Daily Meditation: Monday, September 27, 2004

Philosopher’s stone - spiritual work is comparable to the search for the Philosopher’s stone

09/27/2004

Whatever you manage to achieve in your life, nothing will ever equal your accomplishments in the spiritual realm. In the spiritual life you work with different values, which bring with them riches of a different kind. Imagine a gold digger who is busy sifting sand in a river: he may find gold, of course, and even a lot of it, but his enterprise is risky. Then, imagine an alchemist next to him: for years and years he works day and night to find the philosopher's stone, and he appears to be working in vain. In reality, if he always works according to the rules, he will eventually find it, and then he can transform mountains of base metal into gold. Compared to this, what has the gold digger gained? I do not cite these two examples to encourage you to look for the philosopher's stone in the hope of transforming metals into gold. Not only will your attempts to find it fail, but you will also run the risk of ruining yourself. By means of these two examples, I simply want to help you understand the difference between ordinary and spiritual work.