There is a story told by the American-born teacher, Gangaji, in The Diamond in your Pocket, of a thief who stole only the most exquisite gems. He would hang around the diamond district to see who was buying the gems, so that later he could pick their pockets.

One day the thief saw a well-known diamond merchant buy the jewel he had been waiting for all his life. It was the most pristine, the purest of diamonds. Very excited, the thief followed the diamond merchant as he boarded the train, getting into the same compartment. He spent the entire three-day journey trying to pick the merchant’s pocket and steal the diamond.

When the diamond merchant got off the train the pickpocket followed. Finally, very frustrated, he walked up to the merchant and asked how he had hidden the diamond from him.

‘Well, I saw you watching me in the diamond district,’ the diamond merchant replied, ‘and I suspected you were a pickpocket. So I hid the diamond where I thought you would be least likely to look for it – in your own pocket.’ He then reached into the thief’s pocket and pulled out the diamond.

It is the same for our own buried treasure.

‘Your own hidden treasure,’ Gangaji writes, ‘is in your pocket right now, in the pocket of your heart.’

Augustine’s great discovery that within each one of us, in the depths of our hearts, lies hidden treasure changed his life and it can change ours. ‘How much treasure we have within us,’ he declares, ‘but we do not dig for it!’ Most of us, of course, could reply that we do not know, perhaps have never been shown, where or how to start looking for it.

Matthew’s Gospel tells us that Jesus in one of his parables likens the kingdom of God to hidden treasure. Jesus said to the crowds: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found; he hides it again, goes off in his joy, sells everything he owns and buys the field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls; when he finds one of great value he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it’ (Matthew 13:44–46). If we knew just how much treasure is within us we would surely take time in our busy lives to search for it, to find the pearl of great price buried in the field of our lives. We would make time to spend in God’s presence.

If we are prepared to sit in silence and journey to the still centre of our being we shall discover that we have everything within us for our spiritual journey, and there are blessings at each step along the way. What we find on the journey will be different for each one of us. The journey may look the same, but each one’s story is unique. We each find our own truth, our own treasure.

As a famous sculptor said of one of his pupils, ‘I showed her where to find gold, but the gold she found was truly her own gold.’

An extract from Finding Your Hidden Treasure

© 2010 Benignus O’Rourke OSA

Published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd

© Photo: Ian Wilson OSA

Get the book: www.theaugustinians.org