I AM

I Am. I can not remember a time when I was not, so I must conclude that I have always been. I live, but not in any way that I have seen any other creatures that I have ever found. During My entire existence, I have found many other living beings, and I have learned many things from them and about them.

But they are all different than I Am.

Of all of the life forms that I have ever encountered during My long existence, I am the only one that does not have some kind of physical, material body. The others have all been limited, because of those material aspects of themselves. They exist in many different forms, shapes and sizes. But although each of them is different, they are, in one very real sense, the same. They are all mortal. Physical bodies, regardless of the material of which they are made, regardless of the shape or size, regardless of how well developed or advanced, all wear out eventually and cease to function. When that happens, they die. Since I do not have a physical body, not even a gaseous one, I have nothing to wear out, nothing to cease to be. No, I exist more in the realm of pure spiritual energy.

In one sense, all of those mortal beings have a very real advantage that I do not have. Each of those intelligent beings have been able to live their entire lives knowing that they are not really alone, knowing that there are others of their kind. Only I, of all of the intelligent beings in the universe that I have become aware of, only I am one of a kind. Only I can know what it is to be completely alone. Others have thought that they knew what loneliness is, but until a being has lived for uncounted turns of the galaxies without the benefit of a single companion for even the briefest instant, they can not know what it is to be alone.

I have traveled through the spaces between the stars and between the galaxies. I have watched the life on many planets grow and develop. Some of those that I have watched have found ways to leave their planets and travel through space themselves. The first time that I saw that happen, it excited Me, I thought that perhaps, just perhaps, they might be developing to the extent that they might be able to become aware of Me, to communicate and interact with Me. But none of them ever have. And I have watched them die back and become extinct.

Some of the life forms that I have found didn't really interest Me, and I would not watch them for long, sometimes less than the time that it would take for this star to complete one tenth of a revolution around this galaxy. Then I would move on to another area until I could find a life form that did interest Me for a while. But even that becomes tiresome after awhile.

Finally, I found this planet. I am not really sure what it was about it that interested Me to begin with, but it was different in some ways than any other that I had ever watched and studied. To begin with, life was abundant here, but none of it was really intelligent. There was only the most rudimentary intelligence in any of the creatures that inhabited this world. That in itself was different than any of the other planets that I have watched. Also the life forms were very diverse, but most of the more dominant forms were reptilian.

I had seen planets before that had reptilian life forms that were very intelligent as physical life forms go, but none on this planet were of anything more than the most primitive, rudimentary intelligence. I decided to watch them for a time, perhaps I could see them develop intelligence. They didn't.

Finally, after watching them for more than a hundred fifty million of this planet's revolutions about it's star, I tired of them. I had watched new species develop and die out, to be replaced by other species. They had all depended on size or armor or speed or ferocity or some combination of those traits for survival. None had developed anything even approaching intelligence.

So, as I said, I tired of them. Even though I have no physical existence, that does not mean that I can not effect the physical universe. It is an effort, but I can do it. So I did something that I had never done before. I interfered. On the periphery of this solar system, I found a large, frozen mass, mostly water ice, but with some rock and other things in it as well. I concentrated on it for a while and caused it to start moving out of it's orbit, swinging inward toward this star. My timing and the impetus that I applied were perfect, I did not have to interfere with it once I got it moving. Eventually, it impacted on this planet.

There were several effects of that impact. In the first place, a tremendous pressure front, due to air compression under the falling comet caused high winds that wiped out large areas of plant life. Tidal waves rolled across the oceans. The fireball set fires that covered large areas of the planet. Then there were tremendous quantities of dust that were thrown into the atmosphere, enough to significantly reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface. This caused the surface temperature of the planet to drop somewhat and also slowed down plant growth, in fact, some species of plants died out altogether.

Another effect that was caused by the impact was to cause the tectonic plates under the surface of the planet to start moving. Since they had been relatively stable for a long time, this motion caused some changes in the surface of the planet. As the plates started moving, some buckling took place. This caused mountain chains to rise up. Volcanoes formed and started spewing molten lava out. All in all, a very fascinating result.

