A Tale for our Times.
(A
new look at an old tale, using modern psychology and logical thought.)
“There
is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. Shakespeare.
Introduction.
I
have disliked the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden ever since I
first heard it (quite some time ago now).
I
thought that it was highly ungallant of Adam to blame Eve; that the serpent had
a rough time as well; all of them get chucked out of the Garden of Eden; and
what was wrong with eating of the Tree of Knowledge anyway? – isn’t gaining
knowledge what you’re supposed to do in life? God seemed a bit mean about the
whole thing as well; quite vengeful in fact. Why would I want anything to do
with Him? Not to mention hoping I could find a lot better husband than that
wimp Adam.
I
also felt the implied blame; that being thrown out of Eden was the woman’s
fault; it seemed to me to be part of some kind of built-in failure if you were
born a woman; a way of explaining why you didn’t count, or were automatically
wrong in whatever way. Men use it as the ultimate reason not to listen to a
woman! This story is told to a great many people! It’s a story I would have
thought that women could do perfectly well without.
So,
the years have gone by and even though I forgot about such things, yet still
the questions remained – what on earth was this story about?
I
have seen various interpretations over the years, although none of them made
much sense to me. Could this story make sense in any way and is there anything
that can be learnt from it?
My
aim is to look at this story in a natural psychological manner, and try to
unravel what the words are saying while remembering that these concepts are
translations from a different time and culture.
The
story.
The
story really begins with God making the world in 6 days and His seeing that it
was All Good. It then turns to the making of the Garden of Eden, with Adam
being made/formed ‘in the image of God’ for the purpose of to ‘till it and keep
it’. There is also the strong implication that Adam is important for the Naming
of all things. He is expressly commanded not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of
Good and Evil (TKGE), with a warning that he will surely die.
Adam’s
female partner is formed from Adam’s rib, and Adam names her Woman. The bible
specifically states that they were naked and not ashamed; they neither knew nor
noticed whether they were covered or not; they accepted themselves as they
were. They were quite un-selfconscious as is any young child or animal.
The
serpent tells the woman, the fruit of TKGE is good to eat, and it will make you
‘more like God’. So she eats it, gives it to Adam, and then their ‘eyes were
opened and they realised they were naked’, so they tried to cover up (aprons of
fig leaves). This was the first decision that they made that they were not
alright as they were.
God
comes walking in the garden and can’t find Adam, because they are both hiding
from Him.
[So,
if God is all-seeing and all-powerful, and knows everything all the time, how
come he couldn’t find Adam? I was brought up with the implication that God
could stick his finger on you, no matter where you were in the whole wide
world; in other words ‘you can’t hide’, and so you had better be good. In this
story, God has to call out ‘where are you?’, so, can you hide, or not? Does God
see everything, or not?]
So
then they are found out, and there’s a lot of blaming – no-one is going to take
responsibility here. Eve blames the snake and Adam blames Eve.
God
curses the serpent, then the woman, then Adam; apparently comprehensively and
thoroughly. There’s a lot about getting back to the dust – “you are made of
dust”.
The
story then moves on.
Adam
names his wife, Eve. [Rather a change in pace here.]
God
gives Adam and Eve clothes, [which seems quite kind of him?]
Then
God throws them out of Eden and then makes sure that they can’t get at the Tree
of Life (TL) by guarding the garden with cherubim(s) and a flaming sword; which
seems a bit ‘dog-in-the-manger-ish’. But before that he says ‘the man has now
become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to eat of
the TL and live forever.’
So
now we start asking questions.
What
is the Garden of Eden?
We
don’t know, but for most of us it has the quality of Heaven on Earth; a garden of God. A divine garden that’s beautiful;
it’s warm, and the weather’s perfect, and everything we need just drops into
our hands. So, we don’t have to do anything do we, even though we are
supposed to ‘till and keep’? It’s all there - how nice. But why do we need a
heaven on earth as well as a heaven above? This would mean that there are 2 of
them. So…
What
do we think Heaven is, and why do we want it?
I
think most people would consider heaven as a place where everything is
comfortable and ‘lovey-dovey’ and nice, and we don’t have to do
anything, (no body, and so no work) and it just stays comfortable and nice and
most of all safe (no ‘bumps in the night’) forever. This is a terribly
long time, which gives a very static quality. Would we get bored if we only
played harps forever?
