What Grandeur!

Logion 84

Yeshua said:
When you see
your true likeness,
you rejoice.
But when you see your icons,
those that were before you existed,
that never die and never manifest,
what grandeur!

The above translation is a bit different from the one Larry posted. Most striking is “How much will you bear,” has become, “What grandeur!” a seemingly different exclamation.

When Jesus says, “When you see your true likeness you rejoice,” my first inclination was to the early biblical passage that states, “God made man in his own image.” So, I wonder, is this true likeness the image of God? And/or, could this “true likeness” simply be our true self, sans ego, reputation, career, personality, relationships, yada yada…, but just fundamentally who we are underneath all of our labels and usual descriptions. I sense that it would be so freeing to just be able to be who we are without expectation of role and responsibility, something most of us likely only get an occasional glimpse of, and that occurs when we are lost to the world through an experience of something such as serious illness, deep meditation, or quiet solitude.

“But when you see your icons…” must be referring to something primordial, something that exists always, neither arising nor passing away, something unborn and undying… Again this primordial expression would be the image of God, the Absolute, the Source – that manifestation known by a thousand names, or no name at all. This is often referred to as “Your original face,” the face of God. So yes, “What grandeur!”

However, could it be that it is the grandeur that is already, everywhere present? Could this image, say it is the image of Light, be like our ordinary light, yet, because it is light, we cannot see the preexisting light that is always and ever present? Perhaps it is also that which we call the Light within, that indescribable quality of love and warmth and purity in the heart of each of us. What if we could “see” that? How much could we bear of this grandeur?