I am that i am. Am I that I am? That I am, am I? I am not trying to make a foolish statement, but estranged artist who once created a hypnopompic / mild hallucinogenic brainwave altering device created this free form of association with simply the words "I am that I am" and mixing them up. You soon find that you can do this with many phrases to find an alternate and perhaps more practical way of looking at the phrase turned upon itself.
The words are superfluous but humour me for the moment. There is the certainty of "I am that i am". Then we ask ourselves who we are, then declaring who we are and synchronically ask ourselves if we really are just that. This is so beautifully framed to fit our many states of transitional esteems and our environment being the affirmative of our beliefs.
I'm finding this out for myself. As age may not have anything to do with when these questions are asked i hope to shed the light I've found on these matters of identity.
Since a child, we have been set to the close task of observation. Taught simply to do as your told, we are mouthpieces to the pithy maxims repeated generations ago. We under safe guidance have followed thus far to whatever extent we've kept whatever. The point is that by observing, the constant reminder to do as your told without reason -- without "why" will bore our own understanding to the belief that it is in these actions alone that the reward is reaped, mearly by replication; acting. Pretenscious invocation. Soon we find in themselves they hold no yield of reward or treat.
So once we believe that we can be whatever we want, we cloth ourselves with the personality suited for the person; all the plethora of cultural movements and associations stereotyped with our "type". You wear big glasses - suddenly your a nerd in public school, and those stereotypes carry on as we live the parts.
Essentially we are all playing the role of flesh and bone with a consciousness inside which has nothing to do with the body. In that case, everything we project through the senses are interpreted as languages so we can codify it, and program it later. Every movement then becomes a gesture a form of communication naturally then; Unconsciously, subconsciously or consciously. I'd like to call it "forms of expression" for this context since we are seeking to communicate through an open statement or question, "I am" or "Am I?"
The statement "I am" is a proclamation of being. Being does not require form or substance. We are, whether it be in life or in death. It does not require forms of expression to be. We simply are already. It requires no language. It does not require perceiving or projecting oneself. Its a permanent inflection of the self observing qualities of itself - hence when the statement says "i am that I AM. Its a mirror of eternal perfection. This can only be realized though by a state where one can see only oneself. How is that possible? It needs a reflection - where can that reflection come from? We need a form of expression to see qualities which others will observe so they might acknowledge that back to you. That is why we ask "am I?"
It seems the only one who is capable of understanding and fulfilling those words with complete security is God himself when we says "I am that I am" in Exodus 3:14. God is perfect and complete, but only in completion of the atonement, of which we are all a part of being his sons -- all a part of him.
I suppose part of understanding our role is exactly this; God experiencing himself/herself through the sonship, and manifesting oneness through our own free will to unite as perfect reflections of the one God.
The atonement in is basic form is just this; "At - one - ment". Can't spell it our better. Only the holy spirit can help us undo the false associations and images we have given each other. The day will one day come when we will all live as spirit in God's presence. I hope we all be there of the flipside.
