The Pearl of Great Price

I dream that a man flies to an exotic island location, dives into the ocean and recovers an oyster shell. He opens the shell and inside finds a unique flat teardrop pearl.

The pearl has many associations including purity, innocence, wisdom and the pearl of great price, which represents inner knowledge of one’s divine essence:

the awakened consciousness that is the treasure, the pearl of great price, the ultimate fruit of this union [between the unseen reality of the highest order and the visible, manifest world as well as our own human organism]. (Baring)

The spiritual journey and the discovery of the pearl of inner wisdom are described below. It shares many remarkable similarities to my dream.

To make spiritual progress, the seeker must step away from the solid shore and chart a course, or path, by boat into the unknown ocean, or truth. The seeker must then leave the relative safety of the boat and dive into the ocean’s depths in search of the pearl, or gnosis. In the end, as Annemarie  Schimmel states, the few who find the pearl “understand that they have reached only what was already in themselves.” (Hazen, 2017, p. 165)

The forming of a pearl is a frequent metaphor to describe the personal struggle with the unconscious, and the spiritual journey towards wholeness. A precious pearl is formed by an oyster as a defence against irritation or intrusion from parasites/ foreign particles. This process is similar to the development of the pearl of great price (inner wisdom) that is the fulfilment of the individuation journey.

The pearl is the real, complete, balanced, and rounded personality that psychologists believe they are talking about when they are discussing the ego. We must remember that the ego is a structure, or a structured process, whereas the pearl is essence, which means the pearl is an ontological presence. (Almaas, 1998, p. 162)