The Garden of Eden
The whole Garden of Eden story is playing out every moment. It's a direct metaphor for the temptation to incarnate in each moment as form. This is the meaning of good and evil, not some dramatic rendition of evil that does bad things Hollywood style, but the evil which it is to fall from grace. That's the story of Satan, the top guardian angel, God's right hand man, falling from grace, which means falling from God.
This is theistic language, familiar as Christian doctrine, and it's also this same metaphor of the Garden of Eden. Does it say in the story that Satan appears to Eve as a serpent? But of course, the serpent is Satan, the tempter. In theistic language God is all there is, the source of everything. In non-theistic language that is the One, the stillness, the awake presence. And that's you, the still, awake presence that is the source of all that is; of good and of evil.
This Satan, this serpent, depicted as a form, is actually not a form really, not a someone, but merely the temptation itself. And the temptation appears in you (that is, in God), as the temptation to fall from grace, which is your very nature. And the fall from grace is the taking of the apple, it's the hypnosis of duality (knowledge of good and evil), the leaving of paradise to be human, which is to say, to believe yourself to be a human being, a human person, a separate someone. This play of good and evil, the fall out of paradise into separation, from liberation into bondage, plays out every time you take a bite from that apple. The thing is, you take that bite willingly, knowing where it leads. You offer yourself that apple, Satan is only the thought, you bite it willingly, and you fall from grace as you knew you would.
Yet this is all just a play. It's the illusion of a fall from grace into separation, that's what's being described in this story. The fall is not real, you are grace, you cannot fall from that. You are the awake stillness that sees all this. As awake stillness you see the illusion manifest, and as you take form to take the bite that you offer yourself, you are the awake stillness that witnesses that. And while you believe this new illusion, you are the awake stillness which is seeing this belief being held and doesn't mind because there's no problem, there's no damage from it. You cannot be harmed by the dream of separation, so you watch it, you endure it as a nightmare, but it's a delicious nightmare, and you keeping eating it. And when awakening comes, you realize that you knew it was a dream all along, and when you take the apple after that you will feel frustrated at your folly for believing it even after you saw through it. Until you finally realize that believing there was folly is also a dream.
This is theistic language, familiar as Christian doctrine, and it's also this same metaphor of the Garden of Eden. Does it say in the story that Satan appears to Eve as a serpent? But of course, the serpent is Satan, the tempter. In theistic language God is all there is, the source of everything. In non-theistic language that is the One, the stillness, the awake presence. And that's you, the still, awake presence that is the source of all that is; of good and of evil.
This Satan, this serpent, depicted as a form, is actually not a form really, not a someone, but merely the temptation itself. And the temptation appears in you (that is, in God), as the temptation to fall from grace, which is your very nature. And the fall from grace is the taking of the apple, it's the hypnosis of duality (knowledge of good and evil), the leaving of paradise to be human, which is to say, to believe yourself to be a human being, a human person, a separate someone. This play of good and evil, the fall out of paradise into separation, from liberation into bondage, plays out every time you take a bite from that apple. The thing is, you take that bite willingly, knowing where it leads. You offer yourself that apple, Satan is only the thought, you bite it willingly, and you fall from grace as you knew you would.
Yet this is all just a play. It's the illusion of a fall from grace into separation, that's what's being described in this story. The fall is not real, you are grace, you cannot fall from that. You are the awake stillness that sees all this. As awake stillness you see the illusion manifest, and as you take form to take the bite that you offer yourself, you are the awake stillness that witnesses that. And while you believe this new illusion, you are the awake stillness which is seeing this belief being held and doesn't mind because there's no problem, there's no damage from it. You cannot be harmed by the dream of separation, so you watch it, you endure it as a nightmare, but it's a delicious nightmare, and you keeping eating it. And when awakening comes, you realize that you knew it was a dream all along, and when you take the apple after that you will feel frustrated at your folly for believing it even after you saw through it. Until you finally realize that believing there was folly is also a dream.
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