CHAPTER 5: EATING THE FRUIT
Having established that God's prohibition against eating the forbidden
fruit was an attempt to keep Adam safe from harm, the next logical questions are: what
pain was God trying to spare Adam? What was (is) this Tree? What could it do to Adam (us)?
That is the subject of the present Chapter. We will examine the forbidden Tree, attempt to
determine its nature, and see what effects these have on those who eat from it.
ADAM AND EVE BEFORE THE FALL
What was life like for Adam and Eve before the fall? After they had just been created, what was Eden like for them? What did they think about? We know that they were created in the image of God (Gen 1:26), but what does this mean? These are difficult questions. We have only a tiny bit of information in the Genesis account. The rest we must deduce.
I bring it up here because there is one absolutely critical point that we must understand. From this one point we can gain much understanding about both Eden and the fall.
CRUCIAL POINT # 2: Before the fall, all Adam and Eve knew was life. They did not know evil. And they did not know good as "good". It was only life.
It is quite impossible for me to overemphasize this. This very well may be one of the most significant ideas in the history of our race.
It is a mistake to think that before the fall Adam and Eve only knew "good", and that after the fall they knew evil. In other words, this is wrong:
Before = good, after = evil
They partook from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Before the fall they neither knew good nor evil. They only knew life. Thus,
Before = life, after = good & evil
Before = monism,
After = duality
Yes, everything was created good. But Adam and Eve didn't know it as "good". They only knew it as being what it was. It was what it was. Adam was created "very good", but he didn't know himself as "very good". All he could say of himself was "I am what I am." Thus, he was "naked but not ashamed," living as an organic part of the whole of creation. In that he was a living, dynamic being, with the future of eternity open before him, he could therefore say "I will be what I will be." God knew/knows good and evil. That is why he could declare that all he made was "very good". He knew the difference. But from Adam's perspective, all that existed, albeit good, was all he had ever known. He had nothing to compare this goodness to. It was therefore not relative to anything else, but absolute.
All Adam knew was life. The fruit from the Tree of Life.
His consciousness was single minded, unitive, monistic, free from all awareness of duality or separateness. He lived "as one with nature," to use a modern phrase. Try to imagine that from the moment you were born:
1) you were sitting in a room full of light,
2) you could not close your eyes or turn away, and
3) the light was always on.
Furthermore, no one else existed to tell you about a thing called "dark".
Yes, you would know the light, obviously. But you would know it not as a relative thing, the opposite of another, but as an absolute unchanging permanence. You would have nothing to compare it to, no frame of reference.
So it was with Adam and Eve. They knew good, but not as "good". (I realize that I am repeating myself. Many of these concepts are so foreign to our normal way of thinking that I try different approaches or views in order to encompass the idea.) From this central understanding, we can gather much about the state before the fall.
- I will be what I will be the fullest recognition of life.
- Unitive a monistic awareness without relative good & evil oneness an organic part of nature.
- Harmony living in easy conjunction with all the world
- Unashamed nakedness was natural
- Egoless no need to clutch to me, myself and I
- Peace the life with no enemies or problems
- Love for the whole of the created goodness without any limits
CUG: EVIL = DISOBEDIENCE
The purity of this paradise was shattered when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden Tree.
CRUCIAL QUESTION #2: What was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
As we have seen, the CUG answers this question by saying that the Tree was simply an ordinary Tree which became important only when God chose it as the object of his obedience test. Why then was it called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Because:
1) Through this Tree Adam could gain the knowledge of good by being obedient, and
2) through disobedience Adam learned evil and its ramifications.
In other words, in the CUG, evil = disobedience. As we have seen, this is a meaningless ascribed quality, if obedience serves no purpose other than itself.
But what if, in fact, the Tree was intrinsically harmful? If God had a reason for commanding Adam to avoid it, what danger did the Tree represent? To echo an earlier example, what was wrong with the hairspray?
If the essence of the evil contained/represented in the Tree was not an aspect of disobedience, then what was it? This leads us to...
CRUCIAL QUESTION #3: What is evil?
This is the toughest question of all.
EVIL: THE VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION
And it is so very important, because it has so many repercussions. From this comes our understanding of sin, the fall, expulsion from paradise, the law, and establishing the plan of salvation. But wait! There is more. Biblical religion claims that the fall of man accounts for the root of all problems that have ever been encountered on this planet. Murder, rape, idolatry, theft, lying, child abuse, taxation, war. Cancer, malaria, suicide. All pain and suffering have resulted from this Tree. These are all manifestations of evil.