I
suspect that we do carry an unconscious idea of what Heaven is, and I suspect
that that is what we expect/wish that Life could be, especially in the Garden.
Somewhere where we do not have to do anything, and it all just drops
into our hand when we hold it out. Instead we find ourselves out of the Garden
and that Life on Earth is not very heavenly at all. Heaven thus becomes taught
as ultimately a Reward for suffering or enduring/coping sufficiently with life
as lived on earth (once!?); i.e., we need to be good; thinking and doing the
right things to make sure we get back in.
Another
way of saying the above is that for us the ultimate reward for our Life is to
get Off Earth as fast as possible, without committing suicide, (because that is
‘cheating’). We are using and following religious/spiritual/’heavenly’ creeds
as a way of coping with the fear we have of living on earth.
We
also assume/are taught that God lives in heaven, and therefore, not on earth.
But when we are in heaven there is also the quality that although we are ‘in
the house of God’, He is not really accessible to us. He is a long way away;
the boss, and no relationship except perhaps being told if we are ‘good or
bad’, and other people/beings help us with that.
What
is the Difference between the heavens?
So,
what were Adam and Eve doing in Eden
that they would not have been doing in Heaven? Adam has been placed there to
‘Till/Work it and Keep/Sustain/Care for it’. Adam will have to do physical work
if he wants to eat. Keeping implies to me that we are in charge of ensuring
that all God’s creations are kept very alive and very well to keep them going,
as in, sustain and protect them. I take this as the primary instruction for
humanity. Look after the garden and the animals for man’s own sake. (In the
process of learning to look after God’s creations, we learn to look after
ourselves as well.)
The
problem here is that looking after one’s body, and tilling and keeping a garden
and staying alive and well involves physical effort. Perhaps we are supposed to
actually do something after all.
What
then is the difference between being in or out of Eden?
We
are not specifically told that Adam talked/communed with God, but the
implication is there because they (A&E) hid after eating the fruit. Thus,
in Eden, we are
accessible to God/Life and He to us. ‘God comes walking in the Garden’.
This does not happen in Heaven, and it does not seem to happen out of the
Garden either. Talking/communing implies relationship and equality and the
Garden appears to be the only place it can happen.
Also,
in Eden,
although they are ‘naked’, they don’t notice the differences between their own
and other bodies or animals. They were not ‘ashamed’ of their bodies. Once
having eaten the fruit, they consider themselves naked and cover themselves
‘down there’, (aprons only, not the breasts), and are afraid of God, so they
hide and become inaccessible to God, who wanted to and still wants to (?) talk
to them. They then have to be thrown out of Eden to stop them from eating of the Tree of
Life.
Well,
then, what are the animals doing that’s different between being in Eden or not? The answer
here seems to be that there is no difference. In the wild (whatever actually
remains on earth currently) animals eat and are eaten and Life flows on,
maintaining its extraordinary beauty and balance. The birds in my garden hunt
for food every day, but all still have to keep a watchful eye for predators.
The animals have not been thrown out – they are still there. Neither do the
animals need warning not to eat of the TKGE. They will have eaten the fruit and
can, with no consequences. So, the problem of being thrown out of Eden is man’s alone. If
animals have no trouble with the TKGE, and humans do, then the problem lies
with our being made ‘in the Image of God’. So, why and how?
What
IS the Image of God?
Man
alone has been fashioned in the image of God, so what are these qualities that
distinguish us from other forms of life.
Our
mind has 2 parts which are split.
The
mind of man has 2 parts; the Conscious and the Unconscious. (We know this
because we can think about our thinking, as in, ‘what was I thinking?’.) The
Conscious is that inner part of us of which we are somewhat aware, and the
Unconscious is basically all the rest. It’s estimated that the Conscious is
about 10% and the Unconscious 90%, so there is a very large part of ourselves
that we know nothing about.
For
most people the Unconscious is almost not there; it is UnReal to us and we
barely take it seriously if at all. We don’t know what is there inside us and
we ignore it and yet we are ignoring such a very large part of ourselves. It’s
as if we owned a very big house, but only occupied the servant’s quarters and
never explored the rest, so we have no idea who/what is there. We don’t know
our selves or our potential. The 2 parts of us do not know the other part. They
are separate.
God’s
mind is not split.
