A PRECIOUS PEARL

Parables are stories, simple tales, and their purpose is to convey teaching most understandable and easy for one to remember. They are a subtle allegorical and metaphorical narrative that conveys an indirect message by comparison or analogy and serves as an indirect or symbolic ethical lesson.

Once, praying earnestly in front of a crucifix in the old abandoned chapel of St. Damian in the Italian city of Assisi, Francis heard Jesus' exhortation: “Francis, do you not see that my house is in ruins? Restore it to me!”

In his humility and innocence, that great spirit thought that Jesus was referring to the abandoned chapel where he was praying, and at once, with his own hands, began to restore it. In fact, Jesus referred to Christianity as an institution, which was later converted to a political, military, and financial society, having completely abandoned the original teachings he preached. Over the next few years, until the end of his life, Francis engaged in body and soul in the task of bringing Christianity back to its original course.

Just as Francis misunderstood the request, parables, as figures of language style dominated the universe of Jesus' messages and involved the apostles' imaginary, however, were often not comprehended.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is similar to a trader looking for precious pearls: he discovered a pearl of great value, went to sell everything he owned and bought it.”

The text below is Rohden's interpretation of this message.

 

“True pearls grow inside certain shellfish living in tropical seas. The pearl is a solidified secretion of the mollusc's gelatinous body. Interestingly, if there is no injury to the mollusc's body, the pearl does not form. Having the lesion and while the pearl is enclosed in the shell, it does not manifest its wonderful brightness; only when exposed to sunlight does it reveal its splendour, which is the reflection of the light rays. These rays are white, or rather colourless light. The pearl, however, reflects all the colours of the rainbow in various opalescent shades due to the peculiar consistency of its iridescent surface.

The pearl forms within the dark shell, but its beauty is revealed only in sunlight. And is this not the case with the Kingdom of Heaven? It has its matrix in the depths of the human soul, not on the surface of external life; but its splendour is only fully revealed in the light of daily life.

And this reminds us of Jesus' words, “the light under a bowl” and “the light in the lampstand”. The pearl of the mystical experience is revealed in the ethical experience; the invisible Being manifests itself in visible action, for the light has to be revealed, not remain concealed.

Mahatma Gandhi's words about “truth that is hard as diamond and delicate as peach blossom”, might well recall the hardness of the pearl and its beauty.

To discover one of these precious pearls, man must plunge into dark and dangerous depths - and does not man only find the Kingdom of Heaven in mysterious depths? He who has never abandoned the comfortable surfaces of his tyrannical ego and plunged into the unknown regions of his divine Self; he who have never abandoned the beaches and coastlines of an easy life and ventured into the high seas of Divinity know nothing of the precious pearl of his soul.

And isn't it strange that the pearl is formed only after the shell has been injured? And when did a man find the pearl of the Kingdom of Heaven without a painful experience? Jesus Himself could not enter into His glory without suffering and death! As long as man does not suffer, he identifies only with his human ego; but when subjected to great suffering, he sees the difference between his human ego and his divine Self. Self-knowledge, the basis of self-realization, hardly happens to a man who has not had painful experiences. The illusory identification of man with his profane ego and the discovery of the true difference in the character of his divine Self is almost always brought about by suffering, above all metaphysical. “It is hard for you to rebel against what causes you suffering,” said the mysterious voice Saul of Tarsus heard as he fell at the gates of Damascus, “and I will show you how much you will have to suffer for my name.”

And Paul goes so far as to say that “without shedding of blood there is no redemption”, that is, without self-suffering, there is no self-realization.

The pearl of the Kingdom of Heaven begins to rise only after man has been wounded in his human selfishness.

The parable says that man, after finding this precious pearl, went to sell all he had to acquire it. “Whoever does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple”. “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

It seems that there is an eternal incompatibility between having and Being, as between darkness and light, quantity and quality. Before reaching the quality of his Being, the man runs after the material quantities, the possession, often unnecessary, by pure greed. And in present times, even a new church has been formed, that of the worship of greed!

But after discovering his qualitative Self, man becomes indifferent to his possessions. And when circumstances compel him to possess certain external objects, he possesses them with strange lightness and serenity; he is not fanatical about them, nor is he ever possessed by what he has. The profane man does not possess his possessions; is by them possessed and possess.

The man who possesses the precious pearl of the Kingdom of Heaven, dispossess with joy all the old possessions because the new precious possession has made him immensely happy. Nothing worth to him the most coveted possessions of the profane, after he seized the Reality of the initiated.

He who has acquired possession of the precious pearl of the Kingdom of Heaven forgets all the sacrifices he has made to acquire it. All narrow roads and tight doors disappeared in the face of the “easy yoke and the light burden” of boundless happiness.”