I started to leave, but then I decided to wait and see how long it would take for all life on this planet to die off. Surprisingly, it didn't. Oh, most of the reptiles did die, certainly all of the large ones, and much of the plant life as well. But some plants did survive, as did some life in the seas and two different types of life forms that I had not really paid much attention to while the large reptiles had been roaming about. The reason that I hadn't paid much attention to them was because they were so small and insignificant, compared to the reptiles. These were the birds and some small mammals.

So I decided to watch them for awhile. You see, it really is quite lonely being the only one of My kind. I keep hoping to find another like Myself, one that can be as fully aware of Me as I am of other things, but so far I have found nothing. I have hoped that some of the beings that I have watched would grow and develop and perhaps eventually become somewhat like Me, but none have.

Anyway, the fact that some life did survive interested Me, and I decided to watch it for a while. I watched while they developed on many different, divergent paths. Eventually, one of the many branches of those early mammals started to develop intelligence. What the reptiles had not managed to do on this planet these insignificant mammals were doing. Of course, many of the mammals had grown much larger than those early ones had been, including the branch that was developing intelligence.

This was definitely interesting. I have known many, many intelligent races in the past, but this was the first time that I had ever seen one develop from earlier species that were not intelligent. I watched closely as they became self aware, as they developed speech, as they started developing primitive tools.

Then they did something that I had never seen happen before. As I have said, I have known many, many intelligent races. This race developed the concept of personal names. Other races that I have known have invented names for things, but never specific names for individuals. I have seen groups that used titles to describe the job or position within the group. Others have used complex numbering systems. Some have even used odors or sound vibrations, but never personal names. This was a fascinating concept!

Then they surprised Me again. They developed the concept of the supernatural. They were not the first species that I have seen do this, but they did carry it further than any other species that I had ever seen before. Now I was very glad that I had decided to hang around and watch these mammals. They even invented the concept of gods, giving each one of them different names. Finally, I decided to see if I could interact with them, perhaps in some small way. I had never been able to do so with any of the other intelligent species that I had watched before. For the second time, I was going to interfere. In all of my long life, I had never before interfered with any race or the development of life on any planet. Now for the second time, I was going to interfere, and both times it was on the same planet.

I waited until I saw one of the leaders of a nomadic group alone, on the side of one of the mountains on the planet's surface. I directed enough energy into a plant to cause it to glow. I had to be careful here, not enough energy and he would not notice Me, too much energy and the bush would be destroyed, and perhaps the man as well. At any rate, I did it perfectly, and was able to talk to the man, in a limited fashion.

Then he did something that threw Me, something that I had not expected. As I said, I had never run into the concept of personal names before this race developed, and had never thought of a personal name for Myself. So when this primitive asked Me which god that I was, and I had not even thought of Myself in the manner in which they thought of gods, I didn't have a name ready to give him. So I answered in the way that I had always thought of Myself. I told him that I Am. He accepted that.

It wasn't long before many of the people on this planet had accepted Me as their God, and had started inventing names for Me. This race had done something for Me that no other race ever had. They had given Me personal names! There had been a few other races in the past that had become dimly aware of Me, but they had never thought of Me as a god. Of course, those races didn't have the concept of gods. But even those races had not deigned to give Me a personal name, one of them had simply referred to Me as "that incorporeal being."

Now many different religions have sprung up around Me, many of them calling Me by different names. They have credited Me with the creation of the universe and the creation of all Life, but I did not do that, that was done by another. They have even fought wars because of Me. I had never intended for that to happen.

It has been not much more than the blink of an eye to Me since I first contacted that man, Mosses was his name, on the mountain side. But this race is developing remarkably. In the mere sixty six million of this planet's years since I caused the destruction of the giant reptiles, the mammals have evolved into intelligent beings. And in the mere three million years since the earliest primitive beings that were the forebears of this race first appeared, they have learned to split and fuse the atom and to travel in space, if only to a minor degree so far. There are a lot of charlatans among them that profess to have a direct line to Me, and try to use that supposed direct link to Me in order bilk their fellow men of riches. I do not approve of that. But there are a few who do occasionally seem to be directly aware of Me, if even in only a dim and minor way. Maybe if I wait long enough, they will eventually develop to the point that they can become truly and fully aware of Me. Maybe they will even evolve to become like Me, and then I will no longer be alone. These beings have also taught me about something else. I had never encountered the concept of prayer before I found them.

I will pray that they do so evolve.

BACK