The Final Frontier II

Let us come back to our original question: Why is it that even with our superior intelligence, we are not able to be alive to our experiences directly? Why is it that our existence remains superficial and cannot go deep?

I believe some of the answers to this question are hidden in the riddle of the story of Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge!

The story in short:

God creates Man from the dust of the earth and blows a breath of life in him. He creates a garden in Eden. All trees visually pleasurable and good for food are grown. Among them the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge are also grown. Adam is placed in this garden to work it and watch / guard / tend it.

God forbids man the fruit of the Tree of knowledge, with death as a consequence. 

God creates Woman from Adam as a helper/guide for Man. Both were naked but felt no shame. 

The Snake who is the most cunning of all the creatures lures woman to eat from the tree of knowledge. She eats and gives Adam who eats it too.  Then their eyes are opened and they realize that they are naked!  They sew loincloths from fig leaves and hide themselves when they hear God.

The consequences of this act are as follows:

The serpent is cursed that it will crawl on its belly and will eat dirt. The snake will be enemies with humans striking at their heel while they will strike at its head.

The woman is punished with painful childbirth and with her husband's dominion over her.

Adam is punished with the earth being cursed so that only with toil and sweat can he eat bread. He becomes a mortal as death finally will overcome him after living such a challenging life.

God further punishes them with eviction from the Garden to work the earth and places Cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the Tree of Life.

This fascinating story is an allegory to understand the mystery of Human condition on many different levels. Here's my take on the story, I interpret it only in one such way to explain the paradox of our intelligence.

It is clear that the Garden of Eden is a metaphor. I believe that it is a cosmic counterpart of our world. The trees of the garden were channels of different powers / energies that create our universe but restricted in some kind of framework. The animals also represent these same energies but in a more flexible and fluid framework with a mix of more than one tendencies. Finally Man- Adam is that creation that has total freedom and is the ultimate confluence of all these energies.

1.    If we search for a key word used to describe creation of animate objects we find that everything emerges from "earth" and it culminates with the creation of man from "dust of the earth". In the ancient religious understanding there were two realms The Sky which represented the realm of the gods or spiritual realm and the Earth which represented the more corporal reality. The metaphor of dust of the earth symbolizes raw inclinations – the source of base tendencies / passions that reside in animals and man alike. Hence the whole of creation is rooted in these raw inclinations.

2.    Man becomes a living being after the" breath of God" is blown in him. "Breath of God" symbolizes a whiff - an intangible aspect of God which is within Man. Hence he is different from all other creation in that, that he is a unity made from this "dust" and this "whiff of God".

3.    The Garden of Eden is rooted in the 'earth' - these raw energies. This is where all these created powers are brought together to help man work at his task and achieve his aim.

4.    Both the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge are aspects of these raw energies with qualities as their names suggest with a central role, meaning all of creation were directly connected to them.

5.    Adam's role in the garden was to allow the expression of these raw basic instincts/energies in the given framework, to bring them to flower and fruition in a framework that was outside of him.  To work them without getting his hands dirty or rather his soul sullied.

6.    Adam is an intelligent creature that has free choice and hence the command to refrain from the fruit of a certain tree. At the same time he was created in a state wherein he was unaware of his nakedness / sexuality. A metaphor to teach us that he was not self conscious similar to an animal or a small child.

7.    He is placed in the Garden as a given - hence his nature merited paradise  – a state in which his wherewithal's were taken care of allowing him to focus on the "Real Thing". (This is a topic I will deal with in another post!) 

8.    Eve is created as a guide / helper for Adam. Hence Adam's unquestioning acceptance of her suggestion to eat of the forbidden fruit. That she was not created from the dust directly, she had an intellect with a deeper insight into things, as her understanding were not entrenched in dust- the raw passions/energy.

9.    The Snake is a personification of sexual energy which in turn is a personification of the raw passion / energy of 'earth'. As an "animal" it had a less rigid framework and more capacity to interact with Adam and Eve. The fact that no snake eats dust or necessarily attacks humans only on their ankles and not unless instigated is proof to recognize it as symbolic. Also the phallic symbolism cannot be missed.

10.    Hence when the snake lured Eve to eat of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of good and Evil, his motive was to gain this raw energy of wisdom to fuel the cosmic sexual energy. This could only happen in the being of Man who was the ultimate confluence of all these energies. As is its nature Sexuality thrives on lust and greed. Hence it was motivated by its basic nature.

11.    As I mentioned earlier (point 4) every thing created has to partake from cosmic wisdom to exist. By eating the fruit the cosmic balance was disrupted as the proper movement of this energy got blocked and all of creation was marred.  Now this wisdom became available only via the sexual/physical channel, meaning the whole of creation was thoroughly at the mercy of the raw  passions and energies represented by "earth" creating a reality of brute nature as we see it. Hence as a consequence the earth is cursed instead of Adam.

12.     Simultaneously, in Man the energy source of Knowledge of good and evil got integrated into their nature through the channel of sexuality. Hence instead of the expected consequence "and man became a knowledgeable being with insight into what is good and what is evil", the result is "then the eyes of both of them were opened and they perceived that they were naked." As I interpreted earlier (Point 6 ), it means that Man became a self-conscious / sexual being.

From the fact that Adam had prophecy we can easily state that Adam and Eve were in a state of pure consciousness before eating the fruit.  Whatever their motive to eat the fruit, the deal they got was not the real thing.  What they got was a dichotomy of their existing state of consciousness. Now a part of their consciousness focused and functioned through the sexual awareness. This causes them to become aware of themselves as naked and hence self conscious. This self consciousness then further expresses itself as separate and distinguished fueling the ego. Existing on this plane of restricted awareness we are prone to align ourselves with the raw energies that "Earth" represents and identify with them.

Before as Conscious beings both good and evil were objective facts of existence. But once self conscious, a subjective influence calls for a decision and judges between the two. Hence good and evil become a fundamental reality for this self conscious being.

To have pure consciousness and to be self conscious are two different states. Although our consciousness is always also self conscious, we can observe pure consciousness in ourselves once in a while. Whenever we are involved in something engrossing like an interesting book or music or dance or for the matter any activity that  can completely allow us to loose our sense of time, what psychologists call a state of flow, we can experience a state of being where we are conscious but not self conscious.

You will realize that in such a state you raise your awareness and you feel a sense of well-being/peace/calm. Most of the time, our consciousness is of the second type, which robs away most of our energy to fuel an idea of ourselves in our minds, making us self conscious.

Recognizing this fact that we are basically wired to be self conscious and hence unable to reach out to experience life directly leads us to the ultimate question, "Is a solution really possible?" Can we go beyond this final frontier?

Let's find out in the next post!

Until then happy searching.

God Bless!