God
is built the same way, by definition, but He does know His Unconscious
because he uses His creation/manifestation of Life to make his Unconscious Real
to Himself and His own Conscious. Life is made when the Conscious is unified
with the Unconscious, which is called ‘making the 2 one, ie Unity’. He is
Realizing His Unconscious by giving Life to an-other and another and so on….,
and He really likes doing that. This is Creation. He is using the process of
giving Life to tell Himself about Himself.
It
is very powerful and amazing to be able to do this, and we want to do that too
(because we are built the same way) and being alive on Earth is the way for us
to find out how.
But,
using both parts of our minds in synch, ie Unity, (making the 2 one)
cannot happen if we are busy ignoring our Unconscious. Turning our awareness to
the external world and judging what we find short-circuits our own quest for
Unity and we won’t be able to ‘be like God’. Hence God tries to warn us not to
eat of the fruit of trying to ‘know’ everything ‘out there’. We can’t do it,
and we’re looking in the wrong direction to boot.
This
puzzle of how we can work out how to be and do God is a strong drive for human
beings whether we know it or not, and it is why the snake was able to ‘tempt’
Adam & Eve by telling them that eating the fruit of the TKGE would make
them ‘more like God’. Remember that A&E are all of us as human beings.
It
is important to remember that animals are Unconscious, so the TKGE is not going
to affect them. They are not trying to control anything out there; they are
learning about living through their sensing and their experiencing and the
snake’s advice to us is actually useful to us as well as it. It is us humans
who get into trouble with that tree.
However,
another of our ‘talents’/proclivities seems to be Naming.
Naming.
Adam is also there for ‘Naming’. Can
we humans assume that animals don’t Name things? I do not know, but I do know
that we simply continue naming and labelling forever. Most people would not be
able to not name something for an hour; we cannot not name/label things. Naming
identifies our own experiences to us for ourselves. The implication of the
story is that God wants us to name what we find. The trouble is how/what we
name things, and the names/labels we use, because ‘naming’ implies
identification which implies contrast/comparison. We need to be careful about
our comparisons.
Naming
is very important and I think it is easy to miss.
The
story goes ‘out of the ground (earth) God formed (makes/creates) every beast of
the field and every bird of the air, and brings them to the man to see what he
would call them’, and that became its name. The only way I can ‘get at’ this
concept is to imagine what it would be like to have made all these fantastic
and wonderful things, and then just hand them over to my child to name them
whatever it pleased, with the instruction to look after it. This is a
tremendous gift as well as a great delight in whatever the child does
with it.
Being
able to think about our thinking, wanting to be like God, and labelling our
experiences, are the attributes that equip us to learn about who we are
through our experiences, but notice that these inbuilt ‘tools’ that we have can
be used incorrectly as well as correctly.
To
me, the implication of all of this is that God wants us to have the physical
experience of Life and he wants to know what we make of it. It delights Him. He
knows that it is all good. We are the ones who are not very sure about that
bit. But it is also clear that Life on Earth is a Gift, and we’re not sure
about this either.
So
then we turn to….
What
is this Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
The
bible story specifically refers to the tree as the Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil. Wikipedia tells us that the words should have been translated as the
Tree of Knowledge of Everything or the Tree of All Knowledge.
Any
explanation/interpretation will have to encompass both concepts.
The
name is commonly shortened to the Tree of Knowledge. We admire knowledge; we
think it’s good to know lots, and we admire those who know lots; we can let
them tell us what to do. Yet how does knowing everything lead to the effects
outlined in the story, naked, afraid etc.?
What
then, is this ‘Everything’ we think we want to know? Everyone has their own
ideas about what everything is. It is not possible to know everything, and we
kind of know that and keep wishing we did. We think knowledge of everything might
help bring control (of fear). Maybe we would be more powerful and know what to
do to manipulate life to give us what we want.
There
are 2 things that we don’t notice here.
One
of them is that this Everything that we want to know about is all that is in
your life that is external to you. It is not knowledge of you; it is
knowledge of everything but you.
The
focus of your attention has become external to you. You are now ‘looking out’
rather than a ‘looking in’. It is a focus on the world rather than on your own
self, and then we start trying to know everything about the external world
using our inbuilt naming and comparing.
The
other thing that we don’t always notice or remember is that there is a
difference between knowledge as a concept or information about whatever, or
what you think you know, and the actual ‘Knowing’ that comes primarily
from your own experience through your body’s senses. It is the difference
between theory and practice, and we have to be careful about which is which. In
this story the TKGE is about our concepts rather than the
actuality/reality of our own experience.
