"As they have dared, so shall I dare. Dare to tell the truth!" from J'accuse by Emile Zola
Your Divine Self: A Short Introduction to this Site
Have you ever come to the point in your life where your heart cried out to God for a deeper revelation of who "He" is or who you really are? You begin to ask, why am I here, what is my purpose? To experience any growth, these questions are an essential part of the journey we call our lives. It also seems these questions most often times go unanswered. Or have the answers been revealed to us from the very beginning of creation itself?
Everyone has contemplated their own existence and purpose at one time or another. Yet what are some of these answers if they have already been revealed to us? This is where the real power and authority of the “Christ” message becomes more clearer. A divine message that revealed the eternal living amongst us if we could only accept the truth of our own divinity and worth. The Apostle Paul later called it, "Christ in us, the hope of glory." This is the sort of revealed truth that comes at a great personal cost. A cost Jesus of Nazareth paid with his own blood.
Jesus Christ came to affirm our human existance as holy and divine. Jesus wore his identity openly. "I and my Father are one," would eventually cost him his own life. The life of Jesus wasn't one that taught us a new religion but was one that stirred the human heart and soul into believing we were created to make a difference. A difference in the lives of those around us and a difference in this world in which we live.
Your actions today create a ripple affect or echo's in everything and everybody that surrounds you. Through the love and freedom that you are, you have the power of choice. The power to choose right or wrong, death or life. Choose to be the light in the mist of the darkness. Choose to live to honor God and the echo's you create in this life will have eternal meaning.
Discovering who you truly are is the good news of the gospel. You are the "I AM" experience and no longer dead men walking but eternal beings living.
This is or more importantly, you are the kingdom message of Jesus.
"BEHOLD..The Lion of the Tribe of Judah"
The Art of Presence: An Introduction
And He (Jesus) said, "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is given in parables, that 'Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.” Luke 8:10
Jesus loved to tell stories. We know them as parables and it was usually the kingdom of heaven he was trying to explain through them. These stories only pointed to the truth of the kingdom but Jesus knew the real truth went beyond words or parables. At times, the disciples were even confused by what he was saying but they also knew it was a gospel that if misunderstood, one day would cost them thier lives.
I love to tell stories through my art. Art has helped me to understand many things concerning the sacred. Art has been my teacher and has taught me the power of imagination that comes out of the silence of being. Once I began to see the underlying stillness of form which is the formless, it helped me to better comprehend the simple kingdom message of Jesus. Love is that kingdom.
It was a kingdom message that only exists in this now or present moment. A kingdom where we are both the creator and creation. The “Christ in you” is also the god in you. Please understand me, Jesus was the son of god but he pointed out through their own (Hebrew) scripture (Psalms 82:6) that we all, both Hebrew and Gentile, are the sons and daughters of God as well.
Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, "You are gods"?John 10:34
We are called human beings. There are six billion humans on the face of the earth but only one being. The human part or form doesn’t comprehend the being part because it is timeless and has no form. Next time you read the scripture carefully read the words of Jesus as if you were saying them yourself. Your spirit will begin to come alive as you grow in the understanding of your true nature. Which is pure love. The truth of who you are will begin to establish itself only when you overcome your fears with pure love or being that is your true nature.
This is the message I’m trying to convey in my new logo design. The more I discover the truth of being the more these next words of Jesus haunts my ears. He says to be brave and remember the world will hate you because it hated him first. Jesus says when you discover and know the truth of who you are then the world, which is the collective egoic state of mankind, will despise and reject you.
"If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. John 15:18-19
Remember, this world isn’t separate from who you are because we all come and return to the same one source. Feeling separate is the great lie or illusion. So what does Jesus mean when he says we are not of the world? He simply means the world that has not accepted the truth about itself. Instead of accepting the being of who we are, its truth lies in the human form.
There are many things that blind you to this truth. Belief in anything is the greatest of all. Everyone believes in something. Yet the only truth there is to know is the truth of you beyond form. The truth that you are the holy moment, the beloved song of the universe and the perfect portrait of God’s divine love.
To know this truth is the power to overcome and conquer death and expose the timeless or eternal which dwells in your human form.
Kessler c2011
"Behold..The Lion of the Tribe of Judah"
The Art of Presence
Illustration and text by James Robert Kessler c2011
Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Mark 12:29
On July 26, 1961 consciousness took the form I've have always known as "me". That same consciousness or the eternal “I Am” is the very essence of who you are as well. This is the truth this world has long sought for even if you are unaware of it. It is what I would call the open secret. Every son and daughter of God already subconsciously knows this secret. Humanity is the totality of the one universal consciousness, the one Lord and God Jesus proclaimed in Holy Scripture.
The mystery of the ages is the sacred truth proclaiming you are both creation and the creator,form and the formless,you are God in the flesh. You are the universe itself playing a role through your present form. This is what makes life beautiful and is the commonality that weaves the tapestry of the “one” source of all life. This is the truth that unifies and reconciles all existence and what mankind has always known as God.
