Adam and Eve Revisited
By Vincent Tarantola
According to the Bible, this is how mankind came into being: "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." [Genesis 2:7] These words would seem to indicate that the chemical and biological components of the physical body are
part of the same nature that we have been trying unsuccessfully to subdue all along. In other words, we have been unwittingly trying to dominate our own nature, ourselves.
But man is not yet alive, but only flesh that is devoid of life, of spirit, of the very breath of God. The Bible goes on
to say that "The Lord God Breathed Into His Nostrils the Breath of Life and Man Became a Living Soul." [Genesis 2:7] These extraordinary words tell us a great deal both about ourselves and about God. First of all, the Creator seems to love us so much that He gives us the very Essence of Himself, His own breath. Secondly, man does not possess a soul, he is the personification of one. What does this breath consist of,
what does it contain?
Before we attempt to answer such a question, let us see what these words tell us about God. It would seem that whatever God is, He is definitely a breathing entity. Therefore, if what we call God is the Spiritual Universe that religion calls Heaven, then this Creative Spirit is alive and breathes. It is also extremely generous in that it animates or brings to life lifeless or inanimate creations, its creatures, by giving them the very breath of God, the expression of the Creator, the way in which All That Is manifests or takes shape. If this is the case, what is the quality and the nature of the life that comes from God and that was breathed directly into our nostrils with the miraculuous result that something came out of nothing? If God is immortal or eternal, can the life that He gives to His beloved children possibly be finite or mortal? What does this life contain, what is its nature? I believe that the best way to answer such an existential question is to understand what kind of man Jesus Christ was, for He Himself says "To Know Me Is To Know My Father," [John 14:9] and "I and My Father Are One." [John 10:30] Of all the statements He made about Himself using the words I Am none is as pregnant with meaning as this: "I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." [John 14:6] Books could be
written about these words, but we shall attempt to interpret them as they apply to us, to the very nature of man.
If Jesus was the living manifestation of God, of Divine Reality, then our ultimate nature has to be the same as His, for Jesus Himself said: "Your Father Is My Father. My God Is Your God." [John 20:17] Therefore, we can safely conclude that the breath that God put into our physical bodies contains The Way, The Truth and the Life. Although there are many meanings to these words, just as with anything that the Lord said, we need to apply them to our concept of who we are or, rather, of who
we think we are and therefore seem to be.
I believe that the words of the Bible are meaningless unless they have immediate applicability to our life today, in the here and now. Therefore, if you accept my argument until now and apply it to man's heritage or nature, you cannot escape the wonderful and hopeful realization that man's ultimate nature, his very essence, cannot possibly be physical or human but has to be Divine or God-like and is therefore immortal. That can only mean that the source of our being cannot be our biological parents, but must be our Spiritual one, what we call God. This contention seems to be supported by Jesus when He says: "It Is The Spirit That Gives Life. The Flesh Cannot Give Life To Itself" [John 6:63]. He then reinforces this argument when He says that "The Kingdom Of God Is Within You" [Luke 17:21].
I realize that all this goes against some of the basic teachings of the Church, but my argument is based solely on
what is written in the New Testament. You can take it or leave it since you have free will.
Before I pan over to Adam and Eve, I want to tell you what I think Jesus wanted us to know about ourselves by The Way, The Truth, and the Life. First of all, Christ symbolized the Higher Self of man, the Spiritual Being within all of us. He was simply the first human being to have totally or wholly realized or actualized His Divine Potential. That is why He was said to be "The Only Begotten Of The Father." [John 1:14] He was the first human being--begotten--to have become a Son of God, a self-realized being, one who was totally one with His Divinity. That is why there was no physical body for Him to leave behind when He was crucified. By saying "I and My Father Are One," [John 10:30] Jesus was implying that the integration was complete. Therefore, if a body had been found in the tomb, it would have meant that His body was not totally infused with the God Consciousness, the Spirit. As a result, He would have been an impostor and a liar, a false prophet, as some still believe.
It would appear from His words that Truth and Life must co-exist within the personality, the psyche. That means that life can only co-exist with Truth. Conversely, where there is any kind of sickness, it can only be an indication of the fact that there is a basic untruth, a falsehood or erroneous idea living somewhere in the organism, in the inner consciousness, for otherwise there could not possibly be anything but life and health, wholeness or holiness. This conclusion on my part is perhaps best supported by this saying of the Lord that is so often misinterpreted and taken out of context when quoted: "If Thine Be Evil, Thy Body Will Be Full of Darkness. But If Thine Eye Be Single, Thy Body Will Be Full of Light." [Matthew 7:23] Of course, these words have nothing to do with the evil eye or with putting a curse on people, but rather with two entirely different ways of perceiving life and ourselves. If your perception is single, you will see life and yourself as they really are, both good and bad. But if you see or perceive things as either all good or totally bad, this black and white outlook will result in darkness, confusion, and conflict. This dualistic way of seeing things is the human condition and takes us directly back to Adam and Eve and the apple, or whatever it was that Eve plucked from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This fragmented consciousness and perception of life that we are so accustomed to, the human condition, is the apple that all of us took a bite out of through Adam and Eve.