What is evil?
Please note, if by any chance this point has been missed, that the entire common understanding of the Gospel, from beginning to end, is based on the idea that evil = disobedience. To state that evil is not synonymous with disobedience is to cause a reevaluation of our understanding of the entire Gospel. For this will mean that:
 | Adam's sin was not of disobedience |
| So the expulsion from the Garden was not punishment for disobedience. |
| And the purpose of the law was not to show us how disobedient we are. |
| And Christ's death was not a vicarious punishment for all of our wrong doings. |
This is, as they say, the cat's meow.
What is evil? That is the question.
WHAT IS EVIL?
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil brought into Adam's consciousness duality, the pairs of opposites. The unitive perception of life as it is was, split into dual awareness of good and evil.
Evil is the opposite of good. So all we need do is find out what good is, and its opposite will be evil.
What is good?
Everything!
Huh? That's right. Try to imagine yourself in Adam's and Eve's place before the fall. Everything, everywhere, is good! Remember crucial point #1? Well, here it is again.
CRUCIAL POINT #1: Everything in the entire universe, every single thing that existed, everything everywhere was good. Beautiful. Wonderful. An extension and expression of the nature and attributes of the transcendently glorious being that had created it. Whether under the earth, in the water, on the land, in the sky, all the stars, all the planets, all the galaxies, absolutely all of creation, all of the entire manifest universe was good!
Everything that was, was good. Goodness was the only reality.
Existence = good
All that is = good
Being = good
Everything that is = good
Neither Adam nor Eve could look at, point to, or imagine (make an image) anything other than goodness.
We live in a world full of evil and suffering, so it is very hard for us to comprehend the pristine perfection of paradise. Pure goodness and beauty. Everywhere they looked, every thing they saw, touched and thought, radiated perfect goodness.
So what is evil?
Evil is the opposite of good.
Existence = good
The opposite of existence = good's opposite
The opposite of existence = evil
Nonexistence = evil
All that is = good
The opposite of all that is = good's opposite
The opposite of all that is = evil
Nothing = evil
Being = good
The opposite of being = good's opposite
The opposite of being = evil
Nonbeing = evil
Everything that is = good
The opposite of everything that is = good's opposite
The opposite of everything that is = evil
Everything that is not = evil
There you have it.
Existence = goodness
Nonexistence = evil
If good = what is, then evil = what is not.
"What? Are you saying that evil is not? Doesn't exist?" Yes. That is right. That is the exact truth.
"Sir, you are one sick puppy. It is pathetically irresponsible to deny the existence of evil."
Hold on! Don't leave yet! Follow me just a little more. Let's look at the facts:
Fact 1: Everything that God created was perfectly good. "And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good". (Gen 1:31)
Fact 2: Since everything was good, nothing was evil. There was no object that Adam or Eve could point to that was bad.
Fact 3: Against God's command they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Knowledge of good. Knowledge of evil. Knowledge of what is, knowledge of what is not. Everything they saw, touched, heard, everything that existed for them to experience and know was good.
For them to know evil they would have to know something that didn't exist in the whole of creation! They had to become aware of something that didn't exist. Knowledge of evil. There was no thing, object, or created entity they could know that was evil.
So here it is.
CRUCIAL POINT #3: In order to know evil, Adam and Eve had to have their eyes opened to what was not. Partaking of the fruit from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve became aware both of what did and what did not exist.
This gives us the answer to CRUCIAL QUESTION #2: What was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil contained the ability to make one see life from the perspective of what does not exist, in addition to what does.
And we are also able to directly answer CRUCIAL QUESTION #3: What is evil?
Evil is not a thing. No thing is evil. Every created thing was and is good. Evil is a knowledge, a way of thinking, an orientation, a way of looking at life. It turns away from the wonderful, good things that are and contemplates / imagines all the things that are not.
Good and evil are not ontological opposites; that is to say, they do not exist in the same manner. Goodness exists. Everything that God made was/is good. Evil is a projection onto the goodness, a denial of it.
NAKED: NOT CLOTHED
Goodness is reality. Evil is a mistaken perception of that reality. The Bible tells us so. All you have to do is read it. What was the first thing that happened after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree? Gen 3:7 "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. And they knew that they were naked."
