Regaining the lost treasure
This posting is about our lifelong struggle to regain lost treasure. This is based on a dream I had where I saw a large shimmering pearl that I somehow knew that I must have. I believe that this represents a treasure that was ours, that we no longer possess but must regain.
When we are young, we are innocent of the world and at peace with both it and ourselves, but as time goes on, we lose two things – firstly the feeling of being whole in ourselves, and secondly the sense of wholeness and order in the world. The world no longer makes any sense to us and there no longer seems to be a benevolent sense of order behind it. Similarly, our innate sense of rightness and harmony in our spirit is fractured by conformity to others.
I don’t believe that ignorance (or innocence) is bliss, but that in early childhood something is taken away – our priceless individuality – that part of us which makes us unique and differentiates us from the herd. Some people are never conscious of what they have lost, but the sense that there is something not quite right remains. We feel the sense of something that is missing.
In the film The Matrix, Morpheus says:
I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Robert Bly in Iron John uses a metaphor of a golden ball. This represents something we must regain in order to be whole again. The golden ball is lost in childhood and to regain wholeness, the prince must recover it.
Jesus used the parable of the Pearl of Great Price, which the discerning pearl merchant looked for through his whole life. When he finds it, he gladly sells everything he owns to buy it. This parable was about the Kingdom of Heaven. Once he gains the Kingdom of Heaven, he has fulfilled his quest. The broken circle has closed again and the spirit is again in harmony.
Similarly, in another parable, when someone finds hidden treasure in a field, he sells everything he has to purchase the field and claim the treasure. Both parables have the central idea of sacrifice in order to gain something of much greater value.
We often give the important things in our lives far too cheaply, and sometimes spend the rest of our lives and everything we have to regain what we have lost in order to be whole again. However, many people never find the hidden treasure or the Pearl of Great Price, because they don’t look for it. They feel that something is missing, but don’t know what is nagging them. They hide the feeling with other things until the inner voice is drowned out.
How do we lose our sense of self, and become alienated from what we really are? We sell our time too cheaply in the marketplace, and waste our lives doing insignificant work for those who do not value our contribution. We give up time with those who care about us and squander it on casual acquaintances. We let others waste our time, we invest our emotions in things and burn up our time watching mindless drivel on television. We work hard to get extra money, only to see it wasted by the shiftless and indigent. We never take any steps to do our life’s work or use our true gifts.
This diminishes our sense of self and robs us of our inner treasure. We get further away from where we need to be to be in harmony with ourselves and the world around us.
To regain our treasure, we often need to make what may seem to be a large sacrifice. We sometimes need to radically change our life and leave behind some things. In reality, this is no sacrifice. The merchant gladly sold everything he had to buy the Pearl of Great Price as it was the fulfillment of his life’s work. Similarly, we firstly need to start listening to our inner voice, then decide what is really important, and what needs to be left behind to regain the true treasure.
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