The Fruit of Knowledge

The story of Adam and Eve isn’t a story about the creation of original sin; it contains the wisdom of the original self and the way to find our way back to the origin of our pure nature.

Humans developed through the creation of evolution, we are constantly improving in mind and body, in knowledge and strength. Also our spiritual self is constantly evolving forward. Over the past millennium it has been only a few special beings who found the way to enlightenment through the special grace of devotion, certain individuals found the way to unite with the universal oneness of creation or “God” as it is commonly called, like the Buddha and Jesus. These beings taught others and passed the wisdom down through their linage and teachings. Now this wisdom has spread across the globe and is readily available for everyone who seeks it.

Before Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge she didn’t know anything, she lived in the bliss of wisdom, accepting the environment around her as it was, perceiving her world in its total purity, there was no perception of good nor evil, no knowledge of right or wrong, everything just existed as it was, as creation. Then she was persuaded by the serpent to taste the fruit, which she thoughtfully shared with Adam. When they tasted the fruit of knowledge, they became like God, they knew the difference between good and evil, they could judge what was right and wrong.

Before Adam and Eve ate the fruit their minds were completely still, no thought rippled through their minds, they didn’t know anything, everything was purely calm and peacefully still. They had no judgement because there was no need to know right from wrong because everything was perfect, everything was just the way it is was meant to be. Nothing appeared as either positive or negative, they accepted life in its pure state, they didn’t question anything, and they lived in the perfect state of harmony with everything that existed.

The way to reach primordial purity is to see everything as it purely is, to find the true essence of everything as it is created, neither good nor bad, to see everything just as it is. It is possible to obtain this state of pure perception, you just have to recognize it; it wasn’t taken away, it was covered over by knowledge, by thoughts and emotions. When thoughts and emotions are kept still your mind becomes free to see clearly. Everything you know is still in your mind, thought is suspended, motionless and mind is clear.

I have a lot of problems with the story of Adam and Eve. By planting a glorious fruit tree in the middle of the garden of Eden and then telling the inhabitants not to eat the fruit, it seems to me that God put temptation in the way of Adam and Eve, not the serpent, the serpent told Eve the truth, that she would become wise like God. God had lied to them and told them that they would die the day they ate the fruit. God judged them and condemned them when he discovered what they had done. It is not good to judge people, though I suppose that is God’s prerogative.

I think what they gave up when they ate the fruit was their faith in God. He had told them not to eat it and expected them to have blind faith and do what he said. When they went against His word, God lost faith in people. When they ate the fruit, knowledge came into their minds, thoughts formed; they started to think, to question, to ask why it is so? Their minds were no longer in the pure state of stillness that is the state of grace. The wonderful thing is that it is quite possible to get that grace back, by believing in yourself, finding faith in yourself, believe that the divine is inside you. Have faith in the belief of your own divinity.

If God is all knowing, he must have known they would eat the fruit. And why didn’t he know they had? He came looking for them on a walk through the garden and found them hiding behind a tree because they were ashamed of being naked. I am not sure where they got the idea that being naked was shameful and their sex had to be hidden behind fig leaves? May be they could see that it was their sex that made them different from each other. And what’s with this original sin? That Adam’s sin is passed on through sex to his sons? God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, he didn’t say sex was sinful. The idea of original sin was invented by St Paul and expanded by St Augustine.

If Eve hadn’t shared knowledge with Adam we wouldn’t have had civilization, humans wouldn’t have created all the wonderful works of art and inventions nor had all the amazing thoughts that we have had, are having and will have. I wouldn’t have the knowledge to find my way back to how we were before we had knowledge. And now I have both – the pure serenity of stillness and peace AND all the knowledge of the ages.

So thanks Eve for giving Adam an apple, I think you started us out on an amazing journey of discovery.

I’ve been in that garden with Eve and the snake – the snake gave her the energy. Wow! Imagine what happened in Eve’s brain when the power of thought went into it, it must have blown her mind! Like how I felt when the snake revealed to me the power of faith.

Change negative to positive

Shining Darkness

If the sun didn’t shine on the earth then the other side of the world wouldn’t have night. Think how many wonderful things there are in the darkness of night…? There are nocturnal animals and stars, city lights and cool air; the moon reflected in still ponds and nightingale’s song, there is rest and sleep and dreams. Imagine freshly fallen raindrops hanging from the tip of every leaf of a tree and in every drop is the reflection of the moon. Without the dark of night we wouldn’t have many wonderful and beautiful things. The night also is full of shadows and lurking fears, of things that can’t be seen, of howling wolves and spider webs, slimy slugs and shrieking bats.

