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Consciousness is what “I AM”
And “I AM” the “I” of every
One who utters it . . .   

WHISPERS FROM WITHIN
March 2005

I am the Vine, Ye are the Branches

 

I, in you, AM the true VINE and you are the branch.  If you then abide in ME and let ME abide in you, you shall bring forth much fruitage.  But if you don’t abide in ME you shall wither and die.  Is this not the clearest statement of our relationship to GOD that was ever uttered?  Is there a clearer way to put it in words?  “Nay,” says the still small voice in me.

It must be remembered that none of the words of scripture or of any other spiritual writing is referring to persons as such.  Just as the use of the vine and branches is symbology so is the use of reference to person such as father, mother, God, or Christ.  All of these terms or concepts refer to either a characteristic of or a relationship in consciousness.  All is consciousness so every story or allegory, every metaphor, every use of symbology must be translated into a relationship in consciousness.  Since there is but one consciousness, and this one yours and mine, the only relationship with which we need concern ourselves is our own individual spiritual relationship with our Source.  If we once develop a realized conviction, a feeling, of our own spiritual relationship in consciousness, then we will have realized our spiritual relationship to every person, place, or thing since in union with the one SPIRIT in us we’ve attained it with all that IS.

 

I AM is the VINE.  This I AM is not the spoken one; not the one you and I voice.  This I AM is the one given the name “the still small voice” that is heard or sensed or discerned in our conscious awareness.  This is ITS unmistakable means of identification, clarification, or distinction from our own thought or the mesmeric jumble of impersonal universal human thought operating in us.  ITS singular refrain is “I AM.”  Know then that when this “I AM” is heard in you IT is SPIRIT announcing ITSELF in you to you and as you.  Naturally, until you and I do hear this voice and IT becomes a constant living PRESENCE in us we must be uncertain, skeptical, or unsure, leaning as if on a broken reed.  This is so even though our many teachers, books, etc., have proclaimed that “I AM” in us to be reality for we can not bring ourselves to a state of conviction about something we haven’t personally / individually experienced.  Even one or two experiences of hearing the voice may not be sufficient to settle our doubts.  We may require many such encounters with SPIRIT.  And we need not be dismayed at this prospect either for once the experience has been real-ized (embodied) we have been instructed that “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”  But even a single encounter of the PRESENCE in us will be so life altering that we will be continuously turned inward seeking more awareness of ITS nature.

We must first have a realization of the VINE and ITS nature, character, and qualities.  We don’t start with knowing some truth about our self, the branch, for there isn’t any.  It soon becomes obvious that if the branch is part of the VINE and we develop a realized state of consciousness of the VINE then we’ll also have attained that same consciousness of all that emanates from the VINE.  If we therefore concentrate our meditations and study on GOD or SPIRIT forgetting man (our self) or at least suffering it to be so for now as far as he/it is concerned, we’ll find an attained consciousness of man to be encompassed in our attained consciousness of GOD since there isn’t GOD and man, there’s only GOD formed or man-ifested.  GOD manifested!  Whence cometh man?  Drop the “ifested” from manifested and you’ve found man - GOD MAN.  He (you and I) was always a constituted aspect of GOD.  There never was GOD separate from man!  GOD was and always will be manifested!

 

Ye (you) are the branch!  This means individual you whoever and wherever you maybe.  Nowhere does it single out a particular you or a particular group of yous.  It makes no mention of us having to be good people first!  That “ye” is universal including everyone saints and sinners alike.  It’s as impersonal as the sun shining in the sky or the falling rain.  These elements don’t choose whom to warm or to refresh.  They simply do what they do!  They just are!  The sun is being the sun and the rain is being rain.  Likewise the VINE is being a vine by producing branches.  So no one of us is separate from the benediction of SPIRIT.  The mere fact that we’re here now and conscious is proof of SPIRIT’S infinity for IT has come into expression in unique yet individual ways of expression as us.  SPIRIT, the VINE, is the one CONSCIOUSNESS.  Since we are individual states of consciousness and SPIRIT is the one CONSCIOUSNESS, it can only follow that we are but IT in expression.

