The Pearl of Great Price

Well, today is the day that I head off to India to sit around in caves growing a beard and wearing an orange robe in a last ditch attempt to avoid gainful employment. I’ve done well so far, if I do say so myself; it’s not easy to stay “happy, joyous and free” in a country run by the Conservative party, and it’s getting harder by the minute. So it didn’t take a huge leap of imagination to work out that I’d have a much better quality of life as far away from this country as I could possibly get, halfway up a mountain somewhere, herding goats.

Actually, as most of you are probably aware, I’m not going to herd goats. Goats barely come into it. No, I am going to be taught self knowledge by an irritable old redneck from Montana called Jim, who just happens to be a traditional, dyed in the wool Vedanta teacher who took the original Sanskrit teachings of self-inquiry and stuck them in a book, called “How to Attain Enlightenment”. If you’re interested in reading it, it looks like this:

Jim looks like this:

When people have asked me what I’m going to India for, I’ve tried to be reserved in my response. I’ve tried not to use the word “spiritual” too much, because there’s really nothing spiritual about it; self-inquiry is an investigation into the nature of reality using the logic of your own experience, and that’s it. Not only that, but to me the very word conjures up hideous pictures of sanctimonious hippy types running around like neurotic idiots mindlessly chanting mantras, ringing bells, trying to raise the Kundalini and getting up everybody’s arse, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

One guy said to me: “I hope you find yourself.” I thought this was an odd statement, as clearly, I am not lost. I am right here, where I always am.

A friend of mine said: “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” and again, it sounded odd, because I’m not really looking for anything.

Then this morning, when I woke up, it dawned on me. I’m not looking for anything because I’ve already found it. I have found what Jesus called “the pearl of great price”, and now I am off to collect it. And that’s it really. I’d like to close this blog post by saying that I’d better go and pack, but actually, I’ve got no stuff so there is nothing to pack. So I’ll just say so long, and lay off the Krokodil while I’m away. I’d hate to come back and find you all scaly.

"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field."

"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls, who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it."