Life is made up of experiences, some that make us feel glad and others that make us feel bad. Sometimes something happens in life that feels so bad it feels like your heart is going to crack and your body wants to die. But guess what? If you can teach your mind to look at negative experiences in the right way you will not only get over them but they will make you a stronger and better person.

We all have bad experiences in life but we can use them as a catalyst to change life into something brighter. Start small, in the midst of a calamity, find a tiny thing of beauty, a butterfly or an interesting leaf, a sunny sky and puffy clouds, the sound of rain or someone’s smile. Let it bring you into the moment, each moment is easier to deal with than the stories created in your mind of what might be or what may have happened.

 In a dark room if you turn on a light the darkness is gone and the room is filled with light, if it wasn’t dark in the first place you would have no need to turn on a light because you would already be able to see. If we didn’t have dark times in our lives, we wouldn’t recognize the bright times. There is a comparison for us in experiences that cause us pain with experiences that bring us happiness. Search for the positive in the negative experience then the negative experience can have a positive reaction. If you can learn a positive lesson from a negative experience then the negative experience isn’t really negative at all, it’s positive because it has taught you a valuable lesson. If you don’t learn from a negative experience, if you can’t find some positive reason for its happening, then it can only remain negative, you won’t grow or learn and will probably repeat the same mistake over again till you eventually learn, if you never learn you will stay on the treadmill of negative existence.

Don’t try to deny hurt and pain, pushing it away will only make it stronger. We naturally gravitate to what makes us feel good and repel what makes us feel bad.  Try the opposite, embrace it. It isn’t a good idea to smack a crying child in an effort to sooth them, you would cuddle them, nurture them, say comforting things. That is what you need to do to feelings that make you feel bad. Say a loved one has died and you are feeling grief, loss and sadness. These emotions don’t make you feel good and it seems that the natural thing to do is to try and push them away or block them out because you don’t like feeling bad. Instead of looking at the event and thinking about the loved one, look at how you are feeling, look at your grief. By looking at the emotion objectively it looses its power and fades away. It takes practice. Look at the emotion, not the event that has caused the pain. It is natural to feel pain and grief, so embrace it, notice the feeling and be kind to it, be kind to yourself.  You can try imagining the feeling as an object or a colour or as a bubble with the feeling inside, look at it. Say to yourself that it is ok to feel this way, accept the emotion, don’t try to stifle it, just let it be. After a little while, tell the feeling that you acknowledge its existence, put it in a container, a bubble, a box, whatever you visualize and put it away till later. Next time the feeling rises, bring it out of its container, look at it, acknowledge that it is there, accept it and put it away again. If you have made the emotion into a colour, change the colour.

You don’t need to hold onto emotions that hurt, you don’t need to push them away; you just need to accept them.

What if you are in a bad situation? Is there anything you can do to change the situation? If there is then do it! Do whatever you can to fix it. If there is nothing you can do, there is no use worrying about it, worrying and obsessing over it isn’t going to change the problem nor is it going to provide a solution, it is only going to cause you the grief of worrying, there is no point, so stop worrying about it. If you are worried about something that might happen in the future, there is no point as we can’t know what the future may bring, circumstances may change and bring a favourable outcome and then you will have wasted all that time and energy worrying about nothing. If you do everything in your power to fix a situation and things don’t work out the way you envisaged, then they probably weren’t meant to, but you will have the knowledge that you have done your best, that you took action instead of wasting energy on pointless worry, accept that the universe has made life this way for reasons you may not understand, you have to trust that the universe works the way it does for a reason. It’s really strange, but once you stop fighting against the tide and go with the flow, things have a way of working out for the best, differently to what you hopes, but ultimately for the good. It takes trust and faith.

Turn the light on in the darkness of your mind. Turn suffering into happiness, embrace the suffering, look at it, learn from it, and transform it into something positive. Without negative experiences we wouldn’t have the catalyst or the opportunity for the growth it offers, so they aren’t really negative at all, they are positive means for us to grow into happy light-filled life participants.  Look at life’s experiences this way and everything you thought was bad in your life turns into something good, negative is transformed into positive.

You can’t be enlightened if you haven’t been endarkened.