ngness is not an audacious self-assertion: it is the only logical
outcome of the fact that there is any life anywhere, and that we are
here to think about it. In the sense of Universal Being, there can be
only One I am, and the understanding use of the words by the individual
is the assertion of this fact. The forms of manifestation are infinite,
but the Life which is manifested is One, and thus every thinker who
recognises the truth regarding himself finds in the I am both himself
and the totality of all things; and thus he comes to know that in
utilising the interior nature of the things and persons about him, he
is, in effect, employing the powers of his own life.

Sometimes the veil which Jesus drew over this great truth was very
transparent. To the Samaritan woman he spoke of it as a spring of Life
forever welling up in the innermost recesses of man's being; and again,
to the multitude assembled at the Temple, he spoke of it as a river of
Life forever gushing from the secret sources of the spirit within us.
Life, to be ours at all, must be ourselves. An energy which only passed
through us, without being us, might produce a sort of galvanic activity,
but it would not be Life. Life can never be a separate entity from the
individuality which manifests it; and therefore, even if we conceive the
life-principle in a man so intensified as to pulsate with what might
seem to us an absolutely divine vitality, it would still be no other
than the man himself. Thus Jesus directs us to no external source of
life, but ever teaches that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, and that
what is wanted is to remove those barriers of ignorance and ill-will
which prevent us from realising that the great I am, which is the
innermost Spirit of Life throughout the universe, is the same I am that
I am, whoever I may be.

On another memorable occasion Jesus declared again that the I am is the
enduring principle of Life. It is this that is the Resurrection and the
Life; not, as Martha supposed, a new principle to be infused from
without at some future time, but an inherent core of vitality awaiting
only its own recognition of itself to triumph over death and the grave.
And yet, again hear the Master's answer to the inquiring Thomas. How
many of us, like him, desire to know the way! To hear of wonderful
powers latent in man and requiring only development is beautiful and
hopeful, if we could only find out the way to develop them; but who will
show