we have to say according to the gospels as we know them this is what he said that uh no one uh comes to the father except through me you see it sounds like four that's a very that's a very tight place it means that if you think beyond that's the that's the the sense that people would take or the first reaction would be like whoa you have to go to jesus or else basically there's no way to the father you see like that and i feel that the the um certain uh well predominantly the christian
culture has used that statement like this is our you know that builds a lot upon this statement that you know this is sufficient to prove that jesus is the only way to god this is something it's not like that and uh but earlier if i can take an example earlier now i remember another place where jesus was speaking to some of these the pharisees and the seduces and the from the scenario of his time which was like the political authority the orthodox faiths and so on of the time and they were sort of um there
was some friction some tension uh felt by the by the established uh religious body that here comes this young man who with such seemingly radical ideas sort of working miracles attracting a lot of people and they were a little sort of like uh a bit uncomfortable with his message because he was very unafraid and and confronted many things that no one had talked about until then so in one encounter he had been talking with some of these people and he had said if you knew the truth the truth would set you free and they retorted
and said you know you know we are children of abraham you see who you think you're talking like we are children of abraham and i say as though being children of abraham entitled them to automatic freedom or like this you see and then he said in response to their re to what they spoke you know he said if you were true children of abraham you would have listened to me and accepted what i say to you because abraham spoke of me and this really aroused a lot of reaction from them they said what are you
saying you know do you know what you're saying our father abram lived centuries and centuries ago you're a young man maybe 33 years old or whatever how dare you speak like that are you saying you're as great as our father abraham and he hit straight back you see with this statement he said to tell you the truth before abraham was born i am you see okay now i have to say this because it's linked to your question he said before abraham was born or even conceived i am so obviously he couldn't mean the body that
we know as jesus because that was only 33 years old or something no what is this i am that he is referring to you see because it is said that also um the sense the the the this this i am is said to be also the name of god i am and he's saying before abraham was born i am let's rewind way way back to the time when the children of israel were were were being set free from the hold in egypt and then moses was commanded by god it said like this it's all linked
so please stay with me a minute and then moses was told by god go and confront the pharaoh and tell him to set the israelites free and moses was very very afraid he says what are you saying i i am not on good terms with them at this moment and you know i cannot go in my name who should i say sent me and god said say i am sent to you and such so so much power came into moses that he could move forward and confront the fear like this so now it brings it
back again now jesus statement he said no one comes to the father except me i say what is meant no one comes to the father except through the i am and i want to say what i mean by this i am because all sentient beings certainly all human beings refer to themselves it's through the sense i am nobody taught us to say i am your parents did not call you i they called you a name like john or susan or something like that depending on upon our culture and yet all of us instinctively intuitively spontaneously
refer to ourselves as this i am and so this sense really i am is what jesus meant not just the person of jesus but the i am itself he understood the power of it most people don't understand the power or the implication of the of what it means to say i am no one comes to the father except through understanding and being one with god through the i am sense in them they must know that the i am is not a person but it is the presence of god or the holy presence this is what
it means like that and if people understood this i don't know if they would have even agreed at that time or accepted what he spoke or understood what he said i feel it was still it might have been seen to be provocative but i think it's also i feel also that it is it was very dynamic very very authoritative very powerful very unafraid and very true also because in his understanding the i am and himself were not different so he had the right to to speak like this and now in our own time myself i'm
also pointing to this i am that it must be understood because everyone say i am but don't really understand we all take i am to be a person or personality or ego but it is much more than this i am his consciousness you can say i am his consciousness it is not a person i am his consciousness you see and then it is not enough to say it is consciousness people say ok okay because we're used to feeling that we learn by simply having an intellectual understanding of something but then sadhana or the environment of
satsang helps us to come to a living and direct understanding and experience of that i am-ness itself and to rescue it from this from this universal delusion actually that i am is merely a person yeah