The Garden of Eden symbolizes the fertile ground of Being, of Reality, of Creation. In this Divine Consciousness there are two main trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [Genesis 2:9]. Therefore, it would seem that in this immense sea of Divine Reality there exist many states of consciousness, the trees, for the created beings to partake of and explore. But in order to experience a part, a fragment of Creation, we have to wear or take on such a state of being, such a consciousness. I believe that the word "knowledge" applies to a consciousness, a state of mind, a fragment of experience. The tree represents the Source of the knowledge or state of being. But since this Source is essentially good or benign or positive, why is there a distinction about good and evil and what is the difference between the two?
First of all, this consciousness that we took on by eating the apple seems to have been superimposed over out original state of being, the one we had before we took the fateful bite. In other words, we did not simply discard the original Divine Consciousness that we had been given by God when He created us in His own image, but rather we covered it with the new one. As strange as this may seem, this is a blessing, for by knowing this we can recapture it, and that is the purpose of life. But let us go back to good and evil and try to deeply understand what these words represent to us today.
Since you are a descendant of Adam and Eve, you too consist of good qualities and faults, of strengths and weaknesses, of character defects and positive trends. What this means is that every single human being is both good and bad, selfish and altruistic, has constructive tendencies and negative impulses. To deny such a fact of life is to deny that you are a direct descendant of Adam and Eve, and that would be totally irrational.
Therefore, if you really want to know yourself, you need to look at both the good and the bad in you, at the black and the white, the higher self and the lower self, the angel and the devil. But as long as you deny the obvious, you will continue to reject the rotten part of your human nature, a heritage that all of us have, at least to some degree. To negate such a truth is to deny our reality, our humanity, as well as our potential or dormant Divinity.
I believe that it is this very denial and refusal to acknowledge the presence in all of us of destructiveness or evil that is the ultimate cause of violence, of mass killings, and of such devastating illnesses as AIDS and cancer. Not the presence of the bad apple, but rather the denial of the fact that it is there, within us, permeating every single cell of our physical and psychic organism. For by repressing and covering up the rage, the selfishness, the hate, the irrationality, the hopelessness, the helplessness, and the separateness which are the very essence of the temporary evil part of our human nature, we have split ourselves into a good or acceptable part and a bad and therefore undesirable aspect. It is this very inner fragmentation that tears the human soul apart and that is at the root of our emotional, mental, and physical illnesses.
As a result, we are creating tremendous pressure because the so-called evil is a current of energy that needs an outlet. If it is blocked, it will eventually burst the barricade and its torrential force will swamp everything in its path. The problem is that we have been indoctrinated for centuries with the apparent necessity to be good and loving and deny or sublimate our dark side. In other words, to cover up who we really are, both bood and evil, with a fig leaf.
I know how hard and long this process of uncovering ourselves can be because it has taken me many years of arduous and often painful inner work to expose to myself and others my immaturity, my neuroses, my pettiness, my vanity, my stubbornness, my weakness, my fears. In other words, the evil that is in me. The shame of it and the guilt, the secret feeling of being a sinner, of being totally bad and unlovable, simply for having in me such a selfish and destructive side, has had devastating consequences both for me and my family, spiritually as well as physically. My deep fear of the devil in me has also kept me split off from the good that is also in me, from my inherent Divinity. As a result, I found myself living in my mask or false self, the persona, the idealized self, the front -- the fig leaf, The fear of exposure, together with the guilt for being a phony and untrue to myself, have caused me physical illness, a feeling of unworthiness, a lack of self-confidence, and even a death wish for being so incompetent, so weak, so
self-centered, so imperfect, so irresponsible, so immature. Where there is no self-acceptance there is always self-rejection and even self-hate present.
Therefore, I urge you to read the first three chapters of Genesis very carefully, with the dominant aim of applying them to yourself. If you want to heal yourself of this apparent conflict, of good versus evil, you first have to admit that these two apparently contradictory forces live in you before you begin to realize that they are not different forces in reality, but rather two different aspects of the same Constructiveness, two sides of the same coin. When you begin to realize this truth, you can start to view all the apparent opposites -- life vs. death, health vs. sickness, black vs. white, love vs. selfishness, you vs. others -- in the same way, with a single eye, and you will eventually conciliate the apparent dualities or opposite extremes. As a result, you will see the good in the evil and the evil in the good. For example, you will realize that if you are poor, this may be a message from the part of you that lives in fullness that you harbor a deeply rooted belief in the poverty of life and of your own true nature, or that you may secretly feel that what others have has been taken away from you, or else you may be too lazy to pay the necessary price in order to enjoy the riches of life, just as I have been for most of my life. In other words, what we have and what we lack is merely an outpicturing of our inner state of mind, of our internal belief system.
