by Jake Collier
When I was a young boy, about eight or nine, my friend and I were anxiously anticipating the end of school. We raced home to his house because it was the beginning of a new show on TV that afternoon called “The Mickey Mouse Club.” It became a daily goal of mine to watch that show.
On one of the shows they revealed an answer to one of my questions—how all the wonderful images were created on the screen. They did a show about going into the Disney Studios and interviewing animators. They explained how they sketch a figure, and then on the next page the figure would be slightly different, and so on. When you flipped the pages, this figure came to life. On film, each scene or frame is a still image. All those stills are put on celluloid and run through a projector, and merge into motion and life on the screen.
The greatest animator and filmmaker is our Creator. We look around us, and we see such incredible images. From the very outer rim of creation to the very core of it, our Divine Creator projects images and gives them life. This incredible creation keeps growing; new galaxies are being born, new images are being created.
Each breath is a new beginning, a new chance, a new opportunity.
With high-powered microscopes, we learn how hard rocks, surfaces, and metals are made up of particles that have space around them. Sometimes we feel like our body is a solid mass, but when we sit in deep meditation, we can feel the space, that Divine space and energy that gives life to all we see within, and all around us.
The greatest storyteller of all time is our Creator. The greatest director and screenplay writer has set into motion this creation. It fashioned these bodies so that It may play all the parts and experience its own creation—to hear it, see it, smell it, touch it, taste it.
On a vacation or a trip, when we see a beautiful scene or image that moves us deeply, we snap a picture of it to share with others. Somehow the camera doesn’t capture what we felt. No matter how much we try to describe that experience, the other person viewing the photograph doesn’t really feel the full impact. That’s because we have to experience it on a cellular level to receive the full impact of this life.
With a tool of meditation, one can dive deep and experience the Divine, to experience our Creator. We can feel our inner senses open up, inner vision, inner hearing. Through meditation, we can receive answers to our questions. We’re able to view life around us like a motion picture, and we begin to be able to discern our direction in this life, our part in this play, this Divine motion picture. Meditation is the key that unlocks the doors, that solves the mysteries of this life.
We learn about how much thrust it takes for a rocket to overcome the field of this earth’s gravity. Likewise, meditation takes will power; it takes conditioning; it takes practice. To break out of these images that we see around us, and discover who we really are, takes an incredible amount of effort and dedication. How we’ve lived our lives in the past, how hard we put forth an effort each day, and how much Divine Grace we are given, all factor into how and when we make a break through. Men and women before us have done it, have broken through and become one with their Divine Creator.
In a motel room one night, I started to meditate. As soon as I sat down and started circulating the light, a room opened up before my inner vision. Ancient ones in white robes were walking into the room, about seven of them. They began to sit down and face me in meditation. The figure closest to me held up his hand with the palm facing towards me. I felt an energy of acknowledgment, understanding, and willingness to help and be a part of our lives here.
What we see with our physical eyes is just one plane of existence. There are so many other planes, wonderful places of beauty. By meditating and going within, we can discover these places and experience them. They become an aid in helping us get through the trials of existence here.
The ancient ones are watching us. They cheer us on and celebrate our victories; they feel our pain when we’re struggling. They are here to help us, to encourage us. They understand how hard it is here to break through.
I was so overwhelmed and overjoyed to experience their presence. The next night in my motel room when I began to meditate, there they were again, all sitting in meditation with me.
We have each other, and we have the help of the angels, and the ancient ones that have walked this journey before us. They have blazed the trail and marked the way. All we need to do is make the effort. Then we can realize and experience things in this life that are beyond description, beyond words, for when we experience a touch of the Divine, we are changed forever. It gives us an insatiable thirst to be divinely touched again and again.
Almighty Spirit, our Creator, our true friend,
We give thanks for the opportunity to participate in this drama we call life.
Guide us, keep us strong and healthy, that we might maintain and overcome any obstacles that confront us. Open up our inner senses, that we might experience the oneness that truly exists here in this creation, the oneness of Your life and Your love. Help us to see your face in everyone we meet, and may we always see your divine fingerprint in this creation.
Amen.