Question: What is I Am?

I Am is at the doorstep of God. It is not the Self Alone. 

It could be said to be luminous, intimate, yet mysterious Presence.

• Luminous: meaning clear, bright, vivid, wakeful
• Intimate: “closer than close” and therefore not even possibly an it, an object
• Mysterious: insofar as “the slim yet perceptible gap” between I Am and What I Am is palpably felt. I Am. I know, immediately, I Am. But I don’t–yet–know What I Am.
• Presence: this “something,” which is not something and which is not “an extra,” is undeniably here-now-this.

Is I Amness the end of sadhana?

No, I Amness is the beginning–the true start–that is almost but not quite the end. If you stop at I Amness, then you’re nesting in a state, a concept. Those who nest in I Amness do not know who they are.

This is why the great Chan masters urge us to probe the huatou–here, I Am. When you probe I Am, you quiver in wonderment.

The practice is like trying to recall a name, a word that is at the tip of your tongue. You stay with this quivering. You open to the stirring, to the wonderment. When you gently probe and probe the recollection, perhaps–Ah!–the truth is revealed.

Probing I Amness is somewhat like this. The main difference, of course, is that to probe I Amness is to put everything on the line.