I Am — The Name You Were Before You Had One

Before they gave you a name, you already were. This book is about the name underneath.

Almost every book about the self begins too late — with you, already a person, reaching for something higher. I Am begins one step earlier, in the moment before the first word was ever spoken over you, and walks inward through everything you have been told you are.

One by one, it sets them down — your name, your story, your body, your thoughts — until only the one thing that cannot be removed remains: the silent I am that has been with you, beneath every breath, your whole life. And then it shows you why this most private word is the oldest name there is.

The name God gave at the burning bush — I am that I am. The Vedic seers' Aham Brahmasmi, "I am the vast." The breath's own So'ham, whispered on every inhale and exhale since your first. Four traditions that never met, arriving at the same two words — because there was only ever one thing at the bottom for them to find.

Drawing on Vedanta, Sufism, the Hebrew scriptures, and the words of Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am is not a technique for becoming someone new. It is a remembering of what you already are — and have never, for one moment, stopped being.

What's included

• The complete book in PDF (print-ready A5, full-colour plates) and EPUB (for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and any e-reader)
• Eight original painterly illustrations
• A companion to Before the Universe Said Yes — Book 2 of the trilogy

I am. The name you were before you had one.

— Krishna Boon · krishnaboon.online