Pearls

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The Paradox of Truth:
Why the Greatest Teachers Spoke When Silence Would Have Saved Them

“Cast not thy pearls before swine, lest they trample them into the ground and then turn and rend you.”

These words carry a bitter irony when we consider their source. If Jesus had truly followed his own counsel, he might have lived quietly in Nazareth, working wood with his hands instead of stirring the hearts and minds of multitudes. He would have kept his revolutionary ideas to himself, avoiding the cross that ultimately claimed him.

But here lies the profound question: Why didn’t he keep quiet?

The Vision Beyond the Moment

The answer reveals something fundamental about the nature of truth and those who carry it. Jesus didn’t see swine when he looked upon the crowds. He saw potential, seeking souls, hearts ready to be transformed. What others might have dismissed as an unworthy audience, he recognised as fertile ground for eternal seeds.

This selective blindness – or perhaps selective sight -is the mark of every great teacher. They speak not to who people are in the moment, but to who they might become. They cast their pearls not because they are naive about the risks, but because they understand something deeper about the value of truth shared versus truth hoarded.

The Path Beyond Institution

This same principle extends to how we understand spiritual seeking itself. The most honest pursuit of wisdom often happens outside the walls of formal institutions:

An honest person may follow Jesus and not be a member of a church. The teachings transcend the building, the bureaucracy, the human interpretations that can sometimes obscure rather than illuminate.

An honest person may follow Buddha and not be a member of a temple. The path to enlightenment is walked by the individual soul, not by committee or congregation.

An honest person may follow Mohammed and not be a member of a mosque. The submission to the divine is a personal surrender that requires no intermediary institution.

An honest person may follow Abraham and Moses and not be a member of a synagogue. The covenant is written on the heart, not in membership rolls.

The Courage of Authentic Faith

There’s something both liberating and terrifying about this recognition. It means that authentic spiritual pursuit requires us to take responsibility for our own relationship with truth, wisdom, and the divine. We cannot hide behind institutional authority or group consensus. We must wrestle with the teachings ourselves, apply them to our own lives, and bear the consequences of our understanding.

The great teachers knew this. They spoke not to create followers, but to awaken fellow seekers. They cast their pearls knowing full well the risks, because they understood that truth unexpressed is truth unlived.

Living the Paradox

Perhaps the real wisdom lies not in choosing between speaking and silence, but in understanding when each is called for. The teacher’s paradox is knowing when to cast pearls and when to hold them close, when to challenge the comfortable and when to comfort the challenged.

For those of us who are neither teachers nor prophets, the lesson might be simpler: to receive the pearls when they are offered, to recognize their value even when others trample them, and to live the truths we’ve been given—whether we found them in a sanctuary or on a mountainside, whether we learned them in community or in solitude.

The honest heart seeks truth wherever it may be found, and having found it, bears the responsibility of living it authentically, regardless of the institution or the crowd.

John A Smith

16/9/2014

Cast not thy pearls before swine, lest they trample them into the ground and then turn and rend you

If he’d followed his own teachings he would have kept quiet and lived a long life

Why didn’t he keep quiet?

He didn’t see swine.

An Honest person may follow Jesus and not be a member of a church

An Honest person may follow Buddha and not be a member of a temple

An Honest person may follow Mohammed and not be a member of a mosque

An Honest person may follow Abraham and Moses and not be a member of a synagogue


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