What does that mean? Why is it significant? Certainly Adam & Eve had been aware of their bodies before the fall. Adam said "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." (Gen 2:23) so Adam knew he had a body, and must have known all of its particular details. But this was good. He was made good. The human form is good. God made it so. But Adam ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
And the first thing that happened was he became aware of what was not. He was not clothed. Not covered. Having the body was not a problem before. And his body didn't suddenly become dirty, wrong or evil because of this Tree. But Adam had a new perspective. He knew what he was, but now he also knew what he was not, and he was not covered! He was naked. And he immediately started putting barriers between himself and the rest of the creation. This was an absolutely cataclysmic change.
From this perspective has come all suffering into the world. Thus was evil born. This is sin. Not an act, but as a state of being, a knowledge. "A sin" is any single act that is based upon this mindset.
RESULTS OF EATING THE FRUIT
Knowledge of good and evil. Knowledge of what is and what is not. Adam's unitive perception of life became split in two. Added to his awareness of all that the world contained was the ability to conceive of all that it didn't contain, to see its perfect goodness as lacking something. He became aware of himself as a selfexistent being, separate and apart from the rest of the creation. He sought to cover himself, to hide, to protect himself from God. I and not I. This and not this. Ego centered. Self centered. The flowing harmony of the creation had been shattered. Split. Shame. Strife. Enmity. Hatred. Adam had reoriented himself from the real to the unreal.
LIKE GOD, KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL
There is a very significant point here, that seems to have been ignored by virtually everyone. It is contained in Gen. 3:22. "Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil...'" Why is this significant? Notice that the serpent did not lie. By God's own words man had, in fact, become like God, knowing good and evil.
Why is this a problem? In the time of precreation, God knew all potential manifestations, both "good" and "bad". God could have chosen a world of limitless suffering and pain for all creatures. But God is good, and sought to create/manifest only the goodness into the universe. That is why Adam had only goodness to know. The entire creation was a bringing into expression all that is good and beautiful. When Adam partook from the forbidden Tree, a window opened in his consciousness into the entire unmanifest realm, gaining awareness of all the undesired horrors that God sought to keep out of manifest existence. And what didn't God create? Hate. Strife. Anxiety. Fear. Disease. Death.
WHY THE TREE WAS THERE
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil had to be there. If humanity was to be free, then the ability to see life from the perspective of nonexistence had to be an option. A baby, during the first few months of life, cannot recognize him/herself as being separate from the world around them. This is a purely egoless state. They have gone from a state of unconscious unity while in the mother's womb, to a state of unconscious separation when born. When they are a little older they discover what is "me" and "not me", and enter a period of egocentered life which constitutes conscious separation whereupon they begin the journey to overcome there own ego as the center of existence, "arriving" hopefully at a state of conscious unity.
We see this cycle flowing endlessly throughout the creation. Adam was at
first unconsciously united with God before the creation, when he was only God's mind in
pure unmainfest & potential form. In creation he was endowed with free will and a
degree of autonomy. But since he only knew the unitive whole of life, he was unconsciously
separate from God and the rest of creation. Through the fall he became aware of
"me" and "not me", thus entering a state of conscious separation. This
is where we find ourselves now. We then embark upon life & the spiritual pathway, to
love others as ourselves, to transcend the ego state, and become reunited with the divine
nature, whereupon we are consciously reunited with what we have always been and could
never otherwise be, God. This cycle is called the breath of God. He expires and inspires.
That is why the Tree had to be there.
THE LOVE OF MONEY
"The love of money is the root of all evil." I Tim 6:10. There is yet another way to look at this issue of evil, and it is related to the famous passage just quoted. When Adam ate from the forbidden Tree, he turned away and tried to hide himself from God. This is a very significant reorientation from the creator to the creation. If we place barriers between ourselves and God, He can no longer be our source. We are our own masters, seeking to solve our own problems and provide for ourselves. How do we do this? With money.
Money represents the potential to manifest the material world according to one's wishes. Money = physical options. Why does anyone want money? Because of its abilities to provide what we think we want. The quest for money is the quest for the material world. Desire for money is an expression of attachment to the material world. And why do we seek to manifest the material world? Because we think it will provide comfort, happiness, satisfaction, peace, etc.
