Metaphors: Silver and Gold

I shall wash clean this place of origin. I shall wash until the difference between the silver and the gold becomes clear.

Timely Talks, March 9, 1888

The elements of this metaphor are known to just about everybody. First there is the question of relative value. Though both silver and gold are valuable, gold is much more valuable than silver and it is well known that both take some effort to find. Next and more importantly there is the fact that gold is incorruptible and does not change, while silver will tarnish and change appearance fairly rapidly. And finally most of us are familiar with the way that prospectors reveal gold and silver by washing away the mud and other minerals that are mixed in with them. 

The metaphor of "washing until the difference between the silver and the gold becomes clear" is then understood as the procedure for finding and distinguishing between that which is valuable and changes and that which is even more valuable and does not change.  

Those then are the elements on the "worldly common" side of the metaphor. If we were to take the instruction literally, that is in a worldly common way, we would up and become prospectors. Since that is obviously not the intention in the instruction let's look at the way the metaphor is used from the point non-worldly common "reason of heaven".

First we are to find the rough material that we will wash. In the teaching of the "reason of heaven" all of the work is to be done in and on one's own mind! So our first step is to identify and be aware of our own mind. Next we want to distinguish between that element or part of our mind that changes from that part that does not change. The part that changes (the voice and pictures of the mind or imagination) is the most obvious and is easily identified. The part that does not change is not at all obvious and may require some work to reveal. This is where the "washing" comes in.  The fastest and easiest way to reveal the unchanging part of the mind is to wash away, remove or quiet the part that changes. When the changeable part (silver) is completely removed, what remains is the unchangeable part (gold).

Why, one might ask, bother? Well the changeable part experiences good and evil, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, joy and sorrow, birth and death, illness and trouble and all of the things that are of the nature of mortality and change. The unchanging part, on the other hand, knows and understands the truth of any and everything, its experience is true lasting satisfaction, it is immortal and known and understood together with the changeable part of the mind delivers the experience of a joyous life.