If you start to go inside, to do some soul searching, you will encounter both sides of your nature, though at first you are bound to meet up with the side of you that is small and petty and ignorant, simply because that sits on top of the other part of you, so to speak. If you realize that there is a Divine part in you, you will get used to asking your Inner Self questions about anything that is important in your inner and outer life. For example, if you ask your Godself what it is you need to know or do most for your development at this time, you will have taken the first step towards hearing the voice of God in you, a voice that has always been present, though your inner gaze was turned in the wrong direction, toward the voices that come from the outer world, as well as the often tumultuous chatter of your human mind.
If you have the courage to listen carefully, you may hear this voice telling you that there are dark spots in you, or unresolved problems you need to address, or tensions that tighten you up inwardly and make it impossible for the Life Force to get through and lubricate your soul and body.
Whatever ails you, go into your inner stillness and ask your Godself to speak to you and guide you. Call upon the Higher Powers within you and around you and say to them that you want them to come to your aid, for they will not help you otherwise. In other words, you must ask in order to receive, you must knock in order for the door to be opened to you, and you have to seek in order to find.
The work of unification and purification of the human consciousness, inner work, is long and arduous. If you have
been told that you have a supposedly terminal illness, such
as cancer, you may simply have accepted such a death sentence without even questioning it, perhaps because the doctors are
all experts and they therefore are supposed to know more than you. But if you start from the premise that only you yourself can know the truth about yourself, and no one else, then you have a chance.
Therefore, begin to question such a conclusion and throw a monkey wrench into what you believe to be inevitable by asking yourself: "Is it necessarily true that I must die? I truly want to know." When you want to know the truth, this truth will be given to you and it will make you free of the very untruth
that you assume to be the truth. At the same time, start to indoctrinate yourself with a different kind of suggestion: "I will only react to good or positive suggestions, both from myself and others." You need to repeat such a statement many times every day in a very personal, deeply felt way, in order
to build up a sort of immunity against the negative messages that all of us continually give to ourselves and that our environment reinforces through its own belief system, such as that of television and newspapers.
This is but the beginning, but it is the hardest part, as all beginnings are. Be prepared for the negative forces within you to put up quite a resistance. The part of you that inexplicably wants you to be sick does not want to know anything else. It wants to be right and it will destroy you if necessary just to prove that life is horrible or that God wants you to suffer or that others are out to get you or that you are unlovable and therefore undeserving of anything good. As long
as we have the bad in us, as long as we have not accepted it
and integrated it with the good in us, such a basic negative attitude is part of our human nature, the one we all took on when we ate of the apple of the tree that God clearly pointed out to to us would get us into trouble. We were not punished
for being disobedient, but merely for not having listened to perfectly good advice to stay away from trouble. We have no
one to blame but ourselves for being so stubborn and for not trusting the voice of our Higher Nature. It has nothing to do with God being so mad at us that He kicked us out of Paradise. Rather, it is impossible to live in Divine Reality with a state of mind that sees everything as being either good or bad, black or white, right or wrong. We need to transcend this state of mind and realize or bring into awareness the original one, the one we had before the Fall, when we knew that everything is good, that the Creator and His creation are one and the same, and therefore essentially positive or loving.
Whenever you think about how bad or worthless or sinful you are, set out to counteract such a habitual value judgment with the words that Christ spoke to all of us: "You Are the Light of the World and the Salt of the Earth." [Matthew 5:13-14] Make such a suggestion to yourself before you go to sleep and tell your consciousness that you want the Healing Forces within you to go to work on the afflicted part of your soul and body and heal them so that you can become healthy, as you are supposed
to be, and thereby be able to help others. For this is your birthright and your heritage and you deserve to be whole, just as God made you when He breathed into your nostrils the Breath of Life and you became who you truly are and not who you think you are, or fear you are.
The Real You lives underneath the temporary layer of falseness that all of us humans took on when Adam and Eve partook of the apple and totally forgot our original consciousness simply because we started to identify with the human or physical state of mind and experience, instead of realizing that we are both human and divine. Although we are human in our present limitations, we are also divine in our inner or underlying potentials, the very possibilities we have failed to develop simply because we were too busy being human and enjoying the experience of physical reality.
As we begin to focus on the inner world, gradually this Divine Reality comes more and more to the fore and we start to realize that it is our true nature and that we never fell after all, but that we merely embarked on a fascinating voyage of discovery and self-discovery, but that it is now time to go back home, just as the Prodigal Son did when he realized that there was nothing else for him out there except suffering and misery.