Session 647

Personal Reality, Session 647

The serpent is the symbol of the deepest knowledge within creaturehood; it also contains the impetus to rise above or beyond itself in certain aspects.  Eve, rather than Adam, for example, eats of the apple first because it was the intuitive elements of the race, portrayed in the story as female, that would bring about this initiation; only afterward could the ego, symbolized by Adam, attain its new birth and its necessary alienation.  The tree of knowledge, then, did indeed offer its fruits – and “good and bad” – because this was the first time there were any kinds of choices available, and free will.

There were other tales, some that have not come down to you, in which Adam and Eve were created together, and in a dream fell apart into the male and female.  In your particular legend Adam appeared first.  The woman being created from his rib symbolized the necessary emergence, even from the new creature, of the intuitive forces that will always come forth – for without that development the race would not have attained self-consciousness in your terms.

Good and evil then simply represented the birth of choices, initially in terms of survival, where earlier instinct alone had provided all that was needed.  In deeper terms, there is still another meaning that mirrors all of those apparent divisions that occur as All That Is seemingly separates portions of itself from itself, scattering its omnipotence into new patterns of being that, in your terms, remember their source and look back to it longingly, while still glorying in the unique individuality that is their own.

The story of the fall, the rebellious angels, and the leader Satan who becomes the devil – all of this refers to the same phenomena on a different level.  Satan represents – in the terms of the story – the part of All That Is, or God who stepped outside of Himself, so to speak, and became earthbound with His creatures, offering them the free will and choice that “previously” had not been available.

Hence you have the majestic elements given to Satan, and the power.  The earthly characteristics often appear as he is depicted in the animal form, for he was also of course connected with the intuitive terrestrial attributes from which the new human consciousness would spring.

In terms of simple biological function, you now had a species no longer completely dependent upon instinct, yet still with all the natural built-in desires for survival, and the appearance within it of a mind able to make decisions and distinctions.

This new kind of consciousness brought with it the open mirror of memory in which past joy and pain could be recalled, and so the realization of mortal death became more immediate than it was with the animals.

An association could trigger the clear memory of a past agony in the bewildered new mind.  At first, there was a difficulty in separating the remembered image from the moment in the present.  Man’s mind then struggled to contain many images – past, present, and future imagined ones – and was forced to correlate these in any given moment of time.  A vast acceleration took place.

It was only natural that certain experiences would seem better than others, but the species’ new abilities made it necessary that sharp distinctions be made.  Good and evil, the desirable and the less so, were invaluable aids then in helping form the basis for such separations.

The birth of imagination initiated the largest possibilities, and at the same time put great strain upon the biological creature whose entire corporeal structure would now react not only to present objective situations, but imaginative ones.  At the same time members of the species had to cope with the natural environment as did any other animal.  Imagination helped because an individual could anticipate the behavior of other creatures.

In another way, animals also possess an “unconscious” anticipation, but they do not have to come to terms with it on an aware basis as the new consciousness did.  Again, good and evil and the freedom of choice came to the species’ aid.  The evil animal was the natural predator, for example.  It would help here if the reader remembers what has been said about natural guilt earlier in this book.  It would aid in understanding the later myths and the variations that came from them.  (See the 634^th session in Chapter Eight, among others.)

As the mind developed, the species could hand down to its offspring the wisdom and law of the elders.  This is still being done in modern society, of course, when each child inherits the beliefs of its parents about the nature of reality.  Apart from all other considerations, this is also a characteristic of creaturehood.  Only the means are different with the animals.

The acceleration continues, however.  Ideas of right and wrong are always guidelines that are then individually interpreted.  Because of the connection with survival mentioned earlier (in the last session), there is a great charge here.  Initially the child had to be impressed with the fact, for example, that a predator animal was “bad” because it could kill.  Today a mother might unwittingly say the same thing about a car.

The early acquiescence to beliefs has a biological importance, therefore, but as the conscious mind attains its maturity it is also natural for it to question those beliefs, and to assess them in relation to its own environment.  Many of my readers may have certain ideas about good and evil that are very hampering.  These may be old beliefs in new clothing.  You may think that you are quite free, only to discover that you hold old ideas but have simply put new terms to them, or concentrated upon other aspects.

