The Hunky Jesus Picture

Many years ago I walked into a spiritual bookstore and way in the back of the store on a high shelf I saw this picture. It really stopped me dead in my tracks. I felt a rush of joy, a sense of familiarity, love and rightness that I had never felt before with any image of Jesus…..though I had seen many. I thought….”Oh…there he is…that’s how I feel Him in my heart, not distant, aloof or untouchable ….but here and now, in and with authentic intimacy and love….a true brother, friend, companion and guide.” Needless to say I bought the picture and since that time have given out many to friends along the way that feel a connection with me and with Jesus. It is lovingly referred to as the “hunky Jesus” picture.

Okay…..here’s the thing. I know this is just a picture, an image and a symbol. I have had times when I thought it silly to have a picture (externally and internally) and have decided to be more abstract again…to grow up, be more Absolute, less personal….in my awakening process to and with God. But those times don’t last for very long because there is a sense of loneliness that wells up in my heart when I get too Absolute. I have learned, after many years of going back and forth between the intimate and personal approach and the impersonal, formless and Absolute approach….that everything of my being responds and expands through the more tactile and personal …… while……everything of my being starts to feel dry and sad and withered without it. Finally, as I was pondering this one day and moving towards the thought…..once again…that I “should” really let go of all images, that sweet Voice interrupted my analysis of the situation and told me to relax….that if/when it was important for me to release this approach to Reality….. using certain symbols…it would come naturally and without any sense of loss at all.

Recently, as I was sitting in my prayer chair, with my candles lit and incense burning, I gazed at this picture and I noticed that the joy of it still filled me…..with a deep smile and a sense of closeness, nearness and oneness. And then Jesus spoke to me about it….and now I am quite sure that we will not be having to have any more conversations about this subject. He basically told me that He brought the picture to me that day in the bookstore, as a gift of His Love…… because I do respond to an intimate and personal approach to Reality.

He continued and said “yes, it’s true….this picture and image is but a symbol….. but I am standing behind it…. drawing your mind and heart…. through it… into conscious togetherness with Me…..and it is this merging which restores to you….. the awareness and remembrance of our Oneness and sameness…..which is your awakening to the Light of Christ that we share.”

He told me to freely love and utilize the symbol, without hesitation or reserve, that it would never hold me back but would help focus and center my heart while drawing me past the form and into the Omnipresent Light beyond it. The scripture “I am the Door” came to me….and I understood it from a different perspective. He said to use the image to pray with whenever I felt the desire to do so and to enter into it in my deeper prayer times. He told me that Love uses symbols to help us awaken and that this had been and still is a Gift for me and that I can just embrace it and enjoy it and utilize it. All symbols and concepts will fade away….but only when they are no longer useful.

A few days after this He said one more thing that I want to share. He said that we can all understand and use our images in time (our body-personalities) the same way. As the “Hunky Jesus”  picture is a symbol through which His Love draws me into Union with Him as the means of my awakening…..our images can be seen in the same way….as visible, tangible symbols through which He may Shine  to draw to Him…. through us…. those that can respond to Him. What a joy and what a beautiful way to help us release the ego self.

A Starting Point

A Starting Point

With everything we think, feel and do….there is a STARTING POINT. In other words, ALL of our thoughts and feelings and actions come forth from a specific “place” deep within our psyches….they don’t just randomly come to us….they bubble up from the depths of what we believe in our hearts about Who, What and Where we actually are…right in this present here and now. Our starting point is something like the little machine you find at the bottom of a fish tank. As it quietly runs way down deep in the tank it constantly produces bubbles that rise to the surface of the water. Even if we are unaware of the little machine…we can’t help but to see and even hear the constant stream of bubbles it’s activity appears as.

And so with us….way down in the depth of our hearts, we have something like this….a little machine, actually two little machines or pumps, that are constantly emitting two diametrically opposed belief systems and stories about Who and Where we are….appearing on the surface of our awareness as our believed Identity, our self-concept and the story of our life in time.

One machine is pumping out a story that tells us we have and are… separated from God and from our Self as Her beloved and changeless Expression. Out of this belief of separation, which this little machine lying at the bottom of our psyche is continually pumping out….comes our entire experience of human hood or the mental state that still believes it is living apart from Heaven. Human hood is the experience of duality….where everything has an opposite….where there is love and fear, safety and danger, goodness and evil, light and darkness, Spirit and physicality. In this dream of separation, even where there seems to be beauty, love and happiness…lurking around the corner, somewhere, waiting to pounce on us, is its supposed opposite. And on a deep level, even more terrifying for us, human hood is the state of belief that we have truly lost our precious Identities as Children or direct Expressions of Divine Love, that live, move and have their being, in a spiritual Universe created out of Love without opposite.

This is a very simplistic way of stating this, I know, but I love simplicity and feel we can all benefit sometimes from it.

Anyhow, this machine tells us stories about who and where we are that perpetuate our belief that we have become and still are…. separated from our Source, that we have actually changed ourselves from being Expressions of perfect Love, Light and eternal Joy, forever and ever embraced in our Home of perfect Love and Safety….to being people in a scary world, where everything and everyone is separated….and subject to everything but the Love of God…..living in a universe of conflict and opposites rather then within Her eternal Gift of Safety and Peace. As long as we continue to listen to the thoughts, feelings, emotions, pictures and images that come forth from this belief of separation, this particular machine….we will cry….and every tear, though it seems to be because of all the sad things that happen to us and around us, is really an expression of the grief and profound despair we all feel in believing we are no longer and have lost forever….. the Beautiful, Free Beings that we really are.

This machine or thought system though….with its full story of an identity and life and experience other than Love and a Universe other than Spirit……is all made up……and as we desire to awaken from its false story and the dream of separation it spins out for us….with all the thoughts, feelings, and images that support it….we discover a wholly different ‘machine” with a whole different story that we can and must consciously turn to.

This other machine or thought system or Voice is a completely different Starting Point….based on what is real and true rather then false and made up. This Voice tells us that we are NOT separated from Love, that we have NOT ruined ourselves, that we DO live, move and have our being in a Universe of Love, that we ARE Beloved of God and Children of Heaven rather then Children of the world. Connecting with this machine or Voice connects us with the thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions, and perspectives that bubble up from It…..and awakens our hearts fully from the dream story of living apart from Reality.

Two “machines”….two Voices, two stories…..living deep within our psyches…..”Choose ye this day, whom ye will serve.” or in more current language…. whom we will listen to, learn from and think with. In everything we think, feel, do and are….which STARTING POINT do we want to be consciously connected with?