Eve
and the snake
Eve
has been formed from Adam’s rib. She has Adam’s abilities because she is made
from him. She has come from inside him. This is often taken as a weakness on
her part and a potential depletion of man, but I suspect that she is more able
to feel or sense into another’s internal state. That’s where she ‘comes from’
so to speak.
We
are not told what she is doing, but I would imagine she was observing and
getting to know herself, her surroundings and the creatures in the garden. And
she would be ‘sensing in’ which is a skill used by all ‘primitive’ peoples. I
also imagine that she observed animals eating the fruit of the TKGE without
any ill effect. But Adam has already told her that if they eat the
fruit they will die, so she would be immensely curious as to what was going on
here.
If
she was ‘sensing in’ to the snake, it would be saying, ‘sense everything, feel
everything, touch everything, know everything, experience everything. This is
what makes all of us Know Everything (in our world). For the snake, Knowing
comes through the senses of its body; its experience, and the snake is the very
closest to the earth. The snake doesn’t have the self-awareness or the
labelling that humans have. It simply experiences All of it with no judgement
in terms of avoiding doing things in case it might have a ‘bad’ time. It still
goes out and does ‘snaky’ things. As with all animals, it uses all its senses,
resources, and skills, and it has to be careful and wary to be successful and
stay alive. It is using all its senses all the time to survive.
She
will have tried the fruit through the snake’s example and advice which was correct
for it.
We
continue to consider the snake as a dreadful beast that lied to us, but what if
its advice is correct for people as well as animals? The actual problem is the
difference in understanding between animals and humans; there is a difference
in attributes. The snake is not talking about the knowledge of good and evil
that will help us have a more ‘heavenly’ or easier time; the snake is telling
us something completely different. It is talking about the knowing that comes
through its own senses and experience, because that is all of what it knows. It
is we ourselves who confuse trying to know ‘everything about everything’ as
‘being like God’. It is our own attributes that are getting us into trouble
because we are using them incorrectly when we label concepts/things as ‘good or
bad’, and think that we know about something when we actually do not.
Eve
does not notice any effect on her, and she then offers it to Adam. Adam has the
choice of eating it or not. He can listen to Life or listen to Eve. However,
curiosity and exploration, particularly of forbidden fruit, appears to be built
in to us humans, and there’s a certain inevitability here.
The
temptings
We
are tempted by the fruit of the TKGE. We want to know it all. Not only do we
wish to be like God, but I think we really do not like not knowing what will
happen next. If we have knowledge of everything then that should help us
navigate Life, and in particular help us keep the ‘good’ bits and avoid the
‘bad’. We are thinking that if it makes us ‘wise and God-Like’, then we will be
able to direct our lives as we want them to be, and be gods in our own world.
But
what actually happens is not what we expect.
Eating
of the Fruit of the TKGE.
Specifically,
eating of this fruit leads to..
- We
become aware of our nakedness (we begin to compare - to what?).
- We
feel a need to cover ‘down there’ (from whom? and why?)
- We
run and hide and then…
God
can’t ‘find’ us.
In
steps then;
Firstly;
our attention which was internal to us and un-selfconscious while in the garden
has turned its focus to the world out there. Animals are completely
un-selfconscious. They do not spend their time comparing themselves to
‘anybody’ else at all. ‘Self-conscious’ means looking at ourselves from
an-other’s point of view, ie external to self. And then,
We try to encompass this with our comparing,
judging and naming, and notice above all that we are an animal. And then, we
decide we’re a pretty fragile looking animal; just skin and no covering and
feeling very exposed (naked), and then,
We
try to make ourselves feel more secure. The fig leaves are an attempt to cover
the base chakra which is concerned with our connection to the earth; (security;
feeling safe), and then,
We
take fright, (the coverings are not enough) and bolt off to hide as fast as we
can – it is overwhelming.
Being
alive on earth as an animal is pretty different from ‘heaven’ after all and now
highly unsafe. We are now hiding from life and God.
Nakedness
is a comparison word which is looking externally; skin versus fur or feathers.
Adam’s use of the word ‘naked’ told God what had happened.
If
the purpose of Life on Earth is for us to learn about ourselves and our
capabilities, then we need to learn the difference between Knowledge (told
stuff) and the Knowing/Understanding that comes only from experience (we have
to do stuff and find and realize things for ourselves).