 

In reality there isn’t a VINE “and” branches there’s only the VINE made  manifest as those branches.  Standing back from the tree, we see it in its entirety not as a distinct vine and branches.  The wholeness is perceived and this is all-inclusive.  Obtaining that mind which was in Christ, the Master, puts us in the position of being able to stand back and view the spiritual universe as a whole, and we see that completeness which causes us to drop concern for any of the manifested  forms as which it appears.

 

In union with GOD/IAM/CONSCIOUSNESS (the VINE), I (the branch) am supplied with everything necessary for harmonious being.  Thus united, all the fruitage of SPIRIT enters the world via the outlet of my consciousness.  Here then, through my conscious union with GOD I’ve actually opened out a way for the imprisoned splendor of SPIRIT to escape blessing not only me in the process but anyone else who is reaching out within her/himself and is receptive to my state of consciousness and who brings her/himself within range of it.

 

This concept of a vine and its branches symbolizes our inner relationship with our true SELF.  And on the spiritual path (another concept symbolizing the progress of our inner conscious development) we are making the journey needed to restore this inner connection or union.  It should be obvious that this isn’t something you and I can accomplish with our finite intellect since we know little or nothing at all about the workings of SPIRIT.  “MY ways are not your ways.”  All that is to take place in us in perfecting our union with GOD does so as a matter of grace.  An infinity of wisdom and intelligence is already in the deeper aspect of our consciousness.  We need only get ourselves (that self we now believe our self to be) out of the way sufficiently to prepare a place in our consciousness for the indwelling Light of LOVE and WISDOM to break through.  IT can’t possibly do this while the dark cloud of a personal sense of self stands as a shield against that LIGHT.  Though this shield is a product of thought or belief, a mindless nothingness, still while we are living in, through, by, and as a mind inundated with human conditioning it seems to be an obstacle that needs to be overcome.  The truth is it isn’t an obstacle at all.  It has no power to do anything except what we give it by our belief in it.  Remove that belief and it dissolves of its own accord for it was nothing to begin with.  Had it been a power, a cause, a reality with a law to sustain it there wouldn’t be anything that could be done about it.  But in the light of TRUTH it takes wings much like darkness does in the presence of light.

 

“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one.”  But you must indeed “HEAR” it, not merely think it!  It is the singular voice of IAM/SPIRIT in us that finally reveals ITSELF in us to be ALL - the inner as well as the outer, both of which are invisible and eternal.  Where then, I ask, does that leave the human, physical, material concept we had of ourselves?  Think on these things!

 

Until we are able to actually discern ONENESS as the reality of being it will not be possible for us to reap the full benefit of our unchangeable relationship to SPIRIT.  It takes a monumental work (Grace functioning in us) of developing consciousness to the point of inner receptivity to that “still small voice,” bringing ourselves to live, move, and have our being in IT from morning to night and night to morning.  This is dwelling consciously in the secret place of the Most High.  We are to do this until such time as TRUTH becomes bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.

IAM _________ (fill in the blank)!  This is but another way of saying, GOD IS.  Anything placed in that blank is GOD formed, if it exists at all.

 

The “IAM” that we hear somewhere deep within our awareness is the true VINE.  IT is in all but all do not “hear” IT.  We have grown so accustomed to external noises and distractions that long ago we lost contact with the VINE within us.  Nonetheless, that VINE was in us from the beginning and will forever be with us. “I will never leave you nor forsake you; I will be with you until the end of the world.”  However, for this VINE to be a benediction in our individual experience we must individually bring our self into a living conscious awareness of IT.  Nothing can happen in our experience except as an activity of our consciousness.  We then are to come into the full realization of that VINE in us by keeping IT consciously alive in our thought until such point as IT becomes embodied in us as a state of consciousness rather than as a mere thought in our mind.

 

Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it.