There is a jewel—Cintāmaṇi is its name—by whose lustre the whole universe is illumined and by whose possession every wish of ours is instantaneously fulfilled. Many have set out to acquire this precious jewel, but only very few have succeeded in finding it. For, to find this jewel we must transcend the limits of space and time and go beyond the boundaries of memory and anticipation. But this means that we have to give up all that is dear to us, to cut off everything to which we naturally cling and which tenaciously holds us in its embrace. If not the most difficult task, it is certainly the most daring adventure. Our self, outwardly bound by space and time and inwardly fluctuating between recollections of the past and anticipations of the future, is unable to tell us what we will find once self-hood has ceased to hold its sway over us. Is it the sinister abyss and dreadful night of nothingness and death, or is it the glorious light of emancipating wisdom and the ever-enduring spring of life? Our self may and will raise questions that shake us to the core, but it surely fails to answer them and to dispel the fear that haunts us, for all the answers the ego or self is able to give are disquieting rather than re-assuring. Therefore, how can we find firmness when the very ground upon which we take our stand is trembling every moment; how can the light we need shine forth in all its wondrousness when dark and heavy clouds obscure its source; how can every wish of ours be fulfilled when, in spite of our most strenuous efforts and best intentions, all our achievements fall slightly short of what we expected them to be? Indeed, as long as we harbour the sense of self-hood as something final the jewel is unattainable, for our ego with its reckless self-assertion is the negation and repudiation of this jewel. Keeping up our self-hood by all means is to surround ourselves with all sorts of mock truths, to lock ourselves up in an air-tight prison cell, and to ignore the source from which everything, our so highly cherished ego included, derives its existence. Therefore, in order to gain and to hold the most precious jewel, which once for all will end our sorrows and needs, we must break through our self-made fortifications, grasp the jewel with naked hands and not distort reality by our ordinary fancies about it. Only then shall we have as an inalienable possession what up to now we have felt to be wanting in us and be able to solve the problems of life and man instead of creating problems.
