From my studies of Spinoza I have learned how to dig deeper into the psychological nature of Adam and Eve, as if I was in Garden of Eden with them. This is how I understand the story of Adam & Eve, being tempted by the devil to eat of the fruit of knowledge, and by doing so eventually banished from the Garden of Eden.
Now the Garden of Eden represents man’s higher conscious mental state and its understanding is truly blissful and a Godly state of being. The apple represents instinctual knowledge and the devil represents desire.
The apple of knowledge represents the first level of knowledge, the lowest level for man. This knowledge expresses man’s instincts and it is comprised of hearsay, mere-experience, feelings, images, and words. Consequently there is no real understanding, and we react to life’s challenges and problems automatically. This is where most of us live and breathe. This lower level of knowledge deals with life in general, we follow our feeling and desires such as: we seek material gain, we procreate, we raise families, and we focus on competing for praise and fame, and we desire to accumulate as many things as possible.
God made Adam and Eve and they were human, and being human have desires: living in Eden, and in God’s love, it was not enough for the curious impulses of desire. Choices we do have, free-will we don’t have. Freedom of the will is a false premise and belief. We are conscious and driven by our desires, and we are unconscious of the causes of how our desires are triggered and stimulated; ultimately, we pay the consequences of giving into our desires which we later regret.
The DEVIL is in the “DESIRE”, the immediate desire which only wants to pleasure ourselves with excesses and which gratifies our current wants and feelings; we are blinded and forget the consequences of our decision, and after our desire is fulfilled we are filled with regret, sadness, remorse and repentance.
Through Spinoza and Gurdjieff teachings we learn that the second and the third level of knowledge is where our true freedom resides. Reason is the second level of knowledge and intuition is the third. To live in reason and intuition brings forth clarity and truth; we live life in its fullness. We are blessed because we know we participate in God’s consciousness and nature, and we experience the wholeness of life. We live and know that the true Garden of Eden is the essential clarity of our mind.