This
focus on the external and the consequent fear, judgement and avoidance makes us
‘die’ to the risks in life, and we can no longer be naturally ourselves or
engage in Life/living. We are not going to welcome experience unless we know
beforehand what’s going to happen (we are judging it) which defeats the whole
purpose, and we are not going to grow in self-awareness. We are afraid of Life
and living, and we hide when God comes walking in the garden. It is possible to
hide from God, and He can’t find us when we do.
This
is what happens when we have eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of
Everything or of Good and Evil.
Then
why is the TKGE in the garden?
Thus
the next question is why is the tree there in the first place? But All of life
has to be there. If we are of God/Life, why do we need something different from
God/Life?
God
can warn us about it, and has, but we have choice, as always.
I
suspect that, once again, we are assuming that if God says it is All Good, that
means that it is all heavenly, but in heaven we are dead (static and knowing
only theory), and God wants us to have Life, and the experience of being part
of it, and I suspect also that Life has to encompass All things. It is the
so-called ‘good’ that teaches us about ‘bad’ and vice versa. All of it is in
fact a duality, and it is these contrasts that awaken our awareness of
ourselves; ‘consciousness loves contrast’.
The
cursings
These
follow after Adam and Eve have hidden and then, when found out, have blamed
others rather than themselves.
Thus,
the cursings follow their blamings.
Blame holds decisions and judgement. Its use can be of
self or others or whatever. It ‘feels’ easier and better, because it helps us
keep a distance or detachment from our own feelings of guilt or shame at our
part in this situation.
Thus
it….
·
Implies
something should be different from what it actually is and indeed that you know
what that should be. You can’t accept the reality and prefer denial. We will
also wish to control the situation in some manner if possible and wish/demand
that the situation be changed.
·
Disempowers us –
we’re not going to look at our own part in this, and hence become powerless –
it’s not my fault, I’m a victim, so I could not avoid this – you made me do it,
and so on. Its use shrinks us – we cannot grow.
·
Builds a barrier
(or even enmity) between ‘blamer’ and ‘blamed’ – the guilty person should
‘pay’, which may suit me very well. There is a disconnection.
·
Prevents any
further information/dialogue between the parties, or any real partnership, or
shared endeavour. Thus, it ends relationship.
…All
of which lead to increasing fear and greater pain.
God
‘curses’ the serpent/snake first, then the woman, then the man.
For
the snake, he says ‘on your belly, you shall crawl’ which has led various
people to wonder if it used to have legs. I’m not sure about such things, but
the gist of it is that the snake shall be the lowest of the low, and that is
how we think of snakes, so much so that it is supposed to be symbolic of Satan.
Yet other cultures do not think of snakes in such a way. The woman’s attitude
to the snake as the ‘cause’ of her distress puts tension and distance between
them. There will be no befriending or potential sharing because there is blame.
In blaming the snake, Eve now fears it and she is disconnecting herself from a
major symbol of feminine energy in other cultures, and from close connection
with the earth.
Similarly,
Adam’s blaming of Eve puts distance between them. Guilt is painful; trying to
‘make it up’ with someone who wants to keep blaming us is painful, Eve will
suffer more pain. The distance between them will mean that neither will be able
to fully utilise each others’ skills, or be really in equal partnership.
However,
notice here that God does not actually ‘curse’ anyone or anything that He has
made because He knows perfectly well that He is only cursing Himself. So, if we
humans think of it in this way, we will be getting it wrong.
These
‘curses’ are actually the natural consequences of blaming others, and for Adam,
of having eaten the fruit, which has changed his attitude to Life and being in
the Garden of Eden, and his connection to God, because of the change in focus
regarding the self from internal to external .
When
you focus on the external, Name/label/judge/decide things as good or bad, and
baulk at exploring and experience because you are afraid, you are always thrown
out of the Garden. You are dying to Life.
Thistles
can be a dreadful weed or a medicinal herb, or information about the state of
your soil. Your attitude is your decision is your choice.
Is
working the soil, and eating what you grow, a blessing or a curse? It is
nothing but your thinking/naming/’knowledge’ that makes it so; (hence the quote
from Shakespeare at the beginning of this piece.) What you have ‘made’ of Life
(i.e. decided about it) is making your life.
There
is also much about dust. We are made of dust and return to dust. Dust is earth
without water. We are made of earth and so are all other living things. It is
our mortal ground.