Herein lies the tragedy. God is good. Wants to give goodness, peace, bliss, love, and comfort. That's what the world was made for! And it is precisely those things that we seek. To know that we are ok. What we really want is to know with absolute certainty that we are wonderful and perfectly loved exactly as we are, in our complete nakedness. But in our ignorance and shame we hide from the essence of life itself, our source and origin, God the creator. We clothe ourselves, pretending that we are other than we really are. We hide from God, seeking limited and transitory comforts from the material world, when the answer lies within the spirit realm. So we seek to be able to manipulate greater and wider sections of the creation, thinking that if, indeed, we could rule the world we would, finally, be satisfied.
Thus, we pursue our happiness and satisfaction in a lengthy roundabout. Love of money is indeed the root of all evil. While the spirit quietly waits.
BODY, SOUL AND SPIRIT
Man, created in the image of God, is more than a body, more than a physical entity. He is also desire, emotion, mind, and will. These we call the soul, the noncorporeal aspects of our being. And within these, animating them, is the spark of life itself. The spirit. In as much as we are all within God, we are a limited aspect of God that has shaped himself into will, mind, emotion, desire, and placed it all in a physical body. Exactly like a man stepping into an automobile (car), so too each "higher" vehicle places itself into the "lower" vehicle in order to gain experience and expand horizons.
The point of this is to note that the soul and spirit of man are of primary importance. They are, in fact, eternal, being nonmaterial extensions of the limitless selfexistent being who created this universe. The body is to serve the soul. The soul is to serve the spirit. Life is out of balance when the soul is used to serve the body. Note please that money can only manifest the material world. It cannot, in and of itself, affect the soul. The soul is affected by money / materialism only insofar as the soul is attached to the physical reality.
Before the fall, the spirit was dominant, pouring itself out in different creations. After the fall, the body became dominant. The state of Adam's body (naked) affected his soul, causing him to feel shame and fear. So Adam felt (in his soul) this shame, fear, discomfort, etc. How did he try to solve the problem? Well, he did not seek peace from God, examining spiritually the problem. Rather, he turned to the material world to solve the problems of his soul. If he could cover his body and hide from God (physical solutions) then everything would be fine. The love of money is the root of all evil. Additionally, he denied culpability within himself. "The woman you gave me..." Adam sees Eve as the direct cause, God the indirect cause of his problems. He is a victim of circumstances. This places enmity between himself and his only fellow human.
EVIL: THE DELUSION
One last observation along these lines. As evil crept deeper and deeper into Adam's life, it brought with it an ignorance, a denial of the truth, a delusion. How?
| Adam, even with his fig leaf, was still stark naked. He was only pretending to be otherwise. |
| Adam, even with his denials, was the sole cause of his discomfort and problems. He was only pretending to be otherwise. |
| God, even with his glorious creation, was still the only reality. Adam was only pretending it was otherwise. |
| Adam, even with his unhappiness, was still living in paradise. He was only pretending to be otherwise. |
He had forgotten. Steeped in ignorance, he had exchanged the bliss of the creator for the pain of his own making. He stopped seeing what was, and began dwelling on what was not. Thus was born envy. Thus was born anxiety. And he sought to solve his problems with the material world, instead of the spirit that had created it. Sound familiar?
GOOD AND EVIL: A SUMMARY
We have come quite a distance from the commonly understood Gospel. The fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is the source of all problems. Disobedience was the indirect problem. The direct problem was the knowledge of what is not that the fruit made available to Adam. The results contain ego centered living, materialism, strife, and all the other pains we have brought upon ourselves. Evil is a knowledge. A knowledge of what does not exist. A turning away from what is to what is not.
Here, in chart form, is a summary of these thoughts.
| BEFORE THE FALL | AFTER THE FALL |
| Life | Good And Evil |
| Real | Unreal |
| One | Many |
| Whole | Fracture |
| Monism | Dualism |
| Toward God/Creation | Toward Self |
| Spirit Oriented | Material Oriented |
| Unashamed | Ashamed |
| Egoless | EgoSense Of Self |
| Attuned To God | Against God |
| Naked | Covered |
| Open | Hiding |
| Comfort | Fear |
| Harmony | Discord |
| Peace | Strife |
| Love | Hate |
| Joy | Sorrow |
| Us | Me & Not(Me)=You |