Your daily experience is intimately connected with your ideas of worth and personal value.

You may be quite able to see through the distortions of conventional Christianity.  You may have changed your ideas to such an extent that you can see little similarity between your current ones and those of the past.  Now you may believe in the theories of Buddhism, for example, or of another Eastern philosophy.

The differences between any of those systems of thought and Christianity may be so apparent that the similarities escape you.  You may follow one of the schools of Buddhism in which great stress is laid upon the denial of the body, discipline of the flesh, and the avoidance of desire.  These elements are quite characteristic of Christianity also, of course, but they may appear more palatable, exotic, or reasonable coming from a source foreign to your childhood education.  So you may leap from one to the other, shouting emancipation and feeling yourself quite free of old limiting ideas.

Philosophies that teach denial of the flesh must ultimately end up preaching a denial of the self and building a contempt for it, because even though the soul is couched in muscle and bone it is meant to experience that reality, not to refute it.

All such dogmas use artificial guilt, and natural guilt is distorted to serve those ends.  In whatever terms, the devotee is told that there is something wrong with earthly experience.  You are, therefore, considered evil as a self in flesh by virtue of your very existence.

This alone will cause adverse experience, making you reject the very basis of your own framework of experience.  You will consider the body as a thing, a fine vehicle but not in itself the natural living expression of your being in material form.  Many such Eastern schools also stress – as do numerous spiritualistic schools – the importance of the “unconscious levels of the self”, and teach you to mistrust the conscious mind.

The concept of nirvana (see the 637^th session in Chapter Nine) and the idea of heaven are two versions of the same picture, the former being one in which individuality is lost in the bliss of undifferentiated consciousness, and the latter one in which still-conscious individuals perform mindless adoration.  Neither theory contains an understanding of the functions of the conscious mind, or the evolution of consciousness – or, for that matter, certain aspects of greater physics.  No energy is ever lost.  The expanding universe theory applies to the mind as well as to the universe.

However, these philosophies can lead you to a deep mistrust of both your body and mind.  You are told that the spirit is perfect, and so you can try to live up to standards of perfection quite impossible to achieve.  The failure adds to the sense of guilt.

You attempt then to further banish the characteristic enjoyment of your own creaturehood, denying the lusty spirituality of your flesh and the strong present corporeal leanings of your soul.  You will try to rid yourself of very natural emotions, and so be cheated of their great spiritual and physical motion.  On the other hand, some leaders may give little consideration to such issues, but still be deeply convinced of the misery of the human condition, focusing upon all the “darker” elements, seeing the world’s destruction ever closer to hand without really examining the beliefs that arouse such constant feelings.

They may find it easy to cluck their tongues at obvious fanatics who cry out for God’s vengeance, and speak about the world’s end in brimstone and ashes.  They may be as equally convinced, however, of man’s basic unworthiness, and so of course of their own.  In daily life such people will concentrate upon negative events, store them up, and unfortunately cause personal experience that will seem to quite reinforce the basic ideas.

Here in different context is the same denial of the worth and integrity of earth experience.  In some such cases, all of the desirable human attributes are magnified and projected outward into a god or superconsciousness, while all the less admirable characteristics are left to the race and the individual.

The individual therefore deprives himself of the use of much of his ability.  He does not consider it his own, and is astounded when any others of his race display such superior qualities.

To some extent, such beliefs follow certain rhythms in both civilizations and in time.

The mind is a system of checks and balances even as the body, and so often a set of beliefs that can be seen as highly negative will often serve beneficial ends in countering other beliefs.  For some time Western civilization stressed a distorted version of intellectual reasoning, for example, and so the current stress about other portions of the self serves a purpose.

The people alive within the world come into it with their own problems and challenges, and this will have much to do with the kind of national and worldwide beliefs that are generated and that dominate.  The beliefs, of course, are frameworks in which various kinds of experience are tested.  This also applies to religions, and political and social situations as well.  There is always a give and take between the individual and the mass system of beliefs in which he has chosen his environment.

There is a belief in illness as being morally wrong, and a countering belief in it as being ennobling, uplifting and spiritually good.  These value judgments are extremely important, for they will be reflected in your own experience with any illness or disease.