Words and symbol’s can only point us to this timeless truth. In of themselves, they are not the truth. You are pure being having a human experience. This realization of who you are and this is the only truth that will set you free.
With this in mind, the logo I have designed for my ministry utilizes the image of the powerful, majestic lion. In ancient cultures, the lion is mankind’s earliest symbol of God. The lion was also identified with the sun which represented the source that sustained all life through its light. On the spiritual level, the sun also represented the eternal cycle of resurrection and rebirth. Each evening the sun would set and be reborn each morning in all its glory and splendor.
“Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals. Revelation 5:5
From the perspective of my own Christian upbringing, truth has come through the teachings of Jesus Christ. In Revelation, he is symbolically portrayed as the lion of the tribe of Judah. As you will soon see, the number seven in scripture represent completeness or perfection. I use the seven candlesticks and seven flames to illustrate this point. The meaning of the seven seals in my logo is deeper than the most Christian’s would dare to realize. Each candlestick and flame represents the seven obstacles or seals that blind us to the truth of our perfection.
Those seven obstacles being anxiety, tension, guilt, depression, confusion, resentment and the greatest of all, fear. These seals of John’s vision when they are opened reveal our perfect nature which is pure consciousness or being written upon the scroll. Our Christian tradition through Christ’s teachings is revealing to us who we really are inside that opened scroll and that is God himself.
Jesus brilliantly unveiled this truth through what is best known as living questions. Carefully read what he said here in St. Matthew and I will introduce the seven living questions that are common to all mankind.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith
31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:25-34
Jesus instructs us to seek out the kingdom that exists in this very moment. When we discover we are the creator of our own reality, all things will be given to us. Not through any belief but through simply knowing. Knowing who you are doesn’t require hope or struggle, it requires the faith of a flower or a single blade of grass. Nothing is impossible for those who rise above their humanity and embrace and rest in the silence of the eternal unknown.
This is very important to remember, these living questions always reveal themselves through an emotional reaction.
1) I wonder how I’ll make out?............Anxiety
2) How can I let go of my thoughts?.......Tension
3) How could they do this to me?..........Resentment
4) I shouldn’t have done that?............Guilt
5) I don’t know what’s wrong with me?.....Depression
6) I don’t know what to do?...............Confusion
7) What will they think of me?............Fear
Do you now see how awesome Christ’s instructions were found here in Matthew’s gospel? He specifically addressed the seven things or living questions that sum up our daily lives. His message is that you are already perfect and whole in your truest state of consciousness which exists in this present moment. No matter what you may feel or what your mind may be trying to tell you, you are pure love, you are God. Overcoming the ego or your false self unseals the scroll to reveal God sitting on his throne or the timeless now, your true nature.
Knowing this truth is the greatest fear of the mind which is ego driven because once you realize it, you are set free.
The Seven Magic Words of Life
Be still, and know that I am God; Psalms 46:10
“Be still, and know that I am God,” are the seven greatest word pointers found in Scripture. It is through the stillness of just knowing who you are and not simply believing, that you become transformed. In the logo design, the next verse in Revelation chapter five symbolically illustrates the meaning of these seven eyes found within the flames.
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.”Rev 5:6
Again, look closely at the glow around the seven flames in the logo. They are the seven eye’s which are the seven spirits of God. Carefully notice how the mane of the lion transforms itself like a wind that lights each of the flames in my illustration. The holy wind that represents God’s own spirit which is the same spirit from which we were born and will return to one day.
The Old Testament book of Zechariah also describes these seven eye’s of the Lord that search the earth as well.
“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand. For these seven lamps represent the eyes of the LORD that search all around the world." Zechariah 4:10
Now identify the specks of light in six of the eye’s of flames. Six is the Biblical number for man and through the message of Christ, we are God’s reflected light in this world. The reflection is in all of the flames except for the One that is on the candlestick in the center of the artwork. This flame that forms an eye is representative of Almighty God Himself or the one consciousness, which is you beloved. There is no reflection in this eye because on this side of heaven, God is unfathomable in His riches and glory to the finite mind of human which hasn’t realized his own being or I Am.
And I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who was sitting on the throne. There was writing on the inside and the outside of the scroll, and it was sealed with seven seals. Revelation 5:1
This portrait of the Lion from the tribe of Judah is a very strong image of the hope and promise of a unified humanity in what it symbolizes. Worthy is the lamb or our humanness and form and once you accept this truth of who you are then worthy are you that sits at the right hand of the power of God. For you are that same power that can only exist in the present moment or the figurative throne of God.
This is the message of this artwork…. this is the gospel or everlasting truth of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is the message of you as well!
James Robert Kessler (L) IAM
Because of Him Art Ministry c 2011
