THIS SIMPLE MEDITATION CAN SETTLE YOU !!

HAVE YOU BEEN TRYING AND TRYING to calm your zillions of runaway thoughts and fears, but somehow find yourself assaulted yet again? This guy, Robert Adams, knows what he’s talking about when it comes to going deep and staying there! Hint: he even allows a moment or two of self-inquiry to stare down [my words] any particularly obstreperous unwanted thoughts. Here, I’ll let him tell you himself. Remember the key word is SIMPLE :

“I Am is the first name of God. When you want to think of God, you think of I Am with your respiration. I Am is the first name of God. Close your eyes and try. Inhale and say, “I.” Exhale and say, “Am.” Doesn’t that make you feel good? Just by saying I Am to yourself, it lifts you up. So the thing to do is this: Whenever you have a problem, I don’t care what it is, I don’t care how serious you think it is, whether it’s worldly or personal, wherever it came from, the secret is to forget yourself. For the moment, forget about the problem for as long as you can, and do the I Am meditation. If your mind wanders, bring it back again, and do the I Am meditation.
“When I explain this to some people they say, Robert, but you tell us we have to get rid of our minds. We have to annihilate the mind, not think with it. This is true. This is the highest truth. But most people cannot do this. Remember Advaita Vedanta is really for mature souls, people who have practiced sadhana in previous lives. It’s like going to school. Self-inquiry, Advaita Vedanta, is like the university of spiritual life. You cannot fool yourself.
“There are so many people who try to practice Self-inquiry and they give it up. Then I tell them to surrender, surrender completely. That’s the other way. Again this becomes difficult. They try it for a while and they always revert back to themselves, your personal self. So, I give them the I Am meditation.
“Everybody can do that. When nothing seems to work, go back to the I Am. It’s really powerful. Do not take it as simple. I can guarantee you this: if you practice I Am for one day, all of your troubles will be transcended. You will feel happiness like you have never felt before. You will feel a peace that you never even knew existed.
“As you keep practicing the I Am, your thoughts will become less and less. Your personal self will go into the background and you will feel an inner bliss. You will begin to feel that it no longer matters what I’m going through. It makes no difference, because it is God that is going through this, not me. And God has no problems. You automatically become happy, just by using the I Am meditation.
“In the Bhagavad Gita it says, “Out of a million people, one searches for God. And out of a million people who search, one finds Him.[“] It’s sort of difficult. That’s how it appears. But, if you begin to use I Am as a meditation and you allow the I Am to go deeper and deeper, your bodily consciousness will disappear, and the I Am will take over.
If you want to mix Self-inquiry, Atma Vichara, with I Am, that’s permissible. You can use them both together. I’ll explain how. Say you’re using the I Am meditation. In between, thoughts keep popping up. Whether they’re good thoughts or bad thoughts makes no difference, but thoughts keep interfering. You can now inquire “To whom come these thoughts?” Just observe and watch.
“When your mind becomes silent again, you go back to the I Am meditation with your respiration. When thoughts come again you inquire, “To whom do they come?” As you progress in this method, you complete the question. “The thoughts come to me. What is the source of me? Who am I? What is the source of I?”
“You begin to feel and see that the “I” that seems to have the problem is not you. You begin to feel “I” have a problem. “I” am sick. “I” am angry. “I” have no peace of mind. And you begin to laugh. For the realization tells you, “I” has all these things, I don’t. “I” is the culprit. “I” appears to want this and need that. So it is with wants, desires and self-aggrandizement. All of this belongs to the “I.” Who is this I? Where does it come from? If the “I” isn’t really me, then who am I? And you keep still.
“Now you may go back to the I Am with respiration. You inhale and you say I. You exhale and say Am. As you progress this way, you’re going to find out something interesting happens to your life. You’re going to find there’s more space between I Am. It will happen by itself. You will inhale and you will say I, and all of a sudden, nothing will come out of that. Then you will exhale with Am. You will inhale again and say I. Remember you’re not putting this on, you’re not making this happen. It’s happening all by itself and the space between I Am is the fourth dimension of consciousness. After waking, sleeping, dreaming. It is the state of the Jnani. It is your freedom. It is Pure Awareness. And when you keep practicing, “Who am I?” alternating with both of them, there will be a greater space before you say, “Who am I?” again.
“That space is bliss. You’ll feel something you’ve never felt before. An inner joy. An inner delight. You will just know that the whole universe is the Self, and I Am That. As the months progress, the words become less and less. You may start off with I Am, and then you will be in the Silence. You will not say another word. You will just experience the Silence. That Silence is Nirvana, Emptiness. It is no thing. It is the nothing I was talking about. You will just sit in the Silence.”

ROBERT ADAMS
I AM Meditation
Silence of the Heart
pages 101-104