not be understood. I am that which is not body, not energy, not mind.

"In sound sleep, what do you experience? Nothing. That is you. I will now tell you something that is not said, that is not written, that must not be said, but I say it. I am sound sleep. Why? If I am not body, energy, mind, then I am that which has no body, energy, mind; and only sound sleep means that. Only sound sleep answers the question. In sound sleep you are not body, not energy, not mind, and yet the body is there, energy is there, mind is there. Only the consciousness of body, of energy, of mind is not there.

"I will now go to the first point and return to this later. The original state of the beginningless Beginning was the infinite sound-sleep state of the Infinite One. In the beginningless Beginning, when there was no creation, no universe — not even nothing — there was only the state of 'was.'

"Then started the Ten States of God, which you will find described in God Speaks. During the processes of evolution and reincarnation, impressions were gathered; body, energy and mind developed, and the soul, in spite of its infinite state, experienced itself as the finite body, as energy, and as mind, due to these impressions.

"Now we return. In sound sleep, Malcolm is not conscious of body, energy, mind, and only Malcolm as real Malcolm exists. The important point is that Malcolm in the sound-sleep state exists as 'I am Malcolm,' and is absolutely unconscious of this 'I-ness.' The ego in the sound-sleep or absolute-unconscious state is called 'The Natural Ego.' There are three kinds of ego; the first is the Natural Ego.

"What wakes you up from sound sleep? The impressions that lie on your mind. They say, 'Malcolm, wake up! We want to be spent.' So Malcolm wakes up and spends the impressions through thinking, desiring, acting; and Malcolm, while spending the impressions, thinks 'I am this body.' This 'I' is called the 'False Ego.' Let us not go too deeply into this. Malcolm, who really is Malcolm, and not this body, according to impressions, takes one form after another, and goes on spending new impressions. But that is a different chapter.

"While spending old impressions, new impressions are formed, which also need spending; so, ever new forms are taken, according to good and bad impressions — man, woman, beautiful, ugly, rich, poor, strong, weak, and so forth. They are like different clothes, which you alternately wear and discard, and all along, this False Ego persists.

"Then comes a time when the impressions grow fainter and fainter, scarcer and scarcer. Eventually they become so faint that they fade away completely, and when impressions are not there, mind's functioning is stopped.

"The heart is now naked and pure, because there are no desires, no longings, no feelings; yet you are still there. Then the 'I', void of all impressions, has no bindings, no limits. It now experiences that state which is above mind, because the mind is no longer there. It experiences the Infinite Original State of Real 'I'-ness. This ego is called the Real Ego, and just as with the False Ego, Malcolm said, 'I am this body' — or I am this energy — or I am this mind; — now Malcolm says 'I am God.'

"So there is the Natural Ego, the False Ego and the Real Ego. Only the pure in heart can see God."