Being
told we are made of earth/dust and will go back to it is not a ‘be-little’-ing
as we tend to think it is. It is actually an instruction that with such a
direct connection with the earth, we can consciously connect to Earth as we
think about it/her and desire to do so. Thus, we can use Earth as a source of
energy for ourselves whenever we want, and doing this will help us feel
safe. God was trying to tell us how to feel safer and therefore less
frightened.
The
aftermath
Then,
after the ‘curses’, God says ‘man has become like one of us knowing good and
evil…’. This sentence puzzles all of us, but it may simply be a reference to
understanding the things that tempt man. Man has got what he wanted, but it
isn’t good for him, and he is now in great danger of being able to access the
Tree of Life. I take this to mean that ‘living’ while ‘dying to the reason for
being alive’ is not the way to go.
God
gives them clothes, drives them out, (they have, of course, driven themselves
out) and protects the garden with cherubim (singular or plural unspecified) and
a whirling and flashing sword in the East. What are these?
There
is little in the bible about cherubim, but it appears to be a symbol of ‘realized’
man; a man who knows all of himself, which is quite something.
The
sword is also a puzzle, but I can think of one flaming sword that few people
will face, and that’s the burning fiery discomfort in the gut from guilt and
shame that occurs when we are faced with our own part in the things that happen
to us, and the consequent dent in our self-concepts. Many people would die
rather than face this sword.
CONCLUSIONS.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
What
are we left with?
I
think we are left with a clearer understanding of
·
How we get
thrown out of the garden, and
·
How we get back
in, and
·
Why we want to
be there, and
·
What we’re
supposed to do when we’re in it,
all of which seems to me to be quite handy really.
We
can even hypothesise about the Reason for Life, and what we and God might be
wanting.
Therefore,
in order….
How
do we get thrown out? By eating of
this particular tree.
When
we focus on Everything but ourselves we are ‘looking’ the wrong way. There is
too much for us to cope with. Fear, judgement and avoidance overwhelm us. The
External focus debilitates us.
The
irony here is that usually we try to cope with this fear by trying to eat even more
of this fruit of the TKGE.
Almost
every aspect of our current media is a focus on the external. All opinions are
about external things. Remove your focus from the external and stick with
yourself and what you know and find for yourself. In particular, practice
suspending judgement, and try seeing what happens when you remove blame from
anything, including yourself, as in, simply work with what is.
How
do we get back in? Stop wanting to
be ‘above it all’; hiding from life and wanting to get back to the ‘safety’ of
Heaven. We are of earth and we are an animal, and here to learn about ourselves
through experiences. (Notice that all animals need clean air, clean water and
clean earth.) Develop your senses, skills and capabilities, and take pleasure
in what you achieve, create and realize. (Developing your senses includes
refraining from deafening your hearing and ingesting vast amounts of sugar.)
Keep your attention focused internally. In fact, a primary commandment appears
to be ‘Know Thyself’ as in, realize/remember/recognise all of you.
Take
responsibility and understand your own part in all of your experiences, particularly
when you would most like to blame anyone or anything else. Face the flaming
sword.
The
greatest changes in the last 25 years include the access to ‘alternative’
information/ideas about life, and the modern development of tools to face your
own judgements and to learn about yourself and your uniqueness (All your own
Good and All your own Bad). However much these tools remain under the
radar of public awareness, they are not far away, but they are certainly not
part of our standard institutions.
Realized
woman is able to stand up and be herself before and with God/Life.
Why
do we want to be there? I suspect
one of our deepest wishes is to ‘talk with God’. In the garden of Eden (where
our focus is internal) we are not afraid or self-conscious and we can welcome
and embrace Life and be in partnership with it. It is in this way that we can
become truly safe. The implication in this tale is that God/Life has never
stopped wanting to talk to us. It is we who are afraid and hide.
What
are we supposed to be doing when we’re there? Doing what God/Life does. Learning about who we really are and
creating, wonderful, beautiful, useful things. Notice that, as we create, we
learn about ourselves. That’s pretty good, so create more. Our children are
brilliant at telling us about ourselves; we are just not always sure we want to
know. Children are of course, not the only way. Having fun, learning about
ourselves, playing with our children, making things of earth, looking after all
the other animals and ourselves so that we are all vibrantly well and happy
(Tilling and Keeping it). Coming into equal partnership with all Life/God so
that it can talk to us and we can talk to it so that we learn about ourselves
and others. It is in this partnership with God/Life that we can find a security
that is much greater and more use to us than being safe because nothing can
happen to us. It is the security that needs no security.
