The Insight that Settles the Debate on God

Two friends are having a debate. One says, "I'm an atheist." The other says, "I'm a theist." And they go on this long and winding conversation.

But at the very beginning something was missed.

You see, both statements began with "I am."

"I am an atheist."

"I am a theist."

And so on.

So if you really want to understand the nature of reality, which is what the debate is really about, shouldn't you focus on what that "I am" refers to?

Because that is undeniably real. You don't need to search for evidence, because it is self-evident.

Everyone knows, "I am."

Now, if you start to think about it, the first idea would be: Well, when I say I am, I refer to me, not to my friend. But if you look at the back of your hands right now, and if you had seen these hands when you were a child, would you have been able to say these are my hands?

Everything changes over time.

Everything you have known. Your body has undergone dramatic changes. Even your brain. Because the connections in there now, they were built over time.

There were many more connections at some point, and then they were pruned. And they continue to be pruned.

But there's always a sense that I am still the same "I".

So what gives us that stability?

That firm belief, I am still the same "I".

Now, if you consider your memories, they're also quite unstable. If you just stop and try to think of some memories from your lifetime, some will pop up. But they'll be just snapshots.

Random ones from among the many experiences you've had in this life.

And in those memories, what you'll find if you look closely, if you examine them, is all they contain are the remnants of an experience. Emotion. Some visual elements. Sounds. What was said, what was felt.

But you are not in the memory.

The memory is of the experience, and you're not that experience.

So even if you take the whole collection of your memories, they still don't represent what you mean when you say, I am.

And so, in this life where everything is changing; your body, your mind, experiences being lived, remembered, forgotten, your personality changing, having new opinions, losing old ones, finding new passions, and losing old obsessions, even the people that you love the most has changed over time.

What you find is that your identity is not based on all these changing things.

There is something else.

A common thread on which all these different beads are being strung together.

And that is what you refer to when you say, "I am."

Without that thread all these experiences would just be separate. Discrete events.

Now, once you've taken away the more transient and changing aspects of identity, the foundation is quite clear.

When you say, "I am," you refer to being present and conscious. Being here, right now.

It is very immediate. This knowledge is available directly. It's intrinsic to being conscious.

And that is why you can say I am, without thinking, without referring to memory.

You feel it.

So, we don't need logic or belief in this case. What "I am" refers to is known immediately and directly.

And in every memory that you have ever had, this sense was present.

There's no question about it. Because if you did not know of your own existence at that point, there would be no experience and no memory.

That is the common thread tying everything together.

But it is not proving your individuality.

It's proving something that's common to every life. In every experience this sense of existence must be present.

Now, it's probably worth clarifying what existence means here. In the standard sense of when we say this rock exists, we're talking about something that's observable.

But if the rock has never ever been observed, can we say that it exists? The rock doesn't know that it exists.

So, that kind of existence depends on observation. Of course, through observations we can draw up conclusions, define laws of physics.

That's the domain of science. And we could say those laws exist. And that is all fine in describing the observable universe.

But here we're seeing there's another aspect of existence, which is very different.

Where there's no need to be observed in order to know that you exist, but where you know that you exist through the fact of observation.

This is real Existence.

What it means to actually be.

To exist in Reality.

Because the other kind of existence, that of a rock, is a phenomenal existence. Subjective. It can be called an appearance.

But this Existence that "I am" refers to, is real and undeniable.

It is what Existence means in Reality.

It means to be, and to know.

But this is not a personal existence. There's nothing different about it between one mind and another.

"I am" always refers to this very same Existence.

Even if you imagine a ladybug, for example. If you can imagine that there is a stream of experience there, very different to a human experience, but at its very basis must still be the sense of Existence. A wordless sense of being present and conscious.

So this is the very ingredient of life. The most basic ingredient.

Wherever the sense that "I am" arises, a mind can begin to take shape. You can build all kinds of senses and experiences around it, but at the very foundation is always the sense of Being, of Existence.

And so this is not my existence or your existence; this is the sense of Existence itself.

And so when someone says, "I am," and they think it refers to them individually, it is actually wrong.

So what you thought proves your individuality, in fact proves your universality.

The common foundation of all minds and all lives is being pointed out by this simple fact that I am.

And if we just go back to how we started with the debate about atheism and theism going on, it's all based around a bit of ignorance.

There's a verse in the Bible which is maybe quite relevant here. It's when God appears to Moses and tells him,

"I am that I am."

It is a very precise statement.

Very few have ever dared to try to comprehend those words. But they are meant to be understood.

God is what you refer to when you say, "I am."

Even an atheist says, "I am."

Because "I am" does not refer to the kind of God that's been painted by religion. It does not refer to a universal mind that judges human beings.

No.

"I am" refers to Consciousness itself.

Existence. The proof of Reality being present.

That is the true meaning of "I am." The depth of its meaning.

So you see, when we say God is omnipresent, it's because Consciousness is present at any point in time, in any point in space, for life to take shape. For a mind to exist.

And if we say God is omniscient, well Consciousness fits the bill. Because for any experience to be known, Consciousness must be present.

For anything to be known there must be Consciousness.

And if we say God is omnipotent, anything can appear in consciousness . Rivers and mountains.

Love and hate. All of it.

So, all of religion is a misunderstanding of what is being talked about.

What the prophets, and the mystics, and the sages, actually arrived upon was just this understanding What it means to say, I am.