Almost all of Jesus' parables revolve around the idea of the “Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of Heaven”, and as that Kingdom is within man, it must consist of a hierarchy of values and facts which integrates human nature.
The Kingdom is an organic concept, reminiscent of hierarchy. In a kingdom, there are superiors and subjects, someone who guides and those who follow its guidance. The Kingdom of God in man is the divine Self of his soul that governs the human ego of his mind, his emotions and his body.
This Kingdom of God exists in every man; but in the majority, it exists in a dormant, potential, embryonic state; therefore, it is up to man to awaken, dynamize, develop this kingdom, which Jesus calls the “light under the bushel”, the “hidden treasure”, the “precious pearl”.
There are dozens of parables in the Gospel that aim at this Kingdom of Heaven which man must develop within himself and put at the service of his own life and that of his fellow men.
Who told us these parables had already fully realized this Kingdom of God in himself.
But, to his inexperienced listeners, he could not say what, in reality, this Kingdom was; he could only indicate to them, through comparisons and analogies, what this Kingdom was like. The Kingdom of Heaven is similar to a mustard seed … to yeast … to a fishing net … to a wedding party … to ten virgins … to a precious pearl, etc.
Already at the age of 12, Jesus manifested a glimpse indication of this divine Kingdom. On the occasion of Easter – the commemorative celebration of the Exodus from Egypt, that is, of the national independence of Israel - where Jesus stayed 3 days in silence in the temple, and, when his mother asked him the reason why for this isolation, he replied: “Did you not know that I must take care of the things that are my Father's?” referring to the experience of the Kingdom of God in his soul. And after, when he went with his parents to Nazareth, where he spent 18 years until he was 30, “he grew in wisdom and grace before God and men”, according to the Gospel.
Many books have been written about these 18 years, which the Gospels summarize in the only sentence quoted in the previous paragraph. Some writers have invented the teenager's travels to Egypt, India, and Tibet. But his countrymen from Nazareth know nothing about this supposed absence of the young carpenter. Had he been absent for nearly two decades, Nazarenes would have had a plausible explanation for the great wisdom that the young prophet reveals at the age of 30.
And yet, Jesus made trips infinitely more distant than to Egypt, India and Tibet - he travelled through the “many abodes that are in Heavenly Father's house”, he went to the unknown amplitudes of the Kingdoms of God, not physically, but in spirit and truth.
We can imagine the young carpenter, after the day's work, climbing the rugged hills which rise behind the small town of Nazareth, sitting on one of the cliffs, his face turned to the west, where the sun plunged into the blue waters of the Mediterranean ... There, he spent hours and hours in meditation, while his contemplative soul immersed in the wonders of the Universe, not only of the material Universe but above all of the spiritual Universe, in cosmic attunement with the Infinite, that only the cosmos-seers experience ...
Late at night, sometimes only at dawn, the young man would come down from the hills and return home. And as he descended, still wrapped in the invisible halo of the Kingdom of God, which he had contemplated, he said to himself: “How am I going to speak to the people about these wonders? … How to make them comprehend what the Kingdom of Heaven is? …” Just babbling comparisons, allegories, primitive parables … The Kingdom of Heaven is similar to this, it is similar to that …
At the age of 30, he left the modest carpentry, said goodbye to his mother and descended from the heights of Galilee. He headed south to Judea to meet his cousin John, who was proclaiming the Kingdom of God on the banks of the Jordan.
But, before making a few drops of his inner fullness overflow to the ignorant people, Jesus withdrew again for 40 days, in the silence of the desert, reliving his experiences in Nazareth on the Kingdom of Heaven.
Only after these profound experiences did he decides to speak to the people about what he had experienced and tasted inwardly, and from that direct experience of the Kingdom of God, the parables sprang up.
“To you - he says to his disciples - it is given to comprehend the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to the people, I speak only in parables.”
None of Jesus' parables has been researched, investigated by himself; they were all lived by him - and can only be comprehended by us when fully lived.
Every parable, which is an allegorical or a comparative narrative that involves some moral precept, some important truth, consists of two elements: the material symbol and the spiritual symbolized.
The material symbol, taken from nature or human society is understandable to everyone, but the comprehension of the spiritual symbolized depends on the state of evolution of each one. Whoever has 10 degrees of spiritual evolution interprets the parable as being 10; whoever has 50 degrees understands it at level 50; whoever has 100 degrees of evolution understands the parable in the 100th degree. Due to this limitless elasticity of the spiritual symbolized of the parable, this way of teaching lends itself to any and all classes of men. On the other hand, however, it is not possible to give a definitive and universally valid explanation of the parables; their relativity admits countless interpretations, proportional to the state of the spiritual evolution of each listener or reader.
The parables do not aim at a certain morality of acting, but, above all, the consciousness of Being. When a man is limited to a certain experience of moral acting but does not reach the reality of his metaphysical and mystical Being, he is in danger of mark a step in the superficial zone of a conventional moralism, without reaching awareness of reality. They invite us to a deep metaphysical and mystical knowledge, whose spontaneous overflowing will unfailingly reveal itself in ethical self-realization. The mystical experience of the “first and greatest of all commandments” will manifest itself in the experience of the ethics of the second commandment.
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