Objects that routinely enslave man can be reduced to three categories:
1)- Goods of fortune;
2)- Bodily pleasures;
3)- Mental ambitions.
Those are the "treasures on earth", that holds a man and make it difficult or even impossible for him to see and own "treasures in heaven", which is a "hidden treasure", a "precious pearl". Earth is all that is external, objective, horizontal. Heaven symbolizes all that is internal, subjective, vertical.
Ultimately, what prevents profane man to see things of heaven within, is a strange ignorance or blindness. The profane man finds himself, in a state of sleep and dream. His life is dominated by a kind of "mental dream". Judges to be awake, fully awake, but is a mistake; his vigil is very incomplete; is more dormant than awake. The physical-mental state is a state of sleep or somnambulism.
When a man sleeps soundly, he is unconscious, without dreams.
When sleeps less deeply, becomes semi-conscious and often have dreams. These fragments of his sensitive and mental life flit through his semi-conscious environment, without order or connection. A man dreams as real what is unreal. And the content of his dreams is still real to him as he continues in that same unconscious state of dreaming. He buys, for example, a lottery ticket and wins the jackpot; goes out to deposit his unexpected fortune in a bank - and in the middle of the street he is hit by a car that kills him instantly. Both those millions and the death are realities for the dreamer, and he only gets out of this world of illusions, had for real, when he wakes up from his sleep and dream. Only then he will check the unreality of what in the dream was real.
Therefore, the concept of reality is something very relative, fragmented, precarious and variable; depends on the greater or lesser consciousness of the subject. "The known is in the knower according to the capacity of the knower."
After waking up from his sleep and dream, this man rises to the level of mental consciousness - and once again is convinced of the reality of everything on this new level, which seems to him to be real, the whole world of matter and forces; money, land, houses, skyscrapers, factories, cars, pleasures, social prestige, political authority, scientific and technical realizations – all this is for a mental dreamer, solid real world, and while staying wrapped and submerged in that ocean of matter and under forces driven by senses and intellect, no one can convince him that he is dreaming. Certainly, the world of objects and three-dimensional quantities is not a real world. The truth is that this world of time and space is not properly unreal, and claimed by certain philosophical systems. It is not real nor unreal. Between the real and the unreal, there is a third concept, the accomplished, i.e., the effect caused by a real cause. These effects do not possess the reality of the cause that produced them; are just accomplishments, caused, made, and therefore, inferior to the cause that triggers them.
God alone is real.
The unreal is mere nothing – nonexistent.
Accomplished is all that the real cause accomplishes.
So that the world of quantitative objects, where the profane man finds his treasures, is not a solidly real world, but only poorly realized. And, therefore, all the treasures made from these precarious materials are treasures of precarious reality and can disappear at any moment.
Therefore, the wise man, the seer of the supreme and unique reality does not waste his time accumulating treasures in this uncertain area and with this doubtful material, because he knows that these treasures are not under his control but subject to the adversities of nature, and the perversities of men; he knows that rust and termites can destroy these treasures and thieves can steal, for treasure that does not depend entirely on man, and that can be destroyed and stolen by factors independent of him are not solidly built treasures.
Accumulating treasures of this nature, for the wise man, is the same as collecting a multitude of zeros, to form a capital.
Only when a man discovers within himself this particular reality, i.e., the divinity of his Self, his soul, is when he begins to be interested in producing treasures of quality, rather than quantity, because the quality is invulnerable and is besides, free from any risks on the part of the external and objective world. No adversities of nature, no perversity of men can steal these treasures. The "kingdom of heaven" where he builds these treasures is within him; it is his intimate Divine essence.
In this doctrine, that the real human Self is an internal and invisible reality, is the basis of the Gospel, as indeed all the wisdom of the great initiated. To discover and live this reality is firmness, clarity, tranquillity, indestructible peace and happiness. It is in this direction that converges all the words of wisdom, such as: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things will be given to you also." - "What is the benefit that man receives in gaining the whole world (material things, objects) if he will not find benefits in his soul (his subject, his Self)?"
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