Recovering Our Lost Treasure

“This is the human condition - to be without the true source of happiness, which is the experience of the presence of God, and to have lost the key to happiness, which is the contemplative dimension of life, the path to the increasing assimilation and enjoyment of God's presence.”
— Thomas Keating

​Over the past several years I have been traveling to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where my ancestors lived, to research family history in the library archives of Eastern Mennonite University. I uncovered several diaries of my great great grandfather from the mid-1800's. I transcribed the handwritten entries of one these diaries recently and emailed the document and photographs of the pages of the diary to several of my Heatwole second cousins interested in the family history. 
 
One of my cousins wrote back: "Doug, you have given us a great gift."  I questioned his statement, because the gift came from my great great grandfather, who kept the diary, and his son, who preserved it for future generations. But it made me realize that our treasures may be passed from one generation to another, but sometimes they are lost, or their value is not appreciated. When we happen to uncover a lost legacy, we each have responsibility for realizing the treasure we have been given and then sharing it with others – not covering it back up or hoarding it to ourselves but uncovering and transmitting the lost treasure to others who will be blessed in receiving the gift. 
 
That reminds me of the man who found the treasure buried in the field – in Jesus's parable in Matthew 13:44-46 – who went and sold all he had and bought the field. He wanted the treasure for himself. We might interpret this as hoarding the treasure, securing it so someone else doesn't take it. 
 
But what if we look at the parable in this way: the man had discovered the real treasure of life (God's presence within himself) and gave up his external treasure (all his money) – all he had saved his whole life – to recover his own soul, something internal, unseen, and previously unrecognized as invaluable. 
 
Father Thomas Keating said, "The spiritual journey is a process of dismantling the monumental illusion that God is distant or absent." Might the spiritual journey be considered a treasure hunt? An exploration into our own soul, unburying the divine presence within us?
 
Albert Einstein said something similar to Keating's insight, without referring to God:
 
"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish the delusion but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind."
 
Keating called it an illusion and Einstein named it a delusion, but both were saying that the happiness or peace of mind that we are seeking is only achieved by a change of mind or perspective from one of being separated or distant from God or the whole (or "the rest" as the agnostic Einstein put it) to the recognition that God is everywhere.  The purpose of religion or the spiritual journey-- call it what you want--is freeing ourselves from our delusion or dismantling the illusion of being separate from God, from one another, from everything -- and realizing that the true source of happiness abides within us, for that is where God's presence may be found.
 
Centering Prayer might be considered as the tool we employ to mine the divine treasure hidden within ourselves. The lens needed to correct the optical delusion of our consciousness. The pickaxe needed to dismantle the illusion of being disconnected from God. Through the practice of Centering Prayer, we uncover the evidence that God really is fully present within the core of our being. We discover that His essence is our essence. His energy of love is our energy of love. His presence is our peace.
 
The practice of Centering Prayer has the power to open our minds, unlock our imagination, and unveil our consciousness to the full presence of God within each one of us. What a gift we have been given! What a gift we have to share with others!