We
learn to treat all as sacred because God/Life is in everything.
And
make friends with the snake; its advice was correct. Get close to the earth and
feel it; experience, experience, experience and find out for yourself.
Share
what we have found in our own uniqueness with others; come into relationship.
We are not meant to be islands. We build through shared resources.
And
I suspect that this is the reason for it all, and I suspect that this is what
we both (God and humans) want. The actual Getting back into the Garden is an
individual task. The only person who can work on this is you. Start when you
want.
And
specifically..
To
Adam.
Stop
blaming Eve for your choices, or your feelings of insecurity or lack of control
in life. (Whole religions may come apart at the seams here.) You can find
security for yourself if you are able to give it to another. Are you able to
use your natural masculine abilities for the purpose of protecting/keeping
life?
You
have much to gain from coming into equal partnership with women, and learning
to appreciate her skills which are different from yours.
Till
and keep the Earth together. We only have one.
To
Eve.
Stop
blaming the snake and go back to making friends with it. Listen to whatever
else it has to say. Go back to all Life – the natural living world as much as
you can, rather than the man-made world. ‘Sensing in’ is a woman’s inheritance.
How do we use it? It needs peace and quiet and time (how much of these have you
got?) to blossom and develop. Remove your energy and attention from Adam; you
are not guilty and never were. Wait for Adam to come into partnership with you
first, otherwise he’s not going to learn, and he may not be worthy of you.
He’ll ‘rule over you’, as in, take no notice of you.
[For
a marvellous description of a realized Eve, read the Anastasia books.]
To
both.
Partnership
brings more when together than 2 single people can do by themselves. We know
that.
Earth
needs all the skills of both men and women together.
And
above all – Know Thyself, which means know all of yourself including what’s in
your Unconscious; (this is a bit like finding out who else lives in the rest of
that large house you own). This is the Reason for Life. We are part of God and
God likes knowing Himself and does it through everything that He has Created.
We do this ourselves when we learn who we are through our children and we
delight in their learning (hopefully).
Make
beautiful and/or useful things.
The
more you know yourself, the safer you will feel. There will be less fear in
your life, less need to hide from God/Life, and you will be able to listen to
Life, and what it has to say.
Life
is a gift. Gratitude can help us realise this.
‘Talking’
to God/Life.
I
have used God/Life throughout this discussion as a way of ‘getting a handle’ on
concepts such as ‘Talking to God/Life’. When I was growing up my concept of
being spoken to by God included trying to be ‘good’ enough to be spoken to, and
then I might hear a booming voice ‘telling’ me what to do. However, not only
has this not happened, it is not what I call partnership. My reasoning for
using God/Life rather than simply God goes…
·
If God/Life is
an energy much greater than I am, and
·
God creates all
Life, as in, this energy/breath is in us all, then
·
All Life is a
manifestation of God energy and therefore any manifestation of Life (rocks,
plants, animals people and circumstances) can ‘speak’ to you, as you can
‘speak’ to God, if that is what you want.
So
what is this ‘speaking/talking’? All Life has a resonance; that is the energy.
Some things will ‘resonate’ with you, and some not. The ‘resonating’ is the
‘speaking’ (loud or soft; nice or nasty). It is your business to not only
notice this resonance in you for yourself, but to then work out what it means
to you. You get to develop your own style. This is how God/Life ‘speaks’ to
you, as you ‘speak’ to Life through your own resonance.
I
imagine this is the basis of most nature-based religions.
All
Life is sacred, including you. Treat it with proper respect.
In
sum.
This
is what I think that this story is trying to say, and as you may have guessed
from the title, I think this story is very relevant to today. No-one will be
more surprised than I was at what I found through this inquiry. I have found it
very useful indeed, and hope it may be of use to you.
Anastasia.
There
are 9 ‘Anastasia’ books written by Vladimir MEGRE, (Russian) translated to
English by John Woodsworth, edited by Leonid Sharaskin, and published by
Ringing Cedars Press, 2004 on, and are available in Australia. (and also available
through Nexus magazine)
The
title of the 1st book is ‘Anastasia